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Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
Current rating: 3 |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
28 Feb 2004
Modified: 06:26:39 PM |
|
Nessie's lying about me again, poor lad. He calls me a spammer, a liar, and a racist. Three strikes; he's out. |
(1) I'm going to reply to this on UC-IMC, since I am not granted the
right to reply on SF-IMC, and SF-IMC editorial policy as it now stands
makes a complete discussion impossible. If some kind soul could post
this URL -- once! -- into the SF-IMC thread, so the discussion can
continue here unimpeded by Nessie Scissorshands, I would appreciate
it.
I'm also not subscribed to imc-us-process, and the last time I checked
none of this had hit the archives on the listserve, so all I know
about what was posted there was the tiny little extract within
nessie's post.
(2) nessie, about yours truly: "I should have thrown him out long
ago. He's a racist. He spams. He lies about it. He abused our
newswire. He is not welcome."
What a sweetie.
I deal with these lies -- and I don't hesitate to call them lies --
below. For now, I only want to note that nessie knows that he's
attacking me in a forum in which I am denied the right to respond,
which says something about his character.
If you know me, of course, your first reaction to these charges will
probably be mystification. All I can say is, welcome to the wonderful
world of Nessie's rhetorical vortex, where wacky wacky things happen.
(2) nessie: "I can't for the life of me understand why *any* IMC
welcomes someone who has abused any IMC. Is not an injury to one an
injury to all? Why is this man permitted to post at UC-IMC? If someone
abused UC-IMC, and was banned, SF-IMC would not permit him to
post. For Indymedia to hold together as a global network, solidarity
is essential. No one who abuses any IMC should be permitted to post on
any IMC."
Note that nessie is trying to sling as much mud and spin as much rhetorical hash as he can before he
gets to his duty to actually back up his slanders. Note in particular
that he has not backed up his claim that I have "abused the newswire."
He will find that impossible to do, since I have not abused the
newswire, so he's going for the grandiloquence while there's still a chance that the reader might think he's got something to back it up. And he is learning the lesson that his saying it doesn't
make it so in anyone's eyes but his own.
(3) nessie: "Anyone who abuses our newswire by spamming is banned."
The problem for this argument, of course, is that it takes it for
granted that I'm the spammer, and -- oh, here comes that reality thing
again -- I'm not.
I do not spam. In fact, I'm on record literally hundreds of times
asking that my stuff not be spammed, since that plea is in the very
note SF-IMC is being spammed with. And I am on record on UCIMC making
the same plea, and defending SF-IMC against someone who seemed to be
threatening to spam it: "However, I cannot and do not endorse any
measures of any kind against SF-IMC except for what I have done: used
its own idiocy to demonstrate its own idiocy. [...] If you do
anything more that that, including cyberattack, you will accomplish
exactly what the Knesset does every time it threatenes to expel
Arafat: turn a pathetic pusbag into a "martyr of the Zionists." Even
_I_ will defend SF-IMC against cyberattack." I am also on record at
UC-IMC asking the spammer to stop: "It hadn't occured to me that,
after I left, someone would spam my posts there, and I wish they'd
quit it." And: "As to why so many copies of my last SF-IMC post were
spammed to SF-IMC in the middle of the night, well, you'd have to ask
whoever is doing the spamming. I don't know who it is and I wish he'd
stop. The one copy that _I_ posted -- the sole SF-IMC post of mine
after nessie's stunt -- was sent around 10PM Urbana time, and is
timestamped somewhere around 8PM on SF-IMC."
Of course, nessie, normally quick to jump to the "well, how do you
know this stuff isn't being forged in Wendy Campbell's name?" defense,
doesn't even bat an eyelash here before declaring that I _must_ be the
spammer, since it was spammed in my name. That's the kind of guy he
is.
Especially when he lists _in this very same post_ three other
organizations who _are_ trying to disrupt his site, any of which might
have glommed onto my post because of the way it demonstrates what a
foolish policy nessie is enforcing.
The followup, of course, is that he claims that I'm a liar for saying
"I'm not the spammer." Since I'm not the spammer (and don't know who
it is), it's not a lie for me to say "I'm not the spammer."
Got it, nessie? Your wishes don't make it so.
(4) nessie: "Our site exists for the benefit of our friends, our
allies and our potential friends and allies."
A nice little sermonette which, unfortunately, fails to reflect
reality. By declaring that anyone who doesn't support the one-state
solution is "racist" "racist" "racist" "racist" "racist," nessie
drives off a significant potential ally.
According to a July Zogby poll I have cited several times now,
literally 99.5% of American Jews believe that "Israelis have the right
to their own state." 95% of Arab Americans agree. By enforcing the
dogma that only the one-state solution is untainted in the holy eyes
of nessie, nessie tells 99.5% of American Jews and 95% of American
Arabs they are insufficiently dogmatically pure to be allowed to post
in SF-IMC without offending nessie's sensitive nostrils.
nessie claims I am a racist. This is the third point of his slander.
I challenge nessie to repost any post of mine that is any more
"racist" that this statement: "I think the Israelis have the right to
their own state, the same way the Palestinians do."
He won't be able to because, simply put, I'm not a racist; I'm only
being accused of being a racist because I -- and the vast majority of
American Jews and Arab Americans -- disagree with nessie's dogmatic
stance that says that only the one-state solution is pure and true and
holy. So he feels free to tar me with the "racist" accusation, and
flees in embarrassment from the clear implication that, were he
somehow miraculously to become honest, he would have to say the same
about essentially all of the nation's Jews and Arabs.
(5) nessie: "[[ John Ashcroft imitation snipped ]] These are the kind
of people we have for enemies. No, we will not permit ourselves to be
defeated by them. There is too much at stake."
So, like John Ashcroft waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 in order to
excuse his blatant disregard of the rights of the "enemy combatants"
at Gitmo, nessie waves the COINTELPRO flag in order to excuse his
violation of IMC principles. Rally against the barbarians at the
gates, folks, it's the enemy, it's the enemy!
To summarize, nessie claims I have "abused the newswire," which is a
catch-all accusation, but then offers three specifics: (a) that I'm a
spammer -- which I am not, since all his URL does is demonstrate that
something I wrote is being spammed to SF-IMC; (b) that I am a liar --
which I am not, since it's not a lie to say "I don't spam"; and (c)
that I am a racist -- which I am not, although he finds it politically
expedient to call me one. And since the supporting charges fail, the
umbrella charge -- that I have "abused the newswire" -- also fails.
(6) The real context of my having been banned, of course, is slightly
different than what nessie paints it as. It's worth sketching that
context out.
For more than a year and a half, a Jew-hating wretch named Wendy
Campbell has been posting antisemitic material into SF-IMC under the
guise of merely being "anti-Zionist." Nessie turned a blind eye to it
again and again, no matter what kind of evidence I was able to
accumulate. Again and again I was told, "there's that Zionist Gehrig
again, inventing charges of antisemitism because someone has
criticized Israel."
Windy Out Wendy started tipping her hand on that pesky Jew Issue more
and more over the last year, and nessie had a harder and harder time
feigning blindness. Finally, earlier this month she let loose with a
load of URLs so scabrous that not even nessie could pretend not to see
it. In a childish fit of pique, however, he also lashed out at me for
having had the audacity to be, well, right all along. The very same
post which gave Windy Out Wendy her long-overdue walking papers also
banned me for my alleged "racism." My first reaction was, and still
largely is -- what a pathetic, petulant little child nessie is, and
what a fifth-grader thing to do.
@%< |
See also:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/02/1681493_comment.php#1681501
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/15535/
|
Related stories on this site:
Indymedia Israel Moves West
| 
This work is in the public domain |
Comments
|
Re: Lie #3 |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
28 Feb 2004
|
Someone using the nym "pointer" has been filling up the Newswire on SF IMC with copies of gehrig's last article on a near daily basis since gehrig made his only (and last) post of it on SF IMC.
Oddly enough, after this spamming, on several ocassions, one copy of the "pointer" authored respam of gehrig's article has been moved up to the Global News portion of the Newswire on SF IMC. This takes the concious action of "one of the editors" (AKA nessie) for it to occur.
"pointer" also has another article that was moved up to SF IMC's Global Newswire by "one of the editors" in the last day or so. It is still visible there as I write:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/02/1681406.php
So, no, it simply isn't true that "Anyone who abuses our newswire by spamming is banned."
Often, if they are serving nessie's contrived purposes, they are encouraged in their abuse by being welcomed back to SF IMC by virtue of such positive reactions to their abuse by him, "one of the editors" or whoever. |
|
Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by thorn
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 9
28 Feb 2004
|
|
So who grants nessie his admin power? What is the antidote for his juvenile and shameless power trip? Does nessie alone, have sole power of editor-ship on SFIMC? If there's a board there that could reign him in, what is their position on his behavior?
If Nessie alone holds all the power, and the SFIMC board refuses to get involved, then Gehrig's campaign for fairness/justice is going to go nowhere. Agreed?
What action or change is Gehrig expecting? I've been following this saga, as posted on both boards, and it seems that just pointing out nessie's B.S. doesn't seem to be making much of a difference; he just keeps digging his heels in further.
It sounds like he needs to lose his admin/editor priv's, to me. How does that happen? |
|
Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by Joe Futrelle
futrelle (nospam) shout.net (verified) |
Current rating: 0
29 Feb 2004
|
It doesn't seem to me that gehrig is expecting any change. Rather he's defending himself against slander.
I think there are only two options for resolving these kind of disputes.
1. Force IMC's to accept third-party mediation
2. Allow anyone to be an editor, and allow the reader to select which editor's version of an IMC site they want to see
I favor the latter option. |
|
Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
29 Feb 2004
|
futrelle is correct -- I don't anticipate nessie changing. Nor do I imagine SF-"IMC" will change as long as nessie has a grip on the power; it's hard not to believe that this was part of what split SF-IMC into two groups, with most of the talent moving to Indybay.
However, I have been slandered, and I'm not going to take that sitting down. I'm not looking to be reinstated at SF-"IMC." I am simply asking that SF-"IMC" stop being so blatant in its disregard of core IMC principles, once of which is that IMC sites should not be simply the sandboxes of an authoritarian martinet.
@%< |
|
ml and gehrig must be removed as the self appointed dictators of http://www.ucimc.org |
by Phillip AKA DAN "Spams UC IMC _and_ SF IMC" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -1
29 Feb 2004
|
[Note: These are just reference copies of the several dozen spammed at and deleted from UC IMC today. Yes, deleted, because there's no need for more than a couple of copies, even in our Hidden Files. It's interesting that the time that SF IMC was spammed again with dozens of copies of gehrig's last post by "pointer"/DAN early this morning, was within a minute of the time that more copies of this crap was spammed here. Coincidence? No. Just more of DAN jerking nessie's oh-so-gullible chain, while he is attacking us. nessie ought to be offering some solidarity against the spam, but he'd rather wallow in the ridiculousness of blaming the innocent while he makes excuses for the same guilty person who attacked his site.]
Israeli jack booted thugs detain and threaten Indy-media Israel site operator with a metal rod
“One of them picked up some sort of metal rod that was lying on the floor, waved it in front of me and said `this is what we use to hit suspects” Bryan Atinsky Indy-media Israel site operator.
As the result of a Latuff cartoon “The Kiss” Indymedia Israel got in serious trouble with Israeli authorities. An article in today's Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz gives an account of what happened to the guy in charge of the site, how Israeli authorities operate. "The policemen asked us for all the IP addresses of surfers who had entered the site - not of one or two surfers, but all of them."800508.jpg, JPG image, 147x241Indymedia Israel: Moving to Canada, far from the Israeli police David James Vickery 26 Feb 2004 16:15 GMT [Indymedia Israel coordinator Bryan Atinsky photo] As the result of a Latuffe cartoon, Indymedia Israel got in serious trouble with Israeli authorities. An article in today's Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz gives an account of what happened to the guy in charge of the site, how Israeli authorities operate. "The policemen asked us for all the IP addresses of surfers who had entered the site - not of one or two surfers, but all of them." here is the link to the article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/397519.html Moving to Canada, far from the Israeli police By Yoash Foldesh "Bryan, get up! Wake up!" Two months ago, three burly policemen not in uniform entered Bryan Atinsky's bedroom in Rehovot after quickly brushing past his wife, Efrat, who got up to see who was knocking on the door at 6:30 A.M. The three said they had a search warrant. "They didn't waste any time and started opening drawers and searching the shelves, but they didn't show us any document," says Atinsky, 34. "When they finished, they said my computer was confiscated and that I must come with them for questioning. Efrat continuously asked what I was suspected of, and they said `you tell us.' In the end, I asked if it was because of the caricature." And indeed, it was because of the caricature. Atinsky is one of the volunteer English editorial coordinators of the Israeli Web site of the Indymedia network, an international anti-globalism organization set up after the protests against the International Monetary Fund as it met in Seattle. Like all the other branches of Indymedia, the Israeli site, which has been closed for the meantime, also enabled surfers to post announcements, articles and creations as they wished, alongside reports written by organization activists. While the major media outlets are subject to the control of several stockholders, Indymedia tried to create an alternative medium open to the public at large. Its agenda also differed from that of the major media outlets: it included, for example, extensive reports on Israel Defense Forces operations in the territories and on violence on the part of settlers, and of course, attempts to expose the seamier side of big corporations. "We don't censor anything," says Atinsky, "but the editors have the right to erase the link to reports that call directly for violence, racist reports, clearly false reports or those that have commercial interests behind them. The reports themselves are not erased from the servers nor are the responses they elicit, because we believe in transparency and freedom of information. In most cases, the intelligent responses expose the cheap provocations." On December 19, a Brazilian surfer, called Latuf, took advantage of the site's freedom to post a caricature depicting Ariel Sharon enthusiastically kissing Adolf Hitler. Following the post, the Police's Computer Crime Investigation Unit began an inquiry, with the approval of the attorney general, into the possibility of incitement and insulting a civil servant. In the past, the police investigated several posts on the site and summoned its operators for questioning - among others, after another caricature posted by Latuf, which depicted Sharon dressed in an SS uniform - but this time, the responses surprised Atinsky. Two days after the posting of the caricature and after news of the inquiry was reported in the media, the Israeli company that provided the server on which the site is located was swamped with threats from right-wing activists and complaints from users. "They told us we had to find a different server," relates Guy West, another volunteer editor of the site, "and we had no choice but to take down the site. Within a week it was to be up again." The next day the police knocked on the door of Atinsky, who is now editor of the Israeli-Palestinian magazine News From Within, and took him with them to the Computer Crime Investigation Unit offices in Bat Yam. "In the station, they sat me down outside one of the offices, so I should wait for my interrogation," he relates. "In the meantime the policemen who'd brought me in joked between them, and one of them picked up some sort of metal rod that was lying on the floor, waved it in front of me and said `this is what we use to hit suspects because it leaves serious bruises.' For him, it may have been a joke, but even so it was scary enough. I kept telling them that I wanted a lawyer, but they said that only in the United States does such a right exist, and that I could contact a lawyer only after the questioning was finished." Atinsky was questioned for eight hours and only then did the interrogators allow him to call a lawyer. "They shouted at me that everything written on the site was my responsibility because the domain is registered in my name," he says. "They said that the fact that surfers can post whatever they want on the site was as if I had left a pistol on the table and left the room - even if someone else uses it, it would still be my fault. They kept on shouting and said that we have to start censoring the site, and that it cannot operate this way. They don't understand that freedom of expression doesn't refer to nice things that everyone wants to hear, but actually to the right to say hurtful things and occasionally also stupid and provocative things." At the same time, Guy West, 29, of Herzliya, was also summoned for lengthy questioning. "The policemen asked us for all the IP addresses of surfers who had entered the site - not of one or two surfers, but all of them," he relates. "If the owner of the server had cracked and given it to them, they could have used it to monitor all of the organization's activists and supporters." Three months have elapsed since then. For fear of police investigations, the site has still not resumed operations. Nimrod Keret, another activist with the organization, arranged not long ago to lease a server in Canada, and the site will apparently resume operations in another two to three weeks. West and Atinsky have since been repeatedly summoned for questioning, and Atinsky's computer has yet to be returned to him. "I've been weaned from Indymedia," says Atinsky, "the police succeeded in getting what they wanted." The police request to censor surfers' responses on the open posting area of the Indymedia site and its temporary closure, prompts some tough questions about freedom of expression on the Web. "Questioning has long been a campaign of pressure and scare tactics and an attempt, without the jurisdiction to do so, to restrict freedom of expression," wrote Attorney Avner Pinchuk of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel in a letter to Attorney General Meni Mazuz. The police investigation, according to Pinchuk, is based on a legal interpretation that is contrary to views that are accepted in Israel and around the world. "A committee set up by the Ministry of Justice determined that Internet service providers are not responsible for the postings of surfers or site owners," he says. "Even the rulings issued thus far around the world and in Israel support this view: the inclination is not to try the owners of the Ynet site, for example, because of the racist response published in its Talk-back forum." In the case of Indymedia, says Pinchuk, the investigators could not get to the Brazilian surfer who posted the caricature and therefore they chose to investigate the site's operators. "Even if their investigation doesn't find anything," he says, "the police have in effect determined facts on the ground. "Political activists or others who see how Indymedia's operators got in trouble will not risk providing an open platform to the public. "The result will be that only large corporations, which can employ attorneys who will supervise the content posted by surfers, will be able to run `open' platforms on their sites. The other sites will not be able to take that risk." Keret, in the meantime, is working on writing the new code for the site. "The site was closed because of the problems they made for Brian and Guy," he says. "The Palestinians engage in this kind of harassment all the time, and now we have it too. There are fewer and fewer human rights in this country and rightists suffer from this as well. Beyond that, what is happening here is absurd: the Brazilian surfer posted his caricature all over the world, and in the end also posted it on the Indymedia site in Israel. In other words, had we erased it, the entire world would have seen it and all the Israelis wouldn't have." The new site will have two main changes: "First of all, our server will be in Canada, far out of reach of the police and the address will not end with `il' but with `org,'" says Keret. "Secondly, the mechanism enabling surfers to post reports will be different. Surfers will have three options: contribute information anonymously, and then it will appear in a more modest format that can be erased if it is problematic; contribute information in a more prominent location by identifying oneself and providing an e-mail address; or setting up a kind of home page where everyone can edit the news himself and decide what will be in the headline." The Israel Police said in response that the police does not comment on investigations that have not been completed. Guy West: "The policemen asked us for all the IP addresses of surfers who had entered the site - not of one or two surfers, but all of them."newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/02/800507.shtml |
|
ml and gehrig must be removed as the self appointed dictators of http://www.ucimc.org |
by Phillip AKA DAN "The Sacramento Cockroach" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -3
29 Feb 2004
|
Israeli jack booted thugs detain and threaten Indy-media Israel site operator with a metal rod
“One of them picked up some sort of metal rod that was lying on the floor, waved it in front of me and said `this is what we use to hit suspects” Bryan Atinsky Indy-media Israel site operator.
As the result of a Latuff cartoon “The Kiss” Indymedia Israel got in serious trouble with Israeli authorities. An article in today's Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz gives an account of what happened to the guy in charge of the site, how Israeli authorities operate. "The policemen asked us for all the IP addresses of surfers who had entered the site - not of one or two surfers, but all of them."800508.jpg, JPG image, 147x241Indymedia Israel: Moving to Canada, far from the Israeli police David James Vickery 26 Feb 2004 16:15 GMT [Indymedia Israel coordinator Bryan Atinsky photo] As the result of a Latuffe cartoon, Indymedia Israel got in serious trouble with Israeli authorities. An article in today's Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz gives an account of what happened to the guy in charge of the site, how Israeli authorities operate. "The policemen asked us for all the IP addresses of surfers who had entered the site - not of one or two surfers, but all of them." here is the link to the article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/397519.html Moving to Canada, far from the Israeli police By Yoash Foldesh "Bryan, get up! Wake up!" Two months ago, three burly policemen not in uniform entered Bryan Atinsky's bedroom in Rehovot after quickly brushing past his wife, Efrat, who got up to see who was knocking on the door at 6:30 A.M. The three said they had a search warrant. "They didn't waste any time and started opening drawers and searching the shelves, but they didn't show us any document," says Atinsky, 34. "When they finished, they said my computer was confiscated and that I must come with them for questioning. Efrat continuously asked what I was suspected of, and they said `you tell us.' In the end, I asked if it was because of the caricature." And indeed, it was because of the caricature. Atinsky is one of the volunteer English editorial coordinators of the Israeli Web site of the Indymedia network, an international anti-globalism organization set up after the protests against the International Monetary Fund as it met in Seattle. Like all the other branches of Indymedia, the Israeli site, which has been closed for the meantime, also enabled surfers to post announcements, articles and creations as they wished, alongside reports written by organization activists. While the major media outlets are subject to the control of several stockholders, Indymedia tried to create an alternative medium open to the public at large. Its agenda also differed from that of the major media outlets: it included, for example, extensive reports on Israel Defense Forces operations in the territories and on violence on the part of settlers, and of course, attempts to expose the seamier side of big corporations. "We don't censor anything," says Atinsky, "but the editors have the right to erase the link to reports that call directly for violence, racist reports, clearly false reports or those that have commercial interests behind them. The reports themselves are not erased from the servers nor are the responses they elicit, because we believe in transparency and freedom of information. In most cases, the intelligent responses expose the cheap provocations." On December 19, a Brazilian surfer, called Latuf, took advantage of the site's freedom to post a caricature depicting Ariel Sharon enthusiastically kissing Adolf Hitler. Following the post, the Police's Computer Crime Investigation Unit began an inquiry, with the approval of the attorney general, into the possibility of incitement and insulting a civil servant. In the past, the police investigated several posts on the site and summoned its operators for questioning - among others, after another caricature posted by Latuf, which depicted Sharon dressed in an SS uniform - but this time, the responses surprised Atinsky. Two days after the posting of the caricature and after news of the inquiry was reported in the media, the Israeli company that provided the server on which the site is located was swamped with threats from right-wing activists and complaints from users. "They told us we had to find a different server," relates Guy West, another volunteer editor of the site, "and we had no choice but to take down the site. Within a week it was to be up again." The next day the police knocked on the door of Atinsky, who is now editor of the Israeli-Palestinian magazine News From Within, and took him with them to the Computer Crime Investigation Unit offices in Bat Yam. "In the station, they sat me down outside one of the offices, so I should wait for my interrogation," he relates. "In the meantime the policemen who'd brought me in joked between them, and one of them picked up some sort of metal rod that was lying on the floor, waved it in front of me and said `this is what we use to hit suspects because it leaves serious bruises.' For him, it may have been a joke, but even so it was scary enough. I kept telling them that I wanted a lawyer, but they said that only in the United States does such a right exist, and that I could contact a lawyer only after the questioning was finished." Atinsky was questioned for eight hours and only then did the interrogators allow him to call a lawyer. "They shouted at me that everything written on the site was my responsibility because the domain is registered in my name," he says. "They said that the fact that surfers can post whatever they want on the site was as if I had left a pistol on the table and left the room - even if someone else uses it, it would still be my fault. They kept on shouting and said that we have to start censoring the site, and that it cannot operate this way. They don't understand that freedom of expression doesn't refer to nice things that everyone wants to hear, but actually to the right to say hurtful things and occasionally also stupid and provocative things." At the same time, Guy West, 29, of Herzliya, was also summoned for lengthy questioning. "The policemen asked us for all the IP addresses of surfers who had entered the site - not of one or two surfers, but all of them," he relates. "If the owner of the server had cracked and given it to them, they could have used it to monitor all of the organization's activists and supporters." Three months have elapsed since then. For fear of police investigations, the site has still not resumed operations. Nimrod Keret, another activist with the organization, arranged not long ago to lease a server in Canada, and the site will apparently resume operations in another two to three weeks. West and Atinsky have since been repeatedly summoned for questioning, and Atinsky's computer has yet to be returned to him. "I've been weaned from Indymedia," says Atinsky, "the police succeeded in getting what they wanted." The police request to censor surfers' responses on the open posting area of the Indymedia site and its temporary closure, prompts some tough questions about freedom of expression on the Web. "Questioning has long been a campaign of pressure and scare tactics and an attempt, without the jurisdiction to do so, to restrict freedom of expression," wrote Attorney Avner Pinchuk of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel in a letter to Attorney General Meni Mazuz. The police investigation, according to Pinchuk, is based on a legal interpretation that is contrary to views that are accepted in Israel and around the world. "A committee set up by the Ministry of Justice determined that Internet service providers are not responsible for the postings of surfers or site owners," he says. "Even the rulings issued thus far around the world and in Israel support this view: the inclination is not to try the owners of the Ynet site, for example, because of the racist response published in its Talk-back forum." In the case of Indymedia, says Pinchuk, the investigators could not get to the Brazilian surfer who posted the caricature and therefore they chose to investigate the site's operators. "Even if their investigation doesn't find anything," he says, "the police have in effect determined facts on the ground. "Political activists or others who see how Indymedia's operators got in trouble will not risk providing an open platform to the public. "The result will be that only large corporations, which can employ attorneys who will supervise the content posted by surfers, will be able to run `open' platforms on their sites. The other sites will not be able to take that risk." Keret, in the meantime, is working on writing the new code for the site. "The site was closed because of the problems they made for Brian and Guy," he says. "The Palestinians engage in this kind of harassment all the time, and now we have it too. There are fewer and fewer human rights in this country and rightists suffer from this as well. Beyond that, what is happening here is absurd: the Brazilian surfer posted his caricature all over the world, and in the end also posted it on the Indymedia site in Israel. In other words, had we erased it, the entire world would have seen it and all the Israelis wouldn't have." The new site will have two main changes: "First of all, our server will be in Canada, far out of reach of the police and the address will not end with `il' but with `org,'" says Keret. "Secondly, the mechanism enabling surfers to post reports will be different. Surfers will have three options: contribute information anonymously, and then it will appear in a more modest format that can be erased if it is problematic; contribute information in a more prominent location by identifying oneself and providing an e-mail address; or setting up a kind of home page where everyone can edit the news himself and decide what will be in the headline." The Israel Police said in response that the police does not comment on investigations that have not been completed. Guy West: "The policemen asked us for all the IP addresses of surfers who had entered the site - not of one or two surfers, but all of them."newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/02/800507.shtml |
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Re: ml and gehrig must be removed as the self appointed dictators of http://www.ucimc.org |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 9
29 Feb 2004
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Well, look who's been busy.
Grow up, already.
Because maybe when you do, you'll be able to explain how I'm "censoring" the very same Haaretz article that _I_ posted here in the first place.
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/15961/index.php
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Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 5
29 Feb 2004
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I notice, incidentally, that nessie has apparently decided to leave the latest round of spamming of my "last post" unhidden, presumably hoping that people will think that I did it.
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Spam You, Phillip! |
by Paul Kotheimer
herringb (nospam) prairienet.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 3
29 Feb 2004
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Clogging the newswire with hateful spam doesn't seem to be a very constructive way to affect how the UCIMC operates. |
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Re: Another Telegram from Mussoliniville |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
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Here's nessie, addressing yours truly on the imc-us-process list. (I said I'd only post there once, and so I'm going to put this response here instead.) Imagine this being said in a John Ashcroft voice, and it's amazing how well it fits: "I said you're a racist, that's not slander, that's a political value judgement. I said you spam. That's yours to disprove. Maybe you didn't spam. But considering that no one, not even Nazis and Republicans, spam our site as much as Zionists do, and considering how often we see Zionists lie and forge, and considering that you're a Zionist, we'd be fools not to assume you're like the others. It's an educated guess. Drunks fall down, junkies steal, rats gnaw, garbage rots and Zionists lie. This is the way of the world. If you're an exception, so be it. Stranger things have happened, and yes, there are exceptions. But don't waste your time trying to prove it to us. Your Zionism alone is enough to get you banned. Same goes for "anti-bullsh*t," "idiot-corrector" and the rest of your lot. It even goes for "go-to," an otherwise decent character, as you yourself may be. It's not about your personality. It's about your politics. Zionism is racism. Period. End of story. No, you may not use SF-IMC as a soapbox from which to preach it."
Wowsa. Whatta guy.
Nessie, you seem to be having trouble doing the math, so I'll help you through it. You yourself call your declaration that I'm a "racist" a "political value judgement" -- and I agree that your motivation is political. You say as much in as many words: "It's about your politics." But then you change the subject from politics to "racism": "Zionism is racism. Period. End of story. "
Here are two scenaria:
Scenario One:
A: "Israel should not build their security fence as much as one inch off the Green Line."
B: "You're only saying that because you're an antisemite."
Scenario Two:
A: "The one-state solution is unworkable, and the two-state solution has broad international support."
N: "You're only saying that because you're a racist."
The first scenario is about using a bewildering, polarizing, unsupportable, politically motivated cry of antisemitism to stigmatize a political position. The second scenario is about using a bewildering, polarizing, unsupportable, politically motivated cry of "racism" to stigmatize a political position.
If someone pulled Scenario One in on SF-IMC, you'd be all over him like a hornet's nest in three seconds. But someone does Scenario Two all the time, and you don't stop him because he's you.
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Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by gehrig
zemblan (nospam) earthlink.net (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
01 Mar 2004
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Oops, I meant to sign that one. So I'll sign this one instead.
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Re: Lies, and the LYing LIars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by Mulberry Sellers
Mulberry_Sellers (nospam) hotmail.com (verified) |
Current rating: 3
02 Mar 2004
Modified: 01:29:51 AM |
So, I'm not the only person who has perceived a kinship to Ashcroftian thinking in the eagerness to find enemies under every available bed, to make ex cathedra pronunciations of (others') guilt and generally behave like a pompous ass which is so commonly displayed on the Indymedia network.
I feel a bit better. I had been wondering if that was merely one more symptom of incipient madness induced by too much beating of the old noggin on the apartheid wall of irrationality. |
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Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by Yo
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -3
06 Mar 2004
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Sfindymedia has been taken over by cointelpro...don't you know. Go to www.indybay.org to catch up with the real indy folk. |
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Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
06 Mar 2004
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Nah, no need to shout COINTELPRO. You don't have to be COINTELPRO to be destructive. You just need to be an authoritarian egomaniac paranoid with a lock on an IMC's editorial passwords.
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Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by Mike
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
07 Mar 2004
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Hey Gehrig, just in case you haven't seen this, here's Wendy denying the Holocaust in her natural element:
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=120415 |
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Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
07 Mar 2004
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I don't know whether that was Wendy posting on Stormfront or someone reposting it in her name from the rightwing whackjob Rense.com. It certainly does look at home there on Stormfront, doesn't it?
Incidentally, I think Wendy has posted this article on SF-IMC and SFBay-IMC; it's been hidden in both places.
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Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by Mike
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: -2
07 Mar 2004
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It's not just that Wendy looks at home at Stormfront - she actually qualifies as one of the more hateful commentators there. Most white supremecists have no problem with Jews having their own homeland. It's just the progressive left that it so obsessed with Jews that the mere existence of Israel drives them into a frenzy. |
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Re: Lies, and the Lying Liars who Edit the SF-IMC Newswire |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
07 Mar 2004
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I'm sorry, but I can't agree with you. There are those on the progressive left -- and nessie certainly qualifies as the poster child for this condition -- who see nefarious Zionist manipulations at every corner and behind any decision. But it's been my experience that, for everyone like nessie, who gets off on demonizing Israel and its supporters in the most ridiculous terms and using the most offensive analogies, there are several quieter souls (not that it's difficult to be quieter than nessie) who realize that the story is more complicated than "Israel = Darth Vader".
Don't let a few nessie-esque whackjobs lead you to condemn an entire part of the political spectrum. I wouldn't be involved in the IMCs at all if I felt that way.
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