Mediaboss Marketing

Tory Home Secretary Amber Rudd has been accused of "shutting down" a rival raising questions about the Governments arms deals with Saudi Arabia during an election hustings.

Independent candidate Nicholas Wilson cried "censorship!" after Ms Rudd was seen passing a note to the chair of the debate in Rye, East Sussex.

Moments later, the chairman rang a bell and ordered Mr Wilson to end his speech.

Asked by the Mirror if he believed Ms Rudd's note was directly responsible for the cutoff he said: "Without a doubt."

Before he was interrupted, Mr Wilson was criticising Theresa May selling arms to Saudi Arabia.

He said: Saudi Arabia are the country responsible for IS and they support IS. We supply arms to Saudi Arabia

But the chairman said he had strayed from the topic of the question, which was the Manchester terror attack.

Am I being censored? he said, before claiming Ms Rudd was planning to abolish the independent Serious Fraud Office so that she could be in charge of prosecutions of financial institutions through the National Crime Agency.

The chairman approached him, gesturing for him to hand over his microphone and saying this was the kind of personal attack I wanted to avoid.

But Wilson, who led a successful campaign against HSBC to get compensation for customers hit with excessive credit card charges, said: This is censorship. I have suffered censorship for 10 years. People dont know about these things because of censorship.

He eventually gave up his microphone.

Later he posted the clip on YouTube under the comment "Amber Rudd shuts down my speech about arms sales to Saudi Arabia".

It has been viewed more than 300,000 times.

We asked the Conservative Party what Amber Rudd wrote on her note.

Nineteen hours later, a spokesman replied: "The chair decided to move it on."

Go here to see the original:
Tory Amber Rudd accused of 'shutting down' rival questioning government arms deals with Saudi Arabia - Mirror.co.uk

Its an idea long supported by most of the commercial airlines and the union who say the system is inefficient under the Federal Aviation Administration.

President Trump announced Monday a plan to privatize the nations air traffic control system a move that would remove the job of tracking and guiding airplanes from the purview of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Today were proposing to take American air travel into the future, finally, Trump said.

The nations air traffic control system was designed when far fewer people flew, Trump said, calling it stuck, painfully, in the past. He also called the system ancient, broken, antiquated and horrible and said his reforms would make it safer and more reliable.

The FAA has worked to upgrade its system, but Trump and other critics say it was taking far too long. Honestly, they didnt know what the hell they were doing, Trump said. A total waste of money.

Privatization of air traffic control is an idea long supported by most of the commercial airlines. Executives from those companies joined the president at the White House to announce the plan.

Guided by legislation that has been proposed in the past by House Transportation Committee chairman Bill Shuster, a private, non-profit corporation would be created to operate, manage and control ATC nationwide, similar to what Canada does. The FAA would still have some oversight capacity, but a board made up mostly of representatives of the major airlines would govern this corporation.

The air traffic controllers union is generally supportive of the proposal, as they see the current FAA air traffic control system as somewhat inefficient. The Shuster plan would still allow for the controllers to be part of the union.

The FAA says it has modernized in recent years by updating its computers and other systems. Administrator Michael Huerta told an industry conference in March that the agency has made tremendous progress, per the Associated Press.

But some groups have been critical of efforts to privatize air traffic control operations, saying it gives the airlines too much control over they system for their own benefit.

The group Flyers Rights calls it the creation of an airline controlled corporate monopoly. It also says privatizing air traffic control amounts to handing the airlines (for free) control over a core public asset, and providing them nearly unbridled power to extract new fees and increased taxes from passengers.

Trump has been critical in the past of the FAA and air traffic control, saying his personal pilot has complained about how out of date and inefficient the agency is.

Trumps plan to privatize air traffic control operations will likely be included in legislation re-authorizing the FAA. The Senate Transportation Committee will discuss the proposal on Wednesday, with Trumps Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao testifying. Chao will again address the issue before the House Transportation Committee on Thursday.

This plan is part of Trumps broader infrastructure vision. He may also talk Monday more broadly about what he has called third world airports in particular, as he launches what the White House is calling the Presidents infrastructure week.

Trump will be in Cincinnati on Wednesday to continue talking about infrastructure, focusing on inland waterways on the Ohio river including aging dams.

View original post here:
WATCH: Trump Announces Plan To Privatize Air Traffic Control - Houston Public Media

A key Chinese regulator has issued a notice demanding broadcasters distribute programmes that promote core socialist values, and forcefully oppose content that celebrates money worship, hedonism, radical individualism and feudal thought.

The notice, which was issued on Friday by the State Administration of Press, Publication Radio Film and Television, provides further guidance for the creation and broadcast of programme content, particularly for the countrys rapidly growing internet platforms.

Online programmes should vigorously promote Chinas revolutionary culture advance patriotism , extol the motherland and praise heroes, the notice said.

Chinas media regulator vows severe punishment for TV programmes ridiculing state policies

Chinese President Xi Jinping has undertaken an unprecedented campaign to censor media that do not reflect the views of Communist Party leaders, while advancing traditional Chinese values that promote honesty, unity, self-improvement and self-reliance.

The government over the last year has moved to crack down on illicit content in the countrys fast-growing live-streaming market, which produced revenues of more than 30 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion or HK$34 billion) last year, according to investment bank China Renaissance Securities.

Last July, Chinas Culture Ministry announced that it had shut down 4,313 online show rooms, firing or punishing more than 18,000 anchors.

What does China have against Peppa Pig?

Twelve platforms were punished and ordered to make changes after offering illicit content that promotes obscenity, violence, abets crime and damages social morality.

The media administration said in August that it would restrict social and entertainment news that promoted improper values and Western lifestyles.

In Fridays notice, it said that entertainment reports should advocate morality and talent, while variety shows, dramas and movies should oppose wasteful star-chasing, humdrum games and luxurious feasts.

Chinas top colleges to face ideological inspections

Online platforms also were told to establish sound internal accountability controls, and strictly address problems as they arise.

Television, radio and internet distributors are forbidden from broadcasting uncut programmes that have not been first reviewed by authorities, the notice said.

See the original post here:
China's media watchdog, tightening control of content, promotes 'core socialist values' - South China Morning Post

Untitled (Durag 1)John Edmonds

Untitled (Durag 1) John Edmonds

When photographer John Edmonds first started taking portraits, he worked from a tried-and-true script. Pose your subject, frame the face or body, and attempt to capture their unique individual essence. Then he started to envision a different way to approach portraiture. Edmonds wanted to use the art form to challenge peoples preconceptions about race and cultural identity.

In many of Edmonds more recent portraits, the subject is often covered or obscured. Men are seen from behind, wearing Do-rags or hooded sweatshirts. The only distinguishing features (if any) are a tiny tuft of hair or the outline of a shoulder.

In my work, the black body is a sight for contemplation, instead of the individual representing specifically who they are, he tells TIME. I talk about the work in terms of symbolismmy Hoods work and Do-ragsand looking at both of these articles of clothing as symbols.

While some might see the Hoods series as a blatant play on the narrative of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old shot by George Zimmerman, Edmonds says that the pictures arent so much about that event in particular, but about the preconceptions people have surrounding hooded sweatshirts and what they indicate about the wearer. A subject may fit a certain description, but there are all these other elements that pull you out of that description which are related to racial profiling. I experimented with how a photograph could probe those questions.

In another series titled, All Eyes On Me, a man with a covered nose and mouth gazes at the camera or slightly to the left or right. The series is presented as a succession of 40 almost identical near-frames. As the viewer walks around the gallery space, the mans gaze seems to follow. This intense eye contact might cause some to feel uncomfortable. Edmonds says that this interaction between subject and viewer is where the true reflection starts. He has such a piercing gaze that you have to look closely at this individual," he says. "Your imagination starts to roam. This is a recurring theme in all of my workthe gaze being flipped back onto the viewer.

For Edmonds, some level of anonymity is paramount. A lot of people that I photograph are strangers to me, he says. I dont have an immediate relationship to them. They are often people that I encounter when Im riding on a bus or walking down the street. I have an interest in protecting the individual. I want to veil the identity or specificity of the person, mostly implicating the viewer in the work, so that when they are looking at the figure its more about who theyre projecting the figure to be.

In a day and age where brash, action-filled imagery is often prized, Edmonds says he believes that subtlety can be a much more effective way to communicate. Visual art has an interesting way of becoming part of public discourse. People do see my Hoods images and immediately think of Trayvon Martin. I think the power of the work is its quietness. The photos are nuanced. They have a greater impact because of how they sit in your mind.

John Edmonds is an artist and photographer based in Brooklyn.

Myles Little, who edited this photo essay, is a senior photo editor at TIME.

Janna Dotschkal is a freelance writer based in Washington.

Read the rest here:
How One Photographer Is Challenging Our Perceptions of Black Men - TIME

Therewas enormously important Fourth Amendment news from the Supreme Court on Monday: The justices agreed to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuits decision in Carpenter v. United States, one of the long-pending cases on whether the Fourth Amendment protects government access to historical cell-site records.

This is a momentous development, I think. Its not an exaggeration to say that the future of surveillance law hinges on how the Supreme Court rules in the case. Let me say a bit about the case, the issues it will decide and why it matters.

I. The Facts of the Case

Carpenter involves a string of armed robberies that occurred over a two-year period. A group of men (at least five of them) would go into cellphone stores armed with guns, order the customers and employees to the back, and steal the phones. Carpenter was the lead organizer of the conspiracy, and he often supplied the guns, acted as a lookout and would signal when each robbery was to begin.

One of Carpenters conspirators confessed to the crime and gave the government his cellphone number and the numbers of the other conspirators (16 numbers total). The government applied for three different court orders for the cell-site records associated with those numbers, which included Carpenters number. Specifically, the orders sought cell site information for Carpenters phone at call origination and at call termination for incoming and outgoing calls. The government obtained the orders under the Stored Communications Act. They complied with the statute, but the statute requires only reasonable suspicion and not probable cause.

The order that covered Carpenter was directed at his cellphone provider MetroPCS. MetroPCS produced 127 days of historical cell-site records. (Sprint produced another seven days of historical cell-site records for Carpenters phone from a time window when he was roaming and Sprint picked up his service instead of MetroPCS.) Together with the orders obtained, the records showed that that the phones of the alleged conspirators were within distances ranging from a half-mile up to two miles of the robberies at the time they occurred. Specifically, Carpenters phone was shown to be in communication with cell towers near four robberies over a five-month window.

II. The Legal Issues

Here is how counsel for the petitioner framed the question presented:

Whether the warrantless seizure and search of historical cell phone records revealing the location and movements of a cell phone user over the course of 127 days is permitted by the Fourth Amendment.

And heres how the United States redrafted the question presented in its brief in opposition:

Whether the governments acquisition, pursuant to a court order issued under 18 U.S.C. 2703(d), of historical cell-site records created and maintained by a cellular-service provider violates the Fourth Amendment rights of the individual customer to whom the records pertain.

I gather, then, that the case will consider two distinct questions. First, is the collection of the records a Fourth Amendment search? And second, if it is a search, is it a search that requires a warrant?

Notably, neither side sought review of whether the good-faith exception applies if the answer to both of these questions is yes. The parties are asking only for a ruling on the merits, with any remedies decision bifurcated for review on remand if the Supreme Court reverses.

III. Why The Case Matters

The Carpenter case is tremendously important, I think. The structure of modern surveillance law is built on the idea that the contents of communications receive Fourth Amendment protection but that non-content metadata records about communications, and other third-party business records do not. That has been the rule since the 19th century for postal letters, and it has been the rule since 1979 for phone calls. Carpenter will help determine if that basic rule framework will remain, or if the Supreme Court will amend it somewhat or even dramatically change it.

Part of the importance of the case is that its not just about cell-site records. Although the case is formally about cell-site records, its really about where to draw lines in terms of what network surveillance triggers the Fourth Amendment and how the Fourth Amendment applies. The justices cant answer how the Fourth Amendment applies to cell-site records without providing a framework for how the Fourth Amendment applies to many other forms of surveillance, such as visual surveillance, obtaining traditional phone records, obtaining e-mail transactional records, obtaining credit card records and the like.

For example, readers will recall the debate over the mosaic theory of the Fourth Amendment. Among the issues likely to be pressed in Carpenter is whether the justices should adopt or reject the mosaic theory. Note that the question presented focuses on the fact that the records covered 172 days. Should the length covered by the records matter? Is evidence collection for a short time window no search that becomes a search because the records spanned a long time window?

Plus, remember that the justices will have two questions: what a search is, and when searches are reasonable. Most will focus on the first question, but note that the two issues go together. As I explained here, the broader the court interprets search, the more pressure there is to water down reasonableness. The narrower the definition of search, the stronger the reasonableness standard tends to be. This creates some interesting dynamics. For example, you might get a ruling that there is no search but that retains the traditional default warrant rule for searches. On the other hand, you might get a ruling that a search occurred but that authorizes a new category of warrantless surveillance. This is just speculation, of course, but I suspect the briefing will urge major doctrinal innovations on both questions.

IV. Why Did the Justices Take the Case?

Some will speculate that the Supreme Court would have taken the case only if it were going to reverse. I have no idea how the court will rule, but I tend to doubt that. If I had to guess, I would guess that the court took these cases because theyre really important. The lower court rulings are based on the third-party doctrine, and none of the current justices were on the court the last time the justices decided a case on the third-party doctrine. Its pretty sensible to have the current Supreme Court weigh in.

As it happens, I think the third-party doctrine is essential to technological surveillance in a digital age. As I see it, the doctrine is needed to maintain the essential balance on which Fourth Amendment law has been built and on which it evolves in response to new technology. Prominent alternatives, like the mosaic theory, strike me as a dead end. But it makes a lot of sense for the justices to review these cases and decide whether they agree and if not, identify what new framework should replace it.

V. Lots of Blogging Ahead

Finally, Ill probably be doing a lot of carpentry (that is, blogging about the issues raised in Carpenter) over the next few months. A lot of my academic work in the past decade has been about issues that touch on the case, so it will be really fun to see what the justices do.

Read the original here:
Supreme Court agrees to hear 'Carpenter v. United States,' the Fourth Amendment historical cell-site case - Washington Post