Abdulelah Haider Shaye is a name most in the western world aren’t familiar with, and Barack Obama would like to keep it that way. Shaye is a Yemeni independent journalist who was covering the impact of military activities in Yemen. He was daring enough to interview some of the most wanted men in the world. Anwar Al-Awlaki met for an interview with Shaye which later broadcast on Al-Jazeera, prior to it becoming known that Awlaki was the first US citizen added to a CIA kill list. In the same month that the interview was aired, Shaye took the initiative to investigate a missile attack claimed by the Yemeni government to have been orchestrated by their military. It was December of 2009 when the village of Majala was targeted as the alleged site of an Al-Qaeda training camp. After the bombing, Shaye traveled to the area and took the pictures which were broadcast by news media around the globe. His report revealed remnants of tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs. Neither of these weapons being in the Yemeni national arsenal, the Made in the USA stamp emblazoned on the debris revealed the true source of the attack. The pentagon refused to comment on the photos and Yemeni officials denied all involvement by the US government. Wikileaks later published a US diplomatic cable which documented Yemeni officials admitting to lying to their parliament about US military coordination. Fourteen women and twenty-one children were killed in the strike (the number of males killed is not known, and assuredly all are automatically assumed to be Al-Qaeda terrorists). The Majala bombing was the first of what would be an ongoing deadly string of aerial assaults by the US military in association with Yemeni state militants. (more…)
Friday afternoon, I went out to record some scenes of the new indoctrination center for Keene’s young adults. There I found this violent woman who, unprovoked, attacks me with her sign. She wouldn’t give her name.
9-Second Version in which she attacks. 53-Second Version in which she explains. 3-Minute Version in which I forgive her.
Raw Version featuring the Keene Police rejecting the Police Hugging Squad coming soon!
The cheshire county superior courthouse was the scene of two arrests early yesterday. A third arrest took place down the street from the courthouse after deputies followed Derrick J to his car to arrest him for trespassing, for having gotten too close to the building. This occurred some time after a comical and inspiring foot pursuit Derrick led deputies on as he inched farther away from their approach.
Miami journalist Carlos Miller was in the area following the NH Liberty Forum. He visited Keene on Monday to survey the status of right to record issues plaguing courts in the southwest portion of the state. For a while, a camera ban had been enforced in Keene courthouses but surprisingly today, bailiffs allowed Ademo Freeman through security with a video camera. (more…)
Photo journalism activist Carlos Miller was arrested Tuesday evening while he was attempting to cover the police’s eviction of Occupy Miami. Carlos is no stranger to arrest for photography. He has beaten two separate prior charges for photographing police. This most recent arrest sounds very similar to what occurred during the Chalking 8 incident in Manchester, in which the police criminalize a group and then arrest all those they associate with the group. In my case, though it came up at one point, I did not need to address whether I was acting as press at the time of my arrest to demonstrate that the seizure was unfounded. In this case, protesters were ordered away from an area where press were allowed to remained. Carlos was swept up after the protesters had already been cleared despite identifying himself as press when addressed and being near other reporters.
Photo: Carlos Miller
The police have deleted the footage he had taken in the moments leading up to his arrest. Another journalist is believed to have captured footage of (more…)
Since it was posted the day following the New Hampshire primary, a video by a watchdog group showcasing exploits of election security has reached over 350,000 views. I remember seeing several friends sharing the video on Facebook, and although I didn’t find it stimulating enough to watch from start to finish (it needed more editing for my taste), I found it to be an interesting piece of investigative journalism bound to start some heated debate over election security.
Much abuzz online yesterday had to deal with the congressional threat to the internet known as SOPA. The Stop Online Piracy Act is a federal bill which would create a blacklist of websites which internet service providers would be required to maintain and enforce. The blacklist would allegedly include websites which either host or link to data which, per its existence, is violating copyright laws. The very concept of ‘piracy’ is on its face hyperbolic. It is laughable Newspeak to equate data sharing with the practice of pillaging vessels at sea. PIPA, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, is the senate version of the dinosaur recording industry’s legislative attempt to thwart the free exchange of information. Also lobbying very strongly with the MPAA is the pharmaceutical industry, which profits heavily from onerous intellectual property regulation.
Reddit was the first eminent domain of the internet to announce January 18 as its blackout date to protest SOPA. Wikipedia announced its participation with similar measures. Google demonstrated its solidarity by featuring a black stripped homepage with a subheader requesting that people contact their so-called representatives and ask for a rejection of state control over the internet.
Heavy traffic to government servers hosting contact information for congress and the senate caused many pages to be inaccessible for the day.
