November, 16 2015, 08:00am EDT
![Fight for the Future](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012623/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Kevin Zeese 301-996-6582, KBZeese@gmail.comÂ
Evan Greer, 978-852-6457, press@fightforthefuture.org
TPP Protest to Blockade US Trade Rep
Kick Off of Campaign to Stop Unpopular Corporate Power Grab
WASHINGTON
A coalition of 63 organizations will hold a series of spectacle actions at multiple sites in Washington, DC to escalate a campaign that will stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
The events will begin on November 16th and go through November 18th. See Call to Action for #FallRising to Stop TPP, TTIP, & TiSA.
The first event will be held at the US Trade Representative building on 17th Street, NW between F and G. It will begin at Farragut Square at 8 AM and then move to the US Trade Representative at 8:30 AM where activists plan to blockade the building in a protest focusing on "TPP Equals Betrayal." Opponents to the TPP will focus on how the TPP betrays healthcare, workers and unions, family farms and safe food, the future of our planet and the future of the Internet.
To follow the protest on twitter follow #TPP, #StopTPP and for a live feed of the action visit @StopMotionsolo
Beginning at 4:30 PM, people will meet outside the US Chamber of Commerce near Lafayette Park for a march through the city. This march will feature luninary toilet paper roles.
The focus of the protests during the rest of the week will be the US Trade Representative, lobbyists for transnational corporations, the White House and Congress. Below is a schedule for the week.
Schedule for Fall Rising Protests Against the TPP
Monday, November 16
8AM - SHUT DOWN the USTR! March to US Trade Rep will begin at Farragut Square and march to US Trade Representative building at 600 17th NW.
4:30 pm -MASS ACTION/MARCH for TRADE JUSTICE! Begins at the Chamber of Commerce 1615 H St., NW for Mass Action/March and Rally to stop the TPP.
Tuesday November 17
11 am - Begins at DuPont Circle for the World is Rising International Solidarity march up Embassy Row! Stops at embassies of countries who are part of the TPP.
5 pm - Hackathon at First Trinity Lutheran Church, 4th and E Sts., NW. CLICK HERE to learn more about the Hackathon.
Wednesday, November 18
Morning - More actions to be announced.
12 pm - Petition delivery to Congress and possible press conference
Afternoon-Evening -- Protest the Dominion Cove Point gas export terminal and refinery being constructed across the street from a residential community in Calvert County, MD. We will travel to the community to join We Are Cove Point and Calvert Citizens for a Healthy Community for no gas exports! Why? TPP and TTIP would increase the export of fracked gas from the US to Japan (TPP) and the EU (TTIP), making it harder to stop gas export (and fracking upstream).
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
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Watchdogs Blame Corporate Concentration for Global IT Outage
"It is long overdue that Microsoft and other Big Tech monopolies are broken up—for good," said one expert.
Jul 19, 2024
Digital rights advocates responded to Friday's havoc-wreaking global technology outage by sounding the alarm on the Big Tech monopolies.
The outage—which is being attributed to a software update by the U.S.-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike—sparked worldwide chaos on Friday, causing so-called "blue screens of death" on computers using Microsoft Windows. The outage grounded commercial flights and caused serious disruptions to transportation, financial, and healthcare systems.
"Today's massive global Microsoft outage is the result of a software monopoly that has become a single point of failure for too much of the global economy," George Rakis, executive director of the advocacy group NextGen Competition, said in a statement.
"For decades, Microsoft's pursuit of a vendor lock-in strategy has prevented the public and private sectors from diversifying their IT capabilities," he continued. "From airports to hospitals to 911 call centers to financial systems, millions today are feeling the consequences of the greed and ego of one of the most egregious offenders in Big Tech."
Emily Peterson-Cassin, who heads Demand Progress' corporate power program, said that "today's outage shows how one software issue stemming from only one or two companies can ground flights, take down hospital systems, stop 911 calls, and cut off access to the internet in one fell swoop."
"Economy-wide reliance on a few giant companies is a serious fundamental risk to Americans," she asserted. "No one regulatory or legislative intervention will prevent this kind of situation, but there are plenty of policies that can reduce the danger. Efforts to empower regulators' ability to tackle the risks posed by concentrated corporate actors are critical to protecting Americans from these kinds of failures."
Bloomberg columnist Parmy Olson—who focuses on tech issues—said that Friday's outage "should spur Microsoft and other IT firms to do more than simply administer a Band-aid."
"The bigger problem is the supply chain itself for cloud computing and, by extension, cybersecurity services, which has left too many organizations vulnerable to a single point of failure," she noted. "When just three companies—Microsoft, Amazon, and Google—dominate the market for cloud computing, one minor incident can have global ramifications."
European Union nations "are furthest ahead in addressing the market stranglehold that these so-called hyperscalers have with the new E.U. Data Act, which aims to lower the cost of switching between cloud providers and improve interoperability," Olson noted.
"U.S. legislators should get in the game too," she argued. "One idea might be to force companies in critical sectors like healthcare, finance, transportation, and energy to use more than just one cloud provider for their core infrastructure, which tends to be the status quo."
"Instead, a new regulation could force them to use at least two independent providers for their core operations, or at least ensure that no single provider accounts for more than about two-thirds of their critical IT infrastructure," Olson added. "If one provider has a catastrophic failure, the other can keep things running."
However, most congressional efforts to rein in Big Tech monopoly power and encourage competition have failed or languished amid opposition and obstruction from lobbyists and corporate lawmakers.
Ultimately, Rakis stressed, "it is long overdue that Microsoft and other Big Tech monopolies are broken up—for good."
"Microsoft has turned a blind eye to cybersecurity vulnerabilities for years and enough is enough," Rakis said. "Not only are these monopolies too big to care, they're too big to manage. And despite being too big to fail, they have failed us. Time and time again. Now, it's time for a reckoning. We can't continue to let Microsoft's executives downplay their role in making all of us more vulnerable."
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The rights group put out a memo detailing how a second Trump administration would "exacerbate inequalities" in the criminal justice system, "harm communities," and "infringe upon our rights and humanity."
Jul 19, 2024
The ACLU on Friday issued a memo warning that a second term for former President Donald Trump would "exacerbate inequalities" in the criminal justice system and laying out plans to push against a potential Republican administration's efforts to do so.
The 14-page memo argues that Trump's agenda would be to expand incarceration, abusive policing practices, and the use of the death penalty, all of which the ACLU, a nonprofit human rights organization, opposes.
"We know from this country's history that these extreme and immoral policies harm communities and infringe upon our rights and humanity," Yasmin Cader, director of the ACLU's Trone Center for Justice and Equality, said in a statement that accompanied the release of the memo. "The ACLU is prepared to meet the Trump administration with the same fierce response as we did during his last term in office should he be reelected."
In our latest memo, we make the case for how a second Trump administration would fuel our mass incarceration crisis and threaten all of our civil rights and civil liberties.
Our legal experts break down what’s at stake for criminal legal reform, and how we’ll work toward changes…
— ACLU (@ACLU) July 19, 2024
Most of the U.S. criminal legal system is run at the state or local level. More than 1.6 million people are incarcerated in state and local jails or prisons, compared to just over 200,000 in the federal system.
However, a second Trump administration would set the "tone" and create a "ripple effect across the country," threatening a "new era of mass incarceration," the ACLU said. The memo warns that Trump would do so in the following ways:
- Escalating punitive, draconian sentencing and incarceration approaches;
- Incentivizing dramatically worse conditions for the nation's 1.9 million incarcerated people;
- Reincarcerating nearly 3,000 people released to federal home confinement during the pandemic; and
- Undermining recent reforms, including the First Step Act.
The memo also argues that Trump encourages police abuses and has made an "open endorsement of authoritarian and violent policing." Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, had the Department of Justice "pull back" on investigations of police abuse, the memo notes.
The ACLU also drew attention to Trump's extreme position on the death penalty. More people were executed by the federal government during his four-year term than had been in any in over a century, and his administration went on what ProPublicacalled a "last-minute killing spree" before his term ended.
Trump's pro-death penalty position dates back decades. In 1989, he took out full-page advertisements in The New York Times and several other city newspapers calling for a reinstitution of the death penalty in New York state following the rape and assault of a jogger in Central Park. Five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongfully convicted of the crime.
"Bring back the death penalty and bring back our police!" the advertisement said in all caps.
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Press freedom groups accused Russia of using Evan Gershkovich as a "pawn" to secure the release of a Russian assassin convicted of murder in Germany.
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Condemning the apparent use of an American journalist as a "pawn" to secure the release of a Russian imprisoned in Germany, press freedom groups on Friday demanded the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security penal colony.
Gershkovich was convicted and sentenced after a secretive and unusually speedy trial, with a court in Yekaterinburg finding him guilty of espionage.
The journalist was detained in March 2023 while he was reporting in Yekaterinburg. Prosecutors accused him of collecting "secret information" about a state-owned factory which manufactures tanks for Russia's war in Ukraine. The factory is located in Nizhniy Tagil, about 87 miles from the city.
Russia accused him of spying on behalf of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which Gershkovich, the Biden administration, and The Wall Street Journal have strongly denied.
Russian officials fueled speculation that Gershkovich had been targeted in order to negotiate a prisoner exchange when they immediately denounced him as a spy after his arrest, without presenting evidence.
During three hearings in recent weeks, journalists were permitted into Sverdlovsk Regional Courthouse only before evidence was presented.
"Targeting Gershkovich in this way is another blatant example of unacceptable state hostage-taking by Russia."
Prosecutors pushed for an 18-year sentence, but their reasoning "faced no public scrutiny and may never be disclosed," reported The Washington Post.
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested in February that Gershkovich could be released for Vadim Krasikov, an assassin associated with Russia's Federal Security Service, who was convicted of murder in Germany for killing a former Chechen separatist commander in Berlin in 2019.
Rebecca Vincent, director of campaigns for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), said Gershkovich had been subjected to a "sham trial" for political purposes.
"The sentencing of Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison is outrageous, and is the result of a trial that cannot be considered fair or free by any means," said Vincent. "This verdict should be immediately overturned. Journalists are not spies, and conflating journalism with espionage has highly dangerous implications for press freedom."
"Targeting Gershkovich in this way is another blatant example of unacceptable state hostage-taking by Russia," she added. "We urge his own government, the United States, to do everything in its power to secure his immediate release and his safe travel home."
Carlos Martinez de la Serna, program director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said Gershkovich's case demands an end to "hostage diplomacy."
"Russia's decision to jail Evan Gershkovich for 16 years on sham charges is outrageous," said Martinez de la Serna. "Journalists are not pawns in geopolitical games."
U.S. President Joe Biden also described the 32-year-old journalist as a "hostage" and said the White House is "pushing hard for Evan's release and will continue to do so."
Several American citizens have been detained in Russia in recent years, raising alarm about Putin's government possibly using the tactic to secure the release of Russians who have been convicted in other countries. Biden secured the release of professional basketball player Brittney Griner in 2022, in exchange for the release of a Russian arms dealer.
Other American citizens imprisoned in Russia include musician Michael Travis Leake, who was sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony on Thursday; Marc Fogel, a teacher who was sentenced to 14 years for drug smuggling in 2022; and Marine veteran Paul Whelan, who was arrested in 2018 and accused of spying.
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