“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Dan Gillmor: Get ready: the day we fight back against mass surveillance is coming
Lawmakers must understand that we will no longer tolerate a surveillance state. An online protest on 11 February is a first step
Two years ago, major websites like Google, Reddit and Wikipedia went dark for a day. They were protesting the then-pending “Stop Online Piracy Act,” federal legislation that would have done enormous damage to the open internet by creating system of censorship and deterring digital-media innovators. The 18 January 2012 blackout created an outpouring of opposition from average Americans who suddenly realized what was at stake, and Congress backed off a bill that almost certainly would have passed otherwise.
There won’t be a website blackout next Tuesday, 11 February, but there will be another virtual call to arms. In the US the primary goal this time is to help reverse America’s retreat from liberty by telling lawmakers we can’t abide a surveillance state – and by insisting they vote for a measure, called the USA Freedom Act, that would begin to restore the civil liberties we’ve lost in recent times. (For people outside the US the goal will be similar, to push authorities toward policies favoring liberty and privacy.)
Next week’s protest organizers are calling it “The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance“. They’ve lined up an array of backers of various political persuasions. You don’t often see the American Civil Liberties Union on the same side of an issue as the very conservative FreedomWorks, but they are this time.
Michael Cohen: James Clapper might as well be called director of US fearmongering
There are real threats to the US, but Clapper should be able to talk about them in sober, evidence-based, non-hysterical terms
James Clapper is very worried. It’s not the first time.
Last week the man who serves as America’s Director of National Intelligence trudged up to Capitol Hill to tell the assembled members of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee (pdf) that the annual worldwide threat assessment, put together by the intelligence community, has filled him with dread. [..]
So what precisely is worrying Clapper? There are the old stand-bys like “the scourge and diversification of terrorism” both of the global jihadist and home-grown variety. We’ll simply put aside for a second the fact that significantly more Americans die each year from falling furniture and exponentially more die from freedom … er, [I mean guns v].
Clapper is concerned about “implications of the drawdown in Afghanistan”, which is a nice pivot from a few years ago when Afghanistan was a vital national interest that necessitated a ramp up of US military engagement there v] (pdf). There’s also the “sectarian war in Syria” and “its attraction as a growing center of radical extremism”, which is compelling evidence that Syria is poised to take up the mantle of “[failed state that foreign policy elites are really worried about.”
America has grown a vast and complex regulatory and financial support system for cheap, dirty energy. This isn’t over
Authorities in West Virginia declared the water of 300,000 residents affected by last month’s chemical spill safe to drink on 14 January, just five days after the incident. Since then, a few things have happened. Stop me if you’ve heard them before (but I doubt you have). [..]
To anyone that follows environmental news, this arc is familiar: A human-interest story with an environmental pollution angle breaks through the media chatter. Cable news outlets roll clips of distraught residents. Footage the damage unspools (with or without stomach-turning images of dead or injured wildlife). There is a news conference of dubious utility. Investigative reporters find evidence of previous infractions of safety and environmental regulations. Politicians declare the need for hearings and more strict enforcement. Volunteers show up to help. Sometimes there’s a concert.
Then we move on. We move on despite the fact that the chemical leak was, in some ways, an improvement on the status quo for West Virginians: at least the residents knew there were questions about the water piped into their homes. Most of the time, most West Virginians simply live in the toxic aftermath of the daily release of not-quite-as-verifiably deadly chemicals. The mix of air, water, and soil pollution that is a matter of course in coal mining counties means that children born in those areas have a 26% higher risk of developing birth defects than those born in non-coal-mining counties. That’s not from drinking water that’s been declared contaminated, that’s from drinking water, breathing air, and playing on ground they’ve been told is safe.
Russell Brand: Philip Seymour Hoffman is another victim of extremely stupid drug laws
In Hoffman’s domestic or sex life there is no undiscovered riddle – the man was a drug addict and, thanks to our drug laws, his death inevitable
Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death was not on the bill.
If it’d been the sacrifice of Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber, that we are invited to anticipate daily, we could delight in the Faustian justice of the righteous dispatch of a fast-living, sequin-spattered denizen of eMpTyV. We are tacitly instructed to await their demise with necrophilic sanctimony. When the end comes, they screech on Fox and TMZ, it will be deserved. The Mail provokes indignation, luridly baiting us with the sidebar that scrolls from the headline down to hell.
But Philip Seymour Hoffman? A middle-aged man, a credible and decorated actor, the industrious and unglamorous artisan of Broadway and serious cinema? The disease of addiction recognises none of these distinctions. Whilst routinely described as tragic, Hoffman’s death is insufficiently sad to be left un-supplemented in the mandatory posthumous scramble for salacious garnish; we will now be subjected to mourn-ography posing as analysis. I can assure you that there is no as yet undiscovered riddle in his domestic life or sex life, the man was a drug addict and his death inevitable.
Chris Kluwe: Athletes in Sochi must speak up about Russia’s intolerance. I did it in the NFL
Olympians shouldn’t be silent about abuse against LGBTQ people in Russia. Doing what’s right is better than winning
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), chief benefactor of these big money sponsors, has determined that any athlete speaking out in “accredited areas” against the human rights violations occurring in Russia right now will be found in violation of the Olympic Charter, banned from the games, and stripped of any medals. Corporate sponsorships, the pot of gold at the end of the Olympic rainbow, will disappear. A lifetime spent preparing, training, hour after agonizing hour, will have been for naught if an athlete dares to make a political statement at the wrong time about political events happening in a politicized Olympics; politicized in no small part by the IOC refusing to uphold their own charter when it applies to themselves.
How can the IOC get away with this blatant disregard of their own rules? Easy. The IOC has what Olympic athletes want. Money. Power. Fame. [..]
What is the true price of fame?
The price of fame is being a role model, whether you like it or not, and people are always watching.
The world is watching. The platform is yours.
Nicholas Freudenberg CVS stores will no longer sell cigarettes. It’s the health over profit revolution
The decision to cut tobacco shows that advocates and public opinion can swing the profit-loss calculus in favour of health
The CVS decision announced today to stop selling tobacco products at its 7,600 pharmacies around the United States by 1 October is an important step forward for public health – and for tobacco control activists. [..]
From a public health perspective, the CVS decision is good news because research shows that the ubiquity of unhealthy products contributes to their overuse. The more places people can purchase and consume alcohol, tobacco, sugary beverages, salty snacks and fast food, the more they ingest. Alcohol, tobacco and processed food corporations know that easy access triggers the cravings or addictions their products are designed to elicit. Normally, they vociferously oppose any limits on their right to put their wares within arm’s reach. The decision by the nation’s second largest pharmacy chain to choose a different path shows that public mobilization, changing social norms and regulation can combine to persuade at least some companies to choose the high road.
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