Category: general freedom

An Invisibility Cloak We Can Use

Post author By Redactor
Post date December 9, 2022
4 Comments on An Invisibility Cloak We Can Use

It’s not quite the magical invisibility cloak worn by Harry Potter. But it’s the next best thing.

Chinese students have created apparel that human eyes can see but that hides the wearer from security cameras and recognition software.

The InvisDefense coat looks ordinary. So it won’t by itself arouse the suspicion of other people on the street. But it is designed in such a way as to foil the kind of cameras that, for example, try to identify who is protesting Chinazi lockdown insanity.

During the day, the printed pattern of the InvisDefense coat blinds cameras. At night, the coat emits heat signals that disrupt infrared. It was invented by Chinese graduate students at Wuhan University under the guidance of computer science professor Wang Zheng. Their coat won first prize in an innovation contest sponsored by Huawei.

Wang observes that “many surveillance devices can detect human bodies. Cameras on the road have pedestrian detection functions. And smart cars can identify pedestrians, roads, and obstacles. Our InvisDefense allows the camera to capture you. But it cannot tell if you are human. . . .

“We use algorithms to design the least conspicuous patterns that can disable computer vision.”

And the coat costs only seventy bucks or so.

I’m not always a fan of the algorithms. In this case, shout Hooray for algorithms and for those who put them to such good use by inventing the InvisDefense coat.

I hope these students sell about eight billion of them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags China, surveillance, technology

crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom

Rumble and FIRE

New York, free speech, censorship, hate speech, social networks

Federal officials feel entitled to demand the censorship of persons uttering renegade opinions about pandemics and elections. Local police officers feel entitled to arrest persons who commit parody against them.

And New York State officials now feel entitled to compel social-media companies to restrict speech that the officials dislike.

The video-sharing platform Rumble, dedicated to making the Internet “free and open once again,” is teaming up with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) in a lawsuit to stop the New York law.

The goal of AB A7865A is to force social media networks “to provide and maintain mechanisms for reporting hateful conduct on their platform.”

“Hateful conduct” is speech that some people dislike. Of course, even the most acidulous asseverations are protected by the First Amendment if they don’t entail actual violations of anyone’s rights. Gangsters and terrorists are not legally entitled to use speech, or anything else, to commit robbery or murder — certainly not on the specious grounds that they have rights to freedom of speech or to bear arms.

The new law is not about such things. Under it, if social-media companies fail to provide ways for users to complain about “hateful” comments, they could be fined up to $1,000 per violation and investigated by the state attorney general.

Clearly, the law would institute a massive incentive to bury social platforms in fines and investigations if they permit the “wrong” kind of speech. The number of those easily offended by others is infinite.

Also infinite? Excuses for those in power to stomp on opposition speech.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags censorship, hate speech, New York

general freedom media and media people U.S. Constitution

We’ll Keep It

An answer is warranted.

When a former president of these United States asks a question of such magnitude, as Donald J. Trump did last week on Truth Social, how can we not respond?

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party,” Mr. Trump inquired, “do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?”

Trump is, presumably, referring to Elon Musk’s recent release of information about FBI communications with Twitter during the 2020 campaign, with the Feds suggesting that stories about the Hunter Biden laptop were likely Russian disinformation — even though the FBI knew at the time that that it was Hunter’s laptop. For the FBI to work to discourage media platforms from providing such information to the public is deceptive and wrong. It should be investigated and, depending on the evidence, prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Such collusion is even more destructive of our democratic system when done with partisan political motives. Which may now be SOP at the Bureau.

So, let’s answer Mr. Trump’s questions. “No,” per declaring him the winner and sending President Biden packing. And a no-go on a new election. Of course, there is one in 2024, and Trump is a declared candidate.

Yes, the news media is largely dishonest, drunk with their power and deluded into thinking they should keep information from us if it might make us vote contrary to their desires. Moreover, the Deep State is actively colluding with them (and vice-versa) to warp public opinion.

Trump argues that this new information “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He’s dangerously mistaken.

Who would “terminate” these laws and constitutional provisions? His dear friends in Congress, The White House, the FBI and DOJ? Unelected judges — who’ve already ruled against his campaign? A mob, pray tell?

No, thanks. That Constitution? We’ll keep it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags constitution, media, news, Trump

general freedom individual achievement meme

Jimmy Lai

Tags democracy, Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai

general freedom international affairs Regulating Protest social media

Rotten Apple

Apple Inc. has a good side and a bad side.

A strong work ethic, oodles of innovativeness, much neat technology.

But a taste for censorship and a willingness to abet the censorious efforts of China’s totalitarians.

One manifestation of Apple’s contempt for unfettered discourse? Its apparent threat to kick the Twitter app off the iOS platform now that Twitter is run by someone friendlier to freedom of speech than the previous management.

Obnoxious though this would be, it’s not half as horrible as knowingly facilitating Chinazi repression. Yet Apple has recently crippled the iPhone AirDrop feature that protestors in China have used to share files like videos of the surging protests against the government’s insane zero-COVID mega-lockdown policies.

Because of a new iOS update, iPhone users in China — and only in China — can now only send files to persons not on their contact list for just ten minutes, hampering the ability of protesters and others to evade Chinese government censorship.

The company’s officers read the news. If Apple really didn’t intend to do this, all it has to do is roll out another update pronto to restore full AirDrop functionality.

Reclaim the Net notes, however, that Apple has often helped the Chinese Communist Party conduct its censorship: for one thing, by removing thousands of apps from its Chinese store at their behest. The deleted apps include VPN apps that helped users evade China’s wide-ranging and determined censorship of the Internet.

Think Different, Apple, not in lockstep with tyrants.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Apple Inc., China, Twitter

Accountability general freedom international affairs

Chain of Command?

truckers, Canada, Justin Trudeau, civil rights violations

Early this year, Canadian truckers rebelled against the Canadian government’s tyrannical response to the pandemic by protesting en masse — in their trucks.

The truckers objected to being forced to accept experimental non-vaccines in order to go back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border.

The Canadian government could have instantly solved the problem by rescinding the nonsensical travel ban and letting truckers truck freely.

Instead, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau deployed a dormant triple-the-tyranny measure called the Emergencies Act to make the truckers regret that they had ever dared lift a pinky in protest against the assault on their lives and livelihoods. The insanity included imposing freezes on their bank accounts and suspending their vehicle insurance.

Now Trudeau’s actions are being investigated in the Canadian parliament.

And guess what’s come to light? You’ll get a kick out of this if you’re one of my United States readers: Trudeau was urged to do something about those darn truckers by none other than the Biden administration.

February 10: the director of the U.S. National Economic Council spoke to Canadian officials.

Same day: U.S. Transportation Boss Pete Buttigieg asked the Canadian Transportation Boss about Canada’s plan to cure the protests.

February 11: President Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau spoke.

Don’t worry, Trudeau told Biden. He had a plan to end the protests. Somehow I doubt that Biden said “Fine, so long as it’s not about stomping the truckers even harder.”

Three days later, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act.

Correlation ain’t causation, but a schedule of influence indicates . . . almost . . . a conspiracy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Canada, civil rights, covid, Justin Trudeau, truck drivers

education and schooling general freedom

Federally Funded Racism

Can one cosponsor a racially discriminatory program without having any idea of its nature, even if this is implied by the program’s very name?

The University of Oklahoma and other universities are cosponsors of the Oklahoma Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, a program funded by the National Science Foundation that requires beneficiaries be members of certain minority groups: “African American, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.”

The Alliance’s goal is to “increase recruitment, enrollment, and retention of minority students in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] programs.”

Because of the program’s discriminatory criteria, the group Do No Harm has filed civil rights complaints against a dozen Oklahoma universities. Its leader, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, points out that the terms of the federally funded program “specifically exclude white students, students from middle eastern countries, and Asian students. . . . [B]ut it is illegal to engage in such discrimination based on race.”

When first asked about the complaint, the University of Oklahoma declined comment. But after The College Fix site reported on the matter, OU spokesman Jacob Guthrie said that the university’s site had been amended to reflect the fact that any student may apply, insisting also that the program “has never been restricted by race.”

It sure looks to me as if OU officials, like those of Ithaca College (subject to a similar federal complaint in October), are now suddenly worried about legal consequences.

Anyway, Do No Harm’s filing is already doing good, helping to re-establish that old liberal idea that governments must not discriminate on grounds of race.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags education, quota, race, racism, science

general freedom international affairs public opinion

Point Blank Protest

“Protests spread to cities and college campuses around China on Saturday night,” reports The New York Times, “reflecting rising public anger at the country’s draconian Covid controls, with some in a crowd in Shanghai directing their fury at the Communist Party and its top leader, Xi Jinping.”

Reuters informs that this “wave of anger was triggered by an apartment fire that killed 10 people on Thursday in Urumqi, a far western city where some people had been locked down for as long as 100 days, fueling speculation that COVID lockdown measures may have impeded residents’ escape.”

Demonstrations are rare in China; “room for dissent has been all-but eliminated under President Xi Jinping,” reminds Reuters. Yet, a month ago, a lone “Bridge Man” in Beijing unfurled anti-government banners in a crowded intersection.

“Go on strike at school and work, remove dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping!” the man, now in CCP custody, yelled through a loudspeaker. “We want to eat, we want freedom, we want to vote!”

Yes, vote. Xi Jinping was just elected to a term-limit busting third term, but by the Communist Party — not the Chinese people.

In a numberof videos, students hold “up blank sheets of paper in silent protest, a tactic used in part to evade censorship or arrest.” In 2020, Hong Kong activists did this to avoid prosecution under the national security law imposed by Beijing.

Across social media, people have been posting pictures of themselves with blank pieces of paper in solidarity. “By Sunday morning, the hashtag ‘white paper exercise’ was blocked on Weibo,” notes Reuters.

“If you fear a blank sheet of paper,” posited a Weibo user, “you are weak inside.”

A blank page, on the other hand, displays surprising strength, as well as meaning — for people to one day freely write their own stories.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags China, covid, protest

First Amendment rights general freedom social media

Rumble Resists

In a world of almost universal assaults on freedom of speech, it is heartening when an avowed defender of it refuses to relent under pressure.

Rumble’s reason for being is to help people “control the value of their own creations.” The company creates “technologies that are immune to cancel culture.” Their mission is “to protect a free and open internet.”

A mission statement is one thing. Abiding by it in the face of major opposition is another. But Rumble has just told the French government to get lost for demanding that it deplatform certain sources of Russian news.

Stressing its policy that users with unpopular views “are free to access our platform on the same terms as our millions of other users,” Rumble has disabled access for users in France rather than acquiesce to the government’s censorship demands. Rumble will go back online there if it wins a lawsuit challenging the legality of the demands.

Like Elon Musk, who said that he wouldn’t block Russian news sources at the behest of governments “unless at gunpoint,” Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski says “I won’t move our goal posts for any foreign government.”

Rumble started out in 2013. By late 2021, Rumble.com was being visited by an average of 36 million active users per month.

If Rumble loses France, it loses less than 1 percent of its current users — but also an opportunity for substantial growth.

On the other hand, it holds on to what it is.

And what its customers value.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: This Week in Common Sense, the weekend wrap-up of this program, is published on Rumble as a video nearly every week. Last weekend’s episode is “It’s a Funny World.”

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