Boing Boing » Action

Cellphone unlocking is the first step toward post-SOPA copyright reform

Derek Khanna — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:30:32 +0000

Yale Law Fellow with the Information Society Project, columnist and policy expert Derek Khanna authored the controversial House Republican Study Committee memo “Three Myths about Copyright Law.” The memo on copyright reform was praised throughout the tech community as being "brilliant" and a "breath of fresh air." He has spoken at the Consumer Electronics Show as a technology expert and will be speaking at Freedom to Connect and the Conservative Political Action Conference. Derek was referred to as a “rising star” in the party by David Brooks in the New York Times. Mr. Khanna continues to be a major thought leader on technology issues and disruptive innovation

With SOPA, the industry had the money, the lobbyists, and the organization. But we, the digital generation, are the trump card—and we won. Now it’s up to us to make sure that the historic protest was not merely a historical aberration.

When I wrote the copyright report for the House Republican Study Committee, I had no idea the outpouring of support I would receive from the digital generation that I belong to. I wrote it solely to start a conversation amongst our Congressional Members, but instead I have seen it engage thousands of average people. The report was published on November 16, 2012. Two weeks later, on December 7, 2012, I was informed that I would not be retained as a staffer.

Despite the personal consequences, I am not giving up. I'm just getting started, and I'm not scared by a temporary setback. I'm emboldened by it. And I don't think I'm the only one, or that I'm one of a few.

The conversation that the copyright report started is inspirational, in the face of a political establishment (on both sides of the aisle) which often refuses to acknowledge that we are paying attention. It is up to us, the public, to be engaged. If we are not satisfied with our policy-makers and the policies that they enact, we can change the policies by challenging them.

We have the ideas, we have the tools, and we have the organization.

President Obama and the Tea Party show that an energized and engaged citizenry can elect candidates in grassroots movements. And we have seen them stop legislation in its tracks. SOPA’s opposition proved that a united digital movement can stop legislation that is expected to pass despite overwhelming odds, special interest’ cronies, and powerful politicians.

Working on Capitol Hill during SOPA was humbling.

For weeks many of the technology-savvy staffers saw the storm clouds of opposition against SOPA building, but we had no idea how massive or sudden the storm surge would be. Many of us were strongly against what we saw as internet censorship from the beginning, working behind the scenes to try and get our bosses on the right side of the issue. Many of us were brushed aside.

But, on January 18, the effect of the movement was deafening. Voters crashed congressional circuit boards and websites, tweeting and facebooking at Representatives and Senators in record numbers. Most of us had never seen anything like this before, and for many it was an abrupt, sobering reminder of what democracy really is. Members’ sudden, vocal opposition of legislation that they were co-sponsoring was a watershed moment; though I would argue that it was also proof of concept for something even bigger.

SOPA awoke the sleeping giant.

A digital generation is ready to change politics and policies, and they will succeed. They will do this by rallying behind new ideas, coalescing around legislation, and by leading campaigns for passage. The show of force during SOPA was impressive. But getting legislation on the table for consideration requires another level of activism. It's a challenge that we will soon rise to.

Politics is not exclusive to the intellectual, elected, or rich. Politics starts at kitchen tables, water coolers, gyms, bars, and churches. But how does it manifest itself as real change? Put simply: Idea + Movement + Effort = Legislation

I am confident that we can do this, even the special interests expect us to give up. To them, politics is about vested interests, donations and who has the biggest hired guns. Their cronies are counting on us being overwhelmed. They are banking on us fearing failure, on our failing to try in the first place.

I invite you to join us and continue this fight for future battles.

How do we start?

This fight is going to take a generation. It's going to take a movement. But let me suggest, for what it’s worth, a few pointers.

• We cannot continue to stay on the defensive, watching and waiting for the next SOPA. If we slumber, they will sneak provisions into law that do effectively the same or similar things as SOPA. The best defense is a solid offense.

• We should recognize that the next SOPA may not be like the old one. The content industry will likely be smart enough to try to accomplish the same ends through other legal avenues.

• We must analyze existing law. Our current laws are already, in some ways, nearly as bad as SOPA would have been.

• We must recognize that progress will require support from Republicans and Democrats alike, and therefore we need to be strategic in our battle choices.

• While we may have different perspectives and different priorities, we need to focus on areas of common interest where we form a collective whole.

• We should focus upon asymmetrical warfare. We shouldn’t be focused upon the big, fix-everything bill. We are the insurgents—and in the words of the famous Apple commercial, we need to think different.

We need a series of small, and highly strategic, affirmative victories. Such victories are hard to find, but they form the logical progression for a movement. Doing so will fulfill critical goals, each of which are strategic for overall success.

1. This will create an operating and ongoing coalition of post-SOPA actors.
2. It will change the dialogue and framing of the issues.
3. It will highlight the David v. Goliath nature of the fight, and thereby gain mainstream media attention.

Where do we start?

I believe that the first battle is on cellphone unlocking. Making the personal use of this technology illegal was a clear misstep and a major opportunity.

On January 26, 2013, it became illegal to unlock new phones. Unlocking is a technique to alter the settings on your phone to let you use it with compatible cellular networks operated by other carriers. Doing so now could place you in legal liability: up to 5 years in jail and a $500,000 fine. This is a violation of our property rights. It makes you wonder: if you can’t alter the settings on your phone, do you even own it?

This is just one clear example of intellectual property laws run amok: the underlying law was created to protect copyright, but it’s being applied in a situation that no legislator expected when they voted for the bill in 1998. It’s a clear example of crony capitalism, where a few companies asked for the law to be changed to their pecuniary benefit—despite the invasion of our property rights, its impact upon consumers, and its impact upon the overall market. The decision created even higher thresholds to entry for new market participants, which hinders competition and leads to less innovation.

When the Librarian of Congress (who had previously provided exceptions allowing this activity) issued a ruling on this issue on October 28, 2012, Congress refused to act. When that ruling went into effect, months later on January 26, 2013, Congress refused to act. On January 27, 2013, I published an article in the Atlantic, The Most ridiculous law of 2013 (So Far): It is Now a Crime to Unlock Your Smartphone, which brought more attention to this issue and was read by more than a million people. Despite this attention, Congress refused to act. At the time, I called their failure to address this issue a 'dereliction of duty.'

The SOPA generation sparked a White House petition to allow cellphone unlocking and Sina Khanifar and I advocated heavily on this issue over the past three weeks (Sina created the petition). During that time, Public Knowledge’s question on this issue was submitted for President Obama in the Google Plus Hangout. It was one of the most popular questions submitted. Rep. Defazo, Vint Cerf, and the National College Republicans all tweeted in favor of the petition. And yesterday, on February 21, 2013, at around 7:37 AM EST, the 100,000 signature threshold was crossed on the petition, thereby meeting the threshold required for the White House to provide a formal response. (We are currently over 110,000 signatures).

I propose that the post-SOPA protest coalition take this issue on forcefully, and encourage Congress to pass a bill that codifies permanent exemptions to the DMCA.

Dear Congress,
Please remove these items from your DMCA contraband list (both for developing the technology, selling and using the technology):
• Technology for unlocking and jail-breaking (currently allowed for iPhone, not allowed for iPad).
• Adaptability technology for the blind to have e-books aloud (currently subject to triennial review by the Librarian of Congress – it’s legal to use the technology but illegal to develop or sell).
• Technology to back-up our own DVD’s and Blu-Ray discs for personal use (current law makes this illegal and injunctions have even been used to shut down websites discussing this technology).
Signed,
The people

That we should have to petition our own government to remove these items from a “technological blacklist” is a clear example of how bad the problem has gotten—and why we can’t be satisfied with merely waiting for the next SOPA. If we win this battle, it will lay the groundwork for rethinking other parts of how our legal system affect technology, and how it allows crony capitalism to stifle innovation.

If you agree with me that this is the first of many strategic and winnable battles, the window to sign continues until Saturday. This is a milestone that will help start this process.

A Call to Arms

It’s up to us: was the historic protest against SOPA merely a historical aberration, or was it the beginning of a new historical norm? They had all the chips in SOPA: they had the money, they had the lobbyists, and they had the organization. But we are the trump card—the digital generation—and we won.

We're putting those special interests on notice. We are here, and we aren’t backing down. There are millions of Americans who believe that we deserve better from our politicians. For those willing to commence the next key battle on copyright reform, this is our call to arms.

You can follow Derek on Twitter at @Dkhanna11

Photo:REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl

Wyclef Jean's highly-hyped Haiti charity defunct and in debt, surprising approximately nobody

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 04:13:58 +0000

Yéle, the Haiti charity of rock star Wyclef Jean that took in some $16 million after the 2010 eaarthquake, is bust. How bust? So bust that their domain, yele.org, has expired.

Deborah Sontag in the NYT, writing about the rockstar who once thought himself a good choice as president of Haiti:

"In a new memoir, Wyclef Jean, the Haitian-born hip-hop celebrity, claims he endured a “crucifixion” after the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake when he faced questions about his charity’s financial record and ability to handle what eventually amounted to $16 million in donations."

But, as Sontag writes, an ongoing investigation by the NY attorney general’s office has found financial improprieties at the nonprofit, which effectively went out of business in September, "leaving a trail of debts, unfinished projects and broken promises."

And defunct domains.

(via Damien Cave)

Poop Strong: Cancer patient whose costs exceeded insurance cap wins victory, via Twitter

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 22:22:41 +0000

Arijit, 31, is graduate student in Arizona who was diagnosed about a year and a half ago with stage IV colon cancer. He endured multiple surgeries, and grueling rounds of chemotherapy. Then, in February, 2012, the cost of his treatment exceeded the lifetime limit on his graduate student health plan, which is managed by Aetna.

His coverage was terminated. His cancer was not.

He launched what we cancer patients sometimes refer to as an internet lemonade stand: a site called Poop Strong (a light-hearted parody of "Livestrong"). At poopstrong.org, he invited well-wishers to make a donation or buy schwag, with all proceeds going to his healthcare.

But, big news today, as his pal Kirk Caron tells Boing Boing,

In the six months between when he was dropped and when he'll be picked up by another student health plan, he's been looking at well over $100K in medical bills for his treatments. In addition to updates about his own condition and the state of Poop Strong, Arijit's been tweeting (naturally) about the state of health insurance, and recently, Aetna got involved. The conversation (as Twitter convos tend to do) sort of spirals out from the main thread between Arijit and Aetna.

That's an understatement! Arijit ended up debating directly with the CEO of Aetna, Mark T. Bertolini. The tl;dr: Aetna, and Mr. Bertolini, agreed in the end to cover the full extent of bills that accrued since Arijit was dropped from insurance (about $118,000).

"The system is broken," said Bertolini. "I really am trying to fix it."

Arijit is redirecting all of the donations he received the University of Arizona Cancer Center Patient Assistance Fund and The Wellness Community (Arizona), to directly assist other people with cancer who cannot pay for the life-saving medical treatments they need.

I spoke with Arijit today, and will be publishing a transcript/audio of our conversation soon. He's a really cool guy, and he has some insights from this experience that I think everyone should hear. It looks like Arijit is covered, for now, but the system is still broken. The debate over health care costs has become a political football—but for people like me and Arijit and everyone else in America who isn't in the 1%, health care costs are literally a matter of life and death. No one should suffer or die because they can't afford medical treatment. It really is that simple.

Arijit's friend Jen Wang created a Storify of the twitter exchange between Arijit, Aetna's PR reps, and Aetna's CEO. You can read this below.

(Images courtesy Poop Strong / Arijit)

In Tibet, a mother of 3 burns herself alive in protest of Chinese rule

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 31 May 2012 00:27:23 +0000

A woman identified as Rikyo, said to be 33 years old and the mother of three young children, burned herself to death today in what is believed to have been another desperate act of protest against China’s repressive policies in Tibet. According to the Tibetan pro-sovereignty website Phayul, she set herself on fire near the Jonang Zamthang Gonchen monastery in Zamthang county, in Ngaba region, the epicenter of a continuing wave of Tibetan self-immolations.

Rikyo’s body is currently being kept at the Jonang Monastery, although Chinese security personnel have reportedly demanded the body to be removed. Rikyo is survived by her husband and three children, the eldest, a 9-year old son and two daughters aged 7 and 5.

Just three days ago, two ethnic Tibetan men self-immolated in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, at what is considered to be the ancient city's most important temple. Chinese police and firefighters arrived at Jokhang, extinguished flames, and removed the men. Their whereabouts and conditions are unknown.

From VOA:

One of the self-immolators was reportedly a 19 year old named Dorjee Tseten, originally from Amdo Bora, and the other young man is reportedly from Amdo Ngaba, although the source couldn’t confirm this information with absolute certainty. Both men had lived in Lhasa for some time and worked at a local restaurant named Nyima Ling.
The immediate and widespread security clampdown that followed included the cutting of telephone and internet connections, the inspection of all cameras and cell phones within a certain perimeter of where the immolations occurred, and numerous detentions yet to be fully confirmed. It is reported that the site of the immolations was immediately cleaned and that there were no traces of the event having taken place.

That incident occurred on the 6th day of Saga Dawa, the month-long annual celebration of the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death.

Since February, 2009, 38 ethnic Tibetans are reported to have burned themselves alive, demanding cultural and religious freedom and the return of their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama from exile.

More: VOA, RFA.

What we teach children about police

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:27:16 +0000

"Someone is causing a lot of trouble."

Josh Stearns, a reporter who has covered the Occupy movement extensively, asks, "Why is this children's book teaching my kid about SWAT vehicles and Riot Control practices?" From his blog post:

Visiting the local library yesterday my son picked out a book all about police. I was stunned when, after pages and pages of info about police cars and police offices, there were these two pages about Riot Control Trucks and SWAT Vans.
Even after months of tracking conflicts between police and the press I still have a profound respect for much of law enforcement and the jobs they do in our communities. However, the descriptions of water cannons being turned on protesters and the taunting opening on the SWAT page, “Someone’s causing a lot of trouble…,” all seemed out of place. Given the increasingly militarized response we have seen to citizen protests, seeing Riot and SWAT teams portrayed this way in a children’s book was troubling.

More scans here.

If you'd like to pick up a copy as a gag gift for your favorite police-beaten Occupier, the book is "Police Cars." Google Books has a few scanned pages here.

Germany: Riot police clear Occupy Frankfurt (photo)

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 17 May 2012 18:24:19 +0000

REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

German riot police carry a demonstrator fully covered in paint as police clears the camp of occupy protestors in front of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, May 16, 2012.

Screwed by the TSA? Now there's an app for that.

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:02:07 +0000

Via the BB Submitterator, BB reader rbrammer says:

The Sikh Coalition just released the FlyRights app. It’s a smart phone app that gives travelers who believe they’ve been the victim of discrimination by the TSA the ability to submit formal complaints directly from their smart phones. You should have this on your phone the next time you fly!

Available for both Android and iOS. Makes perfect sense to me that a Sikh organization would be the one to put this together, given all of the idiot-hate that community has received post-9/11.

Henna "crowns" for chemotherapy patients

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:30:04 +0000

Samaritan Magazine has a fun article here about Henna Heals, a charity based in Toronto, Canada that offers a free service to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy: beautiful henna designs applied to their chemo-bald heads. The organization was created by photographer Frances Darwin, who also captures the resulting designs in photos. Snip:

The swirling, intricate drawings, which are safe, temporary and applied by skilled artists, command the eye to the head of the henna wearer, inspiring awe rather than pity while offering an alternative to wigs or hats. Perhaps more importantly, these henna "crowns" offer women suffering hair loss -- and the accompanying lost sense of femininity that brings -- a chance to feel uniquely lovely while inviting gentle dialog about a tricky subject.

When I began chemo as treatment for breast cancer, a number of friends suggested henna designs to me, too. I haven't done it yet, but I'm still chemo-bald... so it's not too late! Might be worth a trip up to Toronto to visit these guys. A beautiful project, and really pretty designs.

Cancer Patients Transformed By Gorgeous Henna Dome Designs | Samaritan Mag.

(Photo: Frances Darwin; model: Tara Schubert; henna: Darcy Vasudev. Link via Chris Woodfield)

Million Hoodie March for Trayvon Martin under way in NYC

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 23:26:41 +0000

A large crowd of protesters, between 2,000 and 5,000 by various estimates, are marching through the streets of New York right now to draw attention to the killing of Trayvon Martin. The Florida teen was shot to death last month, in a case that has generated widespread outrage online.

Tim Pool has been running a live video stream of the march.

Here's a quick link to the relevant Twitter hashtag (#millionhoodiemarch), to follow tweets from people who are there. Seems like a lot of youth are present at this one, perhaps more so than at recent Occupy marches in New York. People are wearing hoodies, carrying bottles of iced tea and throwing Skittles in the air: Trayvon was wearing one, and holding that candy and beverage when he was shot. So far, police presence is high, but interactions are peaceful, and the crowd is doing its thing without much NYPD aggression. That could change before the night is through.

The parents of the slain teen are present, and addressed the crowd earlier.

#Trayvon's mother at #millionhoodiemarch: "This is not abt a black and white, this is abt a right and wrong." #POWERFUL
— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) March 21, 2012

Heard that a local news outlet claimed that there were dozens of people out here. There are thousands. #millionhoodies
— EBONY Magazine (@EBONYMag) March 21, 2012

Union sq panoramic #trayvonmartin twitter.com/Timcast/status…
— Tim Pool (@Timcast) March 21, 2012

I was going to the march. The march came to me #millionhoodiemarch lockerz.com/s/194581782
— Questo of The Roots (@questlove) March 21, 2012

The chanting of 'we are all tray on Martin' got deafening. Crunch of skittles underfoot. #OWS #TravyonMartin #UnionSq
— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 22, 2012

As of 8pm NYC time, the Associated Press and other news outlets still insist on reporting that only "hundreds" are participating in the march, despite evidence to the contrary. ABC News pegged the number at "dozens." As if.

As the march continues, two stories related to the case are breaking: city commissioners in Sanford, Florida have voted "no confidence" in the local police chief presiding over the case. Republican lawmakers in Florida who pushed a controversial self-defense law say it shouldn't apply to George Zimmerman, the shooter who killed Trayvon.

(photos: top, @occupywallst; inset, @xLovePatricia)

Family Restaurant, film for kids with gay / lesbian parents

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:00:41 +0000

Boing Boing pal and periodic guestblogger Andrea James sends word of a cool and worthy project she's doing, and raising funds for via Kickstarter: "Family Restaurant," a film for children whose moms and/or dads are LGBT.

"There are very few family-friendly films where kids with gay or lesbian parents can enjoy a fun story that reflects their own lives," Andrea says, "I think it's going to be pretty cute and a teensy bit controversial. All art is political!"

From Andrea's project description:

"Family Restaurant" celebrates young children with gay or lesbian parents. It shows them a magical world filled with cute characters who reflect their family lives. Set in a family restaurant, it features talking ketchup and mustard bottles among the colorful residents of the diner. It has a mix of puppetry and actors, including a number of real children with gay or lesbian parents.
I serve on the Board of Directors of Outfest, a prominent LGBT film festival. Each year, Outfest has a family day for children to watch movies, but there are very few family-friendly films where these kids can enjoy a fun story that reflects their own lives. It's time to make something specifically for these wonderful children, with a story that's charming enough to appeal to all young people.

Pitch in or learn more here.

Revealed! Kony 2012's sinister Musical Comedy roots

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:21:27 +0000

From the first time I watched "Kony 2012," I always sensed a link with the storyline of Matt Stone and Trey Parker's Book of Mormon musical. But sweet fancy Moses, I did not know how closely linked the two truly were.

Aaron Stewart-Ahn tells us about the video above (which has been taken down by Invisible Children, but mirrored elsewhere):

Here's where the money has been going to: Invisible Children founder Jason Russell's vanity dance musical numbers which start off with exploitative footage of suffering children. How did no one else catch this? It makes the Kony 2012 video look subtle and sane. He's basically using this to fund his desire to make Glee.
This is where the millions are being spent: vanity musicals. Did Trey Parker write this??!! Russell has mentioned repeatedly how his ambitions were to make musicals. He intimated that he was going to make the musical popular again á la Glee, but this didn't work out—so he ended up in advocacy. It was that chat at the evangelical conference. So, here's a direct youtube link to 9m 10secs in the video where he talks about making musicals, and casually talks about his dream of documenting genocide.
That bit with the t-shirt with the African child on it is just... I'm speechless. Wonder why they've removed it from their YouTube channel, since it looks so damn expensive? It's insane, isn't it? I mean, seriously: it makes Scientology videos look charmingly naive.

UK funnyman Charlie Brooker has a bit of fun with Invisible Children and the Kony 2012 viral phenomenon, in the video embedded below.

Bonus round, below. Brooker asks, "Can ANYONE explain how this EPIC visual embarrassment helps Africa? OH GOD THERE'S MORE. Also: how much did this cost, did donations fund it, and what the TWIRLING FUCK does it mean?"

[Video Link]

(thanks, @maureenjohnson and others!)

At SXSW, homeless people become WiFi hotspots

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:49:23 +0000

[Video Link]

Over the weekend, I noticed that David Gallagher of The New York Times observed in Austin, "Homeless people have been enlisted to roam the streets wearing T-shirts that say 'I am a 4G hotspot.”

A number of other folks I follow on Twitter who are attending the annual SXSW event there mentioned it, too, with concern. Here's the project's website, detailing their system to PayPal each "homeless hotspot" person directly. "We suggest $2 per 15 minutes."

The project was created by a team at global ad agency BBH.

Jon Mitchell at RWW has more. The problem, as he sees it:

The Homeless Hotspots website frames this as an attempt "to modernize the Street Newspaper model employed to support homeless populations." There's a wee little difference, though. Those newspapers are written by homeless people, and they cover issues that affect the homeless population. By contrast, Homeless Hotspots are helpless pieces of privilege-extending human infrastructure. It's like it never occurred to the people behind this campaign that people might read street newspapers. They probably just buy them to be nice and throw them in the garbage.

Tim Carmody at Wired News has more about the project's roots, and why he and others find it troubling:

This is my worry: the homeless turned not just into walking, talking hotspots, but walking, talking billboards for a program that doesn’t care anything at all about them or their future, so long as it can score a point or two about digital disruption of old media paradigms. So long as it can prove that the real problem with homelessness is that it doesn’t provide a service.

Homeland Security memo warned of violent threat posed by Occupy Wall Street

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:10:40 +0000

An October, 2011 Department of Homeland Security memo on Occupy Wall Street warned of the potential for violence posed by the "leaderless resistance movement." (via @producermatthew).

Update: Looks like there's a larger Rolling Stone feature on this document:

As Occupy Wall Street spread across the nation last fall, sparking protests in more than 70 cities, the Department of Homeland Security began keeping tabs on the movement. An internal DHS report entitled “SPECIAL COVERAGE: Occupy Wall Street [PDF]," dated October of last year, opens with the observation that "mass gatherings associated with public protest movements can have disruptive effects on transportation, commercial, and government services, especially when staged in major metropolitan areas." While acknowledging the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of OWS, the report notes darkly that "large scale demonstrations also carry the potential for violence, presenting a significant challenge for law enforcement."

Inside Kabul: landmine survivor aid activist live-blogs from lockdown in Afghanistan

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:44:48 +0000

I've known of James Hathaway and the NGO he co-founded, Clear Path International, for many years. They do great work to help civilian survivors of landmine blasts, people who now have disabling injuries, live better lives through medical care, education, improved mobility and access, and other forms of support. Clear Path originally focused their efforts in Vietnam, but have since expended into other conflict/post-conflict zones including Cambodia and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, James says, is “by far our largest project,” with work ongoing in 19 of the country's 34 provinces. James returned to Kabul to work with the CPI team there, just as the security situation abruptly escalated to a new level of crisis.

James and crew are spending a lot of time with bulletproof vests on, in safe rooms, and surrounded by very heavily armed security guys. James is blogging daily, and explains why he's there and what they're trying to accomplish in the following account, republished here in entirety with permission.

Why I Am Here in Kabul, Afghanistan
James Hathaway, Clear Path International

Seven years ago this month I was a guest blogger on my old friend Tom Peters’ blog. He had asked me to guest-post while I took a nearly two-month journey across southeast Asia to visit all of our existing project sites. CPI was just five years old and we had really started to hit our stride with projects having already aided, in ways both large and small, well over a thousand people in Vietnam, Cambodia and along the Thai-Burma border.

On this trip, as I re-enter Clear Path International after three years away, I have a lot to learn about what has become our biggest and most complicated project: Clear Path Afghanistan.

The Clear Path International office in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The CPI Kabul office, in partnership with the US Department of State’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement provides assistance to landmine survivors and other people with disabilities by providing physical accessibility ramps to clinics, schools, government buildings, and mosques, which are often the most important sites in communities across Afghanistan. CPI supports disability resource centers for developing vocational skills and accessing peer support and assistance from disability advocates, none of which would otherwise be available to the beneficiaries here. CPI has expanded access to physical therapy services and physical rehabilitation, too. One of the most requested kinds of project activities in this extremely deprived environment is livelihood training to promote economic reintegration of accident survivors. CPI has been supporting these as well, always with the inclusion of literacy and numeracy education as a component. We even sponsor a first-rate cricket team made up entirely of landmine survivors and young menwith other physical disabilities. They routinely play against, and beat, teams of all able-bodied competitors.

We do this with a number of Afghan partners located in 19 out of 34 provinces across the country. While I can’t name all of our projects and partners in this post, I want to highlight a few in the hopes that, as I post more, I will eventually touch on all of them.

Afghan SPARK

SPARK is an evolution of a project originally conceived in 2008 by Clear Path International, and employs disabled deminers and mine survivors to produce the equipment necessary for active deminers to carry out their essential work with increased safety.

Revenue generated from demining tool sales directly supports other victim assistance projects. SPARK products are locally available and often cost significantly less than other suppliers, which are generally sourced from outside Afghanistan.

Afghan Landmine Survivors Organization (ALSO)

CPI partners with ALSO in providing accessibility ramps, social reintegration services, and awareness raising projects for disabled persons.

Their mission statement: To promote living situation of persons with disabilities by providing peer support/psychosocial support, education, economic inclusion, and rehabilitation services.
To promote the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities by advocating the Afghan decision makers to implement the victim assistance provisions of the Mine Ban Treaty and domestic laws and policies, and to ratify and implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Afghan Disabled Vulnerable Society Cricket Team

The name is awkward, but these guys can play cricket!

From a previous post on the CPI blog:

“The team was created by CPI’s partner, Afghan Disabled Vulnerable Society (ADVS), to provide sports activities for youth with physical challenges, and to change public perceptions about the role of disabled persons in the community. Most of the players live in Jalalabad City, the bustling epicenter of the province near the Pakistan border. They are landmine survivors, young men who have contracted polio, or who’ve suffered in other ways from violence or disease related to war and the lack of medical care.

And yet they excel at competitive cricket. These men have played together for more than two years, having won several matches against teams without a single disabled player. In February, they won the overall trophy in a five-team tournament in Jalalabad. Over three days, they defeated each of the opposing teams. In September, they repeated their success against an entire board of teams without any disabled players, in northern Kunduz Province, by winning the four day tournament and taking home the overall first place trophy.”

Read the rest of the post here.

On the trip I took seven years ago, I met with three young children injured by ordnance left over from the Vietnam war. In my post I said that I believed they would all thrive someday thanks to CPI’s good work and the generosity of our donors. I am glad to report that they have. The CPI Vietnam office sent me pictures of two of them (Ha and Nghia) now with children of their own. I was moved to tears. I am proud that, also because of CPI’s good work and the generosity of its donors, the organization itself has grown up as well.

Much like our Vietnam team did over a decade ago, Clear Path Afghanistan is staffed by a team so good that they have changed the game.

I am both thrilled and humbled to be back on the team.

You can donate to our work, and I hope you will, at www.cpi.org.

The invisible genocide of women

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:37:42 +0000

Video Link.

The recently-launched Women Under Siege website is a new project of the NYC-based Women’s Media Center, and features a number of powerful essays and features by women, about sexual violence against women. There's an account by CBS News correspondent Lara Logan, who survived a sexual assault while covering uprisings in the Middle East; another about covering sexualized war in Congo by Lynsey Addario, who survived the same.

In this post, I'd like to draw special attention to a feature on the site about a subject with which I have personal familiarity: violence against indigenous women in Guatemala. Though the country's long civil war is over, the femicidio is not. Snip:

More than 100,000 women were raped in the 36 years of the Guatemalan genocide in which at least 200,000 people died. In this video, photojournalists Ofelia de Pablo and Javier Zurita interview survivors and document the ongoing forensic and legal investigation that has just indicted former Guatemalan President Efraín Ríos Montt.

There are so many powerful stories on the Women Under Siege website. Below, a photo by Ms. Addario, from Congo: "Lwange, 51, with her daughter, Florida, who had been raped the week before this photo was taken in 2008. The child had screamed at the time, then bled. With her vagina and her young psyche damaged, Florida would no longer speak."

All is not well in Greece

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:03:57 +0000

A gasoline bomb explodes at riot police during a huge anti-austerity demonstration in Athens' Syntagma (Constitution) square February 12, 2012. Historic cinemas, cafes and shops went up in flames in central Athens on Sunday as black-masked protesters fought Greek police outside parliament, while inside lawmakers looked set to defy the public rage by endorsing a new EU/IMF austerity deal. Below, a protester hurls rocks at riot police; another flees.

(photos: REUTERS)

Project Unbreakable

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:05:47 +0000

Grace Brown created "Project Unbreakable" in October, 2011, and the tumblog appears to really be gathering momentum. The idea: "Use photography to help heal those who were sexually abused by asking them to write a quote from their attacker on a poster and photographing them holding the poster."

So many stories from so many different people. Men, too, not only women. I was so moved by this post, which includes both a photograph and an audio narrative by an elderly woman who was sexually abused as a 12-year-old girl during World War II in Germany. Do listen to her story.

"You can never forget it. It is in your brain, marked like a stamp," she says. "I still suffer from it."

(via Jay Rosen)

In Russia, tiny protest sparks big police response: LEGO minifigs, South Park dolls, and Wall-e demonstrate for democracy

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:38:19 +0000

(Photo above: RFE-RL; below, Ivan Krupchik.)

Authorities in Russia are investigating the legality of a "doll demonstration" demanding "clean elections" in the Siberian city of Barnaul, and looking for the humans responsible.

Russian news agency RIA Novosti reports that Russia's police "[arrest] anyone, young or old, who takes part in an "unsanctioned" opposition rally"—so, some citizens in Barnaul created a protest tableau composed of dolls, instead.

Lego minifigs, South Park ("Team America"?) characters, stuffed dollies, Shreks, gnomes, elves, and Wall-e robots carrying protest placards were placed on an icy ledge in the town's center on January 7 and 14. This act followed police crackdowns on two protests by normal-sized people back in December. The focus of all the protests, large and small? Political corruption, and the results of Russia's parliamentary elections.

From RIA Novosti:

Most of the figurines held up little signs affixed to toothpicks with satirical messages on them, such as "146%", in reference to a southern region where state television inadvertently reported a 146 per cent turnout in recent elections. Other toys held caricatures of the Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, and President Dmitry Medvedev.
The victory of Mr Putin's United Russia Party in last month's parliamentary polls, amid allegations of fraud, brought tens of thousands of protesters onto Moscow's streets. The government seemed to realise it could not take the usual repressive action against the demonstrators in the capital, but in Barnaul authorities "did everything possible" to block protests, Andrei Teslenko, one of the organisers, said.
That's when the activists set up the toy protests. "The authorities are blocking our constitutional rights to peaceful protests, but they haven't yet got as far as limiting the rights of toys," he said.

Photographer Ivan Krupchik has an extensive series of photos up on his LiveJournal (including the Wall-e shot above, and the LEGO detail below in this post).

More: MSNBC News, Radio Free Europe,Independent (UK), UK Guardian.

(thanks, Martin Hodgson)

Colbert explains how to deal with Internet censorship protests

Dean Putney — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:35:37 +0000

Stephen Colbert provides some perspective on the net-wide blackouts yesterday, as well as some alternatives in case the Internet needs to stand up for itself again. Now I've got to find that video of Vader eating cheesy bread...

PIPA/SOPA understanding and action: flowchart edition

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:12:45 +0000

Joey Sellers sez, "I know you've been covering PIPA-SOPA and wanted to share a large flowcart I just completed on the subject. It brings together a slew of material to get folks new to the subject up to speed and fill in the blanks for those who have been following it."

Super PIPA-SOPA Flowchart (Thanks, Joey!)

Activists alter 85 BofA ATMs in SF to become "Automated Truth Machines"

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:12:32 +0000

Rainforest Action Network claims responsibility for the art-prank intervention.

RAN activists took to the streets of San Francisco last night and turned every Bank of America ATM in the city into an Automated Truth Machine. The activists used special non-adhesive stickers designed to look exactly like BoA’s ATM interface. But instead of checking and savings accounts, these new menus offered a list of everything BoA customers’ money is being used for, including investment in coal-fired power plants, foreclosure on Americans’ homes, bankrolling of climate change, and paying for fat executive bonuses.

(Via Mother Jones)

Senate set to pass bill that redefines America as a "battlefield," authorizes indefinite military detention of US citizens without charge or trial

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:41:13 +0000

The US Senate's Defense Authorization Bill redefines America as a "battlefield" and authorizes US troops to conduct military arrests of civilians on US soil, and to indefinitely detain citizens without charge or trial. The ACLU wants you to write to your senator and demand that this insanity not pass.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.
The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.
I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn’t anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?

Senators Demand the Military Lock Up American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window (via JWZ)

Occupy News Bins: miniature Lego OWS, complete with pepper-spraying cop

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 21:40:25 +0000

"No property was harmed during this installation," DocPop tells us about this hilarious teeny-tiny Lego Occupy. "From what I understand the piece has already been removed though I don't know by whom."

Egypt police detain, beat, sexually assault US-based journalist Mona Eltahawy; other journalists also targeted

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:30:02 +0000

[video link] US-based Egyptian blogger, speaker, and journalist Mona Eltahawy was released today after spending 12 hours detained by Egyptian security forces in Cairo. According to her tweets, she was arrested by riot police while observing the ongoing protests in Tahrir Square, where thousands of Egyptian citizens are calling for the military junta SCAF to be disbanded, and a representative, democratically-elected leadership to take their place.

While she was held, Mona managed to tweet from a fellow detainee's Blackberry that she had been beaten and was in prison. When she was released, Mona tweeted more details: she had been sexually and physically assaulted, and sustained a broken arm and a broken hand from beatings inside the interior ministry in Cairo, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

"The whole time I was thinking about article I would write," she writes, "Just you fuckers wait."

A number of journalists and well-known voices from Twitter have been detained in the last few days, including Egyptian-American documentary maker Jehane Noujaim, and Maged Butter, shown below (WARNING: graphic image):

More details from Mona's tweet-stream over the last few hours:

I AM FREE
12 hours with Interior Ministry bastards and military intelligence combined. Can barely type - must go xray arms after CSF pigs beat me.
A thousand thanks for all well wishes and support. Fuck #EgyPolice.
I can barely imagine what my family and loved ones were going through those 12 hours-I know they were worried about me to begin with. Sorry
Thank God a political activist in MOI with me lent me his phone to tweet. Right after my tweet his battery died
5 or 6 surrounded me, groped and prodded my breasts, grabbed my genital area and I lost count how many hands tried to get into my trousers.
They are dogs and their bosses are dogs. Fuck the Egyptian police.
Yes sexual assault. I'm so used to saying harassment but those fuckings assaulted me. #CSF
@Sarahngb is coming to kindly take me to the hospital. Besides beating me, the dogs of CSF subjected me to the worst sexual assault ever
Didn't want to go with military intelligence but one MP said either come politely or not. Those guys didn't beat or assault me.
Instead, blindfolded me for 2 hrs, after keeping me waiting for 3. At 1st answered Qs bec passport wasn't w me but then refused as civilian
Another hour later I was free with apology from military intelligence for what CSF did. Took pics of my bruises and recorded statement
On sexual assault and said would investigate it and said they had no idea why I was there. Then who does??! WTF!
The past 12 hrs were painful and surreal but I know I got off much much easier than so many other Egyptians.
God knows what wuld've happened if I wasn't dual citizen (tho they brought up detained US students) & that I wrote/appeared various media.
#Egypt must be free of those bastards
Military intelligence blindfolded me for 2 hrs. Didn't want 2 go with them but 1 said I either go politely or else. 3 hrs later,
My Cairo phone got lost during my beating so no calls there
I was arrested alone and I didnt know that @MagButter was arrested too. Glad to hear he was released as well
My left arm and right hand are broken acc to xrays

More on US involvement in her release, from the Guardian:

A US embassy representative in Cairo told the Guardian that the reports of her detention were "very concerning" and that "US embassy consulate officers are engaging Egyptian authorities".

An AP/MSNBC item on the story is here.

PHOTO: The face of bravery. Mona, having just received medical treatment after being released from prison, tweeted this photo of her casts an hour ago.

UPDATE: There are now reports of other women, possibly a female journalist from France, being stripped and sexually attacked at Tahrir.

Interview with a pepper-sprayed UC Davis student

Xeni Jardin — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 09:58:45 +0000

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

22-year-old UC Davis student W. (name withheld by request) was one of the students pepper-sprayed at point-blank range Friday by Lt. John Pike while seated on the ground, arms linked and silent.

W. tells Boing Boing that Pike sprayed them at close range with military-grade pepper spray, in a punitive manner. Pike knew the students by name from Thursday night when they "occupied" a campus plaza. The students offered Pike food and coffee and chatted with him and other officers while setting up tents. On Friday, UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi told students they had to remove their #OWS tents for unspecified "health and safety" reasons.

"Move or we're going to shoot you," Pike is reported to have yelled at one student right before delivering pepper spray. Then, turning to his fellow officers and brandishing the can in the air, "Don't worry, I'm going to spray these kids down."

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

XJ: So, we see in the videos and photos that you were one of the students pepper-sprayed by Lieutenant John Pike yesterday. How are you doing today?

W: I still have a burning sensation in my throat, lips and nose, especially when I start coughing, or when I'm lying in bed. Everyone who got sprayed has sustained effects like this.

XJ: Can you tell us how it happened, from where you were sitting?

W: I'd pulled my beanie hat over my eyes, to protect my eyes. I received a lot of pepper spray in my throat. I vomited twice, right away, then spent the next hour or two dry heaving. Someone said they saw him spray down my throat intentionally, but I was so freaked out, and I was blinded by my hat, so I can't verify. I did get a large quantity of pepper spray in my lungs.

Another girl near me who has asthma had an attack triggered by the pepper spray, and she was taken to the hospital.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

He used military grade pepper spray on us. It's supposed to be used at a minimum of 15 feet. But he sprayed us at point blank range. Another student, 20 years old, who was sprayed and then arrested—instead of receiving medical care for the pepper spray exposure, he was made to wait in the back of a police car. His hands were sprayed, and he had intense burning in his hands throughout the evening while he was being held. He asked a police officer what they could do to stop it, and they refused to give any advice.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

XJ: Take us back to what led up to that moment. Friday's protest wasn't an isolated expression, or the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street movement on the university campus, right?

W: We'd been protesting at UC Davis for the last week. On Tuesday there was a rally organized by some faculty members in response to the brutality on the UC Berkeley campus, and in response to the proposed 81% tuition hike.

One of the reasons I am involved with #OWS, and advocating for an occupy movement on the UC campus, is to fight privatization and austerity in the UC system, and fight rising tuition costs. I think that citizens have the right to get an education regardless of economic condition. Most people are not going to get a job where they can afford to pay off student loans. But to exclude people from knowledge is unconscionable.

The #OWS movement is global, but it's expressed locally in ways that are relevant to each city. People who are in NYC go to Wall Street. Oakland takes the port. At Davis, we have a university.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

So the Tuesday protest was one of the biggest rallies on the campus since tuition hikes in 2009. That protest ended with a march around the campus, which led us to the administrative building. Sort of spontaneously, we all decided to occupy an area on the grounds and we stayed the night. The administration allowed it. I had a wonderful conversation with Lieutenant Pike that night. I dialogued with him for a while. He was cordial to me. He knew me by name. We offered him coffee and food.

We have a food collective, and we are organizing to feed the occupiers with food we grow at the student farm. It was all really lovely.

On Wednesday there was the big protest in San Francisco, and striking at the UC regents meeting over the proposed 81% tuition increase next year. The regents actually canceled their meeting because they knew we were coming, and they have since decided to do it by teleconference next Monday so we can't disrupt them.

UC Davis police cleared out the 15 or so protesters who remained in Mrak Hall while the rest of the occupiers had left for the demonstration in San Francisco.

We had another rally on Thursday, with a big General Assembly. We decided to have an occupation against the injustices we were facing, and on Thursday night there were 35 tents set up, with more planning on coming.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

It was beautiful. We we had food, we sang songs, students were tutoring other students. We were talking about important issues, dialoguing over issues affecting our campus.

Chancellor Katehi agreed to let us waive the "no camping on campus" policy that night, and allowed us to stay there.

That same night, we went to the associated students of UC Davis student government meeting on campus, and we asked them for a resolution for peaceful protest without police intervention. We wrote it, they passed it, and we now had the support of the student body to have this protest, which was great.

The next morning we woke up, made breakfast, and had a lovely morning.

Pretty early on, before noon we got a letter from chancellor Katehi to please remove our tents, citing health and safety reasons, but not saying what those reasons are.

We took the letter, and replied more or less: look, we understand we're in violation of the camping code. But we believe that this is superseded by our first amendment rights.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

On Friday, they delivered another letter: at 3pm your tents will be taken down. This letter was not signed, it was just one paragraph in a big ugly font. Not on letterhead.

"We are demanding you remove these tents by 3pm," it read, "You need to move to another area on the campus so we can remove these tents, and if you do not comply you will be arrested."

We talked amongst ourselves, and decided that we were going to stay. We spent the next few hours talking about tactics so our tents wouldn't get stolen. Maybe we'd go to the Occupy City of Davis camp, and just keep migrating so they couldn't take us down.

And then, at around 330pm Friday, riot police. A lot of them showed up. We saw them and put our tents in the middle of the area. We'd been keeping the paths clear keeping space immaculately clean, feeding everyone who was hungry who came by... we tried to talk to the campus groundskeepers and tell them that we understood they need to do their job. We offered to move our tents so they could water the lawn. We wanted not to disrupt unnecessarily.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

When the riot police came, we put our tents in a circle. We walked around in a circle, and said nothing hateful towards the police. Maybe one guy chanted, "Fuck the police" a few times, but it died down right away. None of us wanted to chant against the police.

And then the police officers rushed in.

We were chanting so loud we couldn't hear any order to disperse. And with no warning, moving incredibly violently, they seized a few students.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

They handcuffed the students so tightly. One kid, later on they were unable to cut off his ties, they'd been tied so tight. One of the other students couldn't feel his hands they were so purple, his circulation was cut off so badly for so long. He took himself to the hospital after he was released from the zip-tie restraints. They told him he had nerve damage and not to expect to be able to feel his hands for the next week. He has to come back next week to see if there was permanent nerve damage in his wrists.

We came back to the area after that round of arrests. That's when the recording for most of the video you see on the internet was started.

We yelled, "clear these tents," we didn't want them to take our tents. Aside from refusing the order to disperse, the only rule we were breaking was camping on campus. But since we had the first night waived by Chancellor Katehi, we really hadn't even broken university policy, she waived the code.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

So, everyone removed the tents, and they were in the process of arresting more people. A collective decision was made on the fly to just sit in a circle arms linked legs crossed, with police officers and "prisoners" in the middle because we didn't want them arresting only 3 of us. It wasn't fair that 50 of us were there, and only a few arrested who hadn't volunteered to be arrested. There was still one walkway open that the police were going to use to walk the arrestees out. I saw some friends of mine sit down there, and they were my friends, so I joined them. We linked arms, legs crossed.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

We were never warned that we were going to be pepper-sprayed.

Lt. Pike walked up to my friend, and I am told that he said, "Move or we're going to shoot you."

Then he went back and talked to a few of his police officer friends. A couple of other officers started to remove people who were sitting there, blocking exit. Pike could have easily removed us, just picked us up and removed us. We were just sitting there, nonviolent civil disobedience.

But Pike turned around and I am told that he said to the other officers, "Don't worry about it, I'm going to spray these kids down."

He lifts the can, spins it around in a circle to show it off to everybody.

Then he sprays us three times.

As if one time of being sprayed at point blank wasn't enough.

I was on the end of the line getting direct spray. When the second pass came, I got up crawling. I crawled away and vomited on a tree. I was yelling. It burned. Within a few minutes I was dry heaving, I couldn't breathe. Then, over the course of the next hour, I was dry heaving and vomiting.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

More people were arrested, then. One other person told me he was pepper sprayed while he was on the ground subdued. They tried to go up his shirt, because he'd pulled his shirt over his face to protect himself. So they aimed it up his shirt to spray him, to make sure he got it.

XJ: Chancellor Katehi finally gave a press conference tonight about that incident.

W: I was the first one there. I went right up to her and introduced myself. "I'm an undergrad here. I'm a victim of police brutality," I told her. "The police sprayed pepper spray down my throat. I do not feel you have done your job protecting me on your campus. I hold you personally responsible for inflicting pain on me."

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

XJ: What do you want from Katehi, and the UC system?

W: I can't speak on behalf of the movement, I can only speak on behalf of myself. But I personally request that Chancellor Katehi and Lt. John Pike resign. We have a petition out there already. I request that a mechanism be set up for the impeachment of chancellors, and a system for democratic election of our chancellors. There is no good reason why students and faculty don't make that decision. Even when a chancellor makes a decision likes this, they feel safe, because they've been appointed by the regents, and the goal of the regents is to make more money. They sit on the boards of big institutions like Bank of America, they are the richest of the 1%, and they're using this institution to fatten their pockets and they're putting students into debt to do that.

There will be a large rally on Monday at UC Davis, and I invited her to take part in our GA, if she's willing to speak to us on our terms and operate on consensus method with no power dynamics.

She made a promise right there, on video, to come to our meeting.

I think she has done a terrible misdeed and that she and Pike should resign immediately so we can figure out a better way to run this institution.

XJ: Any final thoughts you'd like to share with the world about what this day meant to you?

W: I would like to note the beautiful way that the protest ended. My adrenaline was raging but in between hacking coughs I raised my fist in solidarity with the students peacefully chanting the officers off of the quad. Even in the face of brutality we remained assertively passive. I have no doubt that the world community will come to our aid so that this inclusive movement can not be defeated.

Imagine a chancellor running on the platform of banishing monsanto and defense development from their campus. Or perhaps, a chancellor who was merely a facilitator of a university-wide GA. We cannot let this occupation, or the public's concern over the situation, be limited the police brutality. Police brutality is just a symptom of systemic failure.

Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie.

One day after pepper-spraying, UC Davis students silently, peacefully confront Chancellor Katehi

Xeni Jardin — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 03:45:51 +0000

[Video Link]

I thought I wouldn't see a more dramatic video than the ones yesterday of the pepper-spraying of students by police at UC Davis. I was wrong.

In the video above, UC Davis students, silent, with linked arms, confront Chancellor Linda Katehi just one day after the incident. It's hard to tell exactly how many of them are present, but there they are, a huge crowd. They're seated in the same cross-legged-on-the-ground position their fellow students were yesterday just before Lt. John Pike pulled out a can of pepper spray and pulled the trigger.

Note that Katehi remains silent during what looks like her perp walk. She does not acknowledge the presence of the students. And yet, within an hour she was live on CNN explaining away the pepper-spray incident to host Don Lemon, who had to cut her off a few times because her responses were so long-winded.

Student videographer Anna Sturla shot the video above for the Davis Senior High School's newspaper/website's, The HUB.

More at The Second Alarm blog:

A pretty remarkable thing just happened. A press conference, scheduled for 2:00pm between the UC Davis Chancellor and police on campus, did not end at 2:30. Instead, a mass of Occupy Davis students and sympathizers mobilized outside, demanding to have their voice heard. After some initial confusion, UC Chancellor Linda Katehi refused to leave the building, attempting to give the media the impression that the students were somehow holding her hostage. A group of highly organized students formed large gap for the chancellor to leave. They chanted “we are peaceful” and “just walk home,” but nothing changed for several hours. Eventually student representatives convinced the chancellor to leave after telling their fellow students to sit down and lock arms.
ME: Chancellor, do you still feel threatened by the students?
KATEHI: No.
One of the students pepper sprayed yesterday, a young man wearing a brown down coat over a tie-dye shirt, said he met with Kotehi and personally showed her a video of pepper spraying attack. Speaking to about a thousand students with the “human mic,” the young man said he personally asked for her resignation.

More about yesterday's pepper-spraying videos, from Brian Stelter at the New York Times:

Some protesters were hospitalized afterward, according to local reports. Ten were arrested. Interviewed at a hospital by a local newspaper, The Davis Enterprise, one of the protesters, Dominic Gutierrez, said that he had been sprayed while trying to shield others.
“When you protect the things you believe in with your body, it changes you for good. It radicalizes you for good,” he said.

Boing Boing reader Sarah Messbauer, in the comments for this blog post, writes:

So proud to say that I was there tonight. The greatest words are those left unspoken, and I sincerely hope Katehi got the message.

And Boing Boing reader William Fertman, who was also there tonight, sends in the reassuring news that the revolution comes with pizza:

I was there about an hour and a half before the walk of shame, and at the time, there were maybe 100-200 students there, very respectful and committed to non-violence.
The gathering outside the building (named, ironically enough, Surge II) occurred because the students assembled to hear the press conference Katehi was to give at 4pm. When it was announced that the conference was press-only, the students quickly organized in protest, demanding to hear her explanations in person.
At ~4:30, it was announced that the press conference was cancelled. Students were admitted by staff into the building through a back door, and assembled peacefully inside some office space, but outside the studio where the presser was being held.
There was some chanting and use of the human microphone, but the students remained admirably peaceful and respectful. After demanding the conference be moved to a larger venue so students could witness it, they left the building and re-assembled outside to await Katehi's exit.
It was quarter of 6 when I left, and the students had already decided to permit Katehi to leave in silence, and formed a pair of human corridors at both doors of the building. It was an impressive display of maturity and thoughtful protest.
And after that, pizza.

[Video Link]

After pepper-spraying incident, UC Davis redesigns website

Xeni Jardin — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 03:07:17 +0000

Link. They might want to rethink that motto, however. (thanks, @justinq!)

Police officer pepper-sprays seated, non-violent students at UC Davis

Memo to American Bankers Association from lobbyists spells out $850,000 anti-OWS plan

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:47:23 +0000

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" broke the story today of a memo by Washington D.C. lobbyists to the American Bankers Association on how to go about discrediting the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is evidently perceived as a powerful threat to the interests of the financial industry.

The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association. CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead.
According to the memo, if Democrats embrace OWS, “This would mean more than just short-term political discomfort for Wall Street. … It has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye.”
The memo also suggests that Democratic victories in 2012 should not be the ABA’s biggest concern. “… (T)he bigger concern,” the memo says, “should be that Republicans will no longer defend Wall Street companies.”

Here's more, and here is the PDF of the actual memo.

Wanted: your books in Brooklyn, today, to rebuild a new "People's Library"

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:37:10 +0000

Image: Cory Doctorow. The OWS library on Nov. 14, one day before NYPD destroyed it.

Brooklynites, do you have books to contribute to a new "People's Library"? Maria Popova [you should follow her on Twitter] writes,

Hey Xeni, thanks to your BoingBoing piece on the #OWS library, my friend Liz Danzico (@bobulate) and I are doing an impromptu #OWS Bookmobile tour to help rebuild the library. We're starting with our own book from our piles of press copies and making several stops across Brooklyn starting at 1pm today to pick up other donations, then dropping all the books off at the #OWS library.

Take a stand against bibliocide, Brooklyn!

Iraq war veteran Kayvan Sabehgi beaten by police at Occupy Oakland, left with lacerated spleen

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:50:22 +0000

Video from The Guardian: "Protester and three-tour American veteran Kayvan Sabehgi was beaten by Oakland police during the Occupy protest's general strike on 2 November. Sabehgi, who was 'completely peaceful', according to witnesses, was left with a lacerated spleen."