Freedom of the press

Watch the Leaked Documentary the Israel Lobby Didn’t Want You to See

(MPN) — A leaked Al Jazeera documentary detailing the tactics of the Israeli lobby in the United States and elsewhere has revealed that pro-Israel groups regularly invented smears, including false accusations of sexual assault, to discredit professors and students on U.S. university campuses that support equal rights for Palestinians and the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS is […]

How Julian Assange Became the Political Prisoner of Our Time

(CD Op-ed) — Over 7 months have passed since WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was deprived of his ability to communicate with the outside world in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he was granted asylum with the risk of extradition to the US, relating to his organization’s publications. Recently, after UN Special Rapporteurs for Freedom of Expression and […]

In Wake of Synagogue Shooting, Social Media Purge Continues With Removal of Gab

(MPN) — In the wake of the mass shooting at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday, action has been taken to remove an alternative social media network on which the shooter responsible for Saturday’s massacre, Robert Bowers, had posted. The decision comes not long after a coordinated effort by Facebook and Twitter that deleted hundreds of anti-establishment accounts […]

Facebook Purge of Alternative Media “Just the Beginning”: Top Neocon Insider

(GP) — This October, Facebook and Twitter deleted the accounts of hundreds of users, including many alternative media outlets maintained by American users. Among those wiped out in the coordinated purge were popular sites that scrutinized police brutality and U.S. interventionism, like The Free Thought Project, Anti-Media, and Cop Block, along with the pages of journalists like Rachel […]

Assange Should Be Thanked — Not Smeared — for WikiLeaks’ Service to Journalism

(MEE Op-ed) — Twelve years ago this month, WikiLeaks began publishing government secrets that the world public might otherwise never have known. What it has revealed about state duplicity, human rights abuses and corruption goes beyond anything published in the world’s “mainstream” media. After over six months of being cut off from outside world, on 14 October Ecuador has partly […]

Israeli Ambassador to France Slammed for Attempt to Censor News

(ANTIWAR.COM) — Israeli Ambassador to France Aliza bin Noun is under fire for attempts to censor a news report on the situation in the Gaza Strip. The report aired on France 2, despite her demands that it never be aired. The report, titled “Gaza’s disabled teens,” was an investigative story on Palestinian teens who had been crippled by […]

The Facebook Purge of Independent Media: What You’re Not Being Told

Victims of Facebook’s most recent purge should not forget the connections between the social media giant and the Western Military-Industrial Complex. (CR) — On Thursday, Facebook announced they were unpublishing, or purging, over 500 pages and 200 accounts who are accused of spreading political spam. Several of these pages and writers were also removed from Twitter on […]

Ecuador Finally Restores Assange’s Internet, Phone and Visitation Privileges

(ZHE) — Ecuador has partially restored Julian Assange’s communications in their London Embassy after UN officials met with Ecuador’s president, Lenin Moreno on Friday, reports the Belfast Telegraph. Assange, who has lived in the embassy for over six years, had his phone and internet access taken away in March over political statements he made in violation of “a written […]

“Terrifying”: New Documents Reveal Secret Gov’t Rules for Spying on US Journalists

(CD) — Journalists and free press advocates are responding with alarm to newly released documents revealing the U.S. government’s secret rules for using Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court orders to spy on reporters, calling the revelations “important” and “terrifying.” The documents—obtained and released by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University through […]

Watch: Daniel Ellsberg Says Assange, as a Journalist, Can’t Be Tried Under Espionage Act

(CN) — In an interview with Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says the Espionage Act, under which he was indicted, cannot apply to Julian Assange because he is a journalist.  Speaking during an online vigil for Assange organized by Unity4J.com, Ellsberg told Lauria that the motive for U.S. leaders to protect their secrets […]