9 WORDS

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help 
 RONALD REGAN

            

The Right to be Forgotten

peterfleischer.blogspot.com

Monday, September 5, 2011

"The Right to be Forgotten", seen from Spain

I'd like to share some personal musings about an interesting series of court cases pending in Spain, pitting the "right to be forgotten" against the right to freedom of expression. The New York Times reported on this debate recently. In a nutshell, the cases ask the question whether people can demand that search engines delete content from their indexes, even if the content is true and the third-party site that published it clearly has the right to publish it (e.g., newspapers).

Virtually everyone uses search engines to find information on the web. There are way over a trillion pages on the web today. To help people find what they're looking for in the vastness of the web, search engines create giant indexes of the web. Search engines are intermediaries, since they don't create, select or edit the content on the web sites they index. Search engines try to match a user's search query with the search results most likely to be relevant, using complex algorithms to rank the likely relevance of a particular webpage. The vast majority of websites want to appear in search engine indexes, but if they don't want to be included in the index, they can use a simple tool, called robots.txt, to opt-out of being indexed by all leading searching engines.

Many websites publish information about people, and sometimes this information can be hurtful to a person's sense of privacy or reputation. For example, government websites or newspapers may publish information about criminal convictions or accusations of medical malpractice. People who feel that information about them was wrongly published by these web sites can always ask them to correct or delete it. But newspapers and government websites usually have published this information legally, or indeed may even be legally obligated to publish it, or may be exercizing their rights of freedom of expression. As search engine intermediaries, Google and other search engines play no role in what these web sites publish, or in deciding whether they should revise or remove content based on someone's privacy claim against them.

That's why I think it's wrong that the Spanish Data Protection Authority has launched over a hundred different privacy suits against Google, demanding that Google delete web sites from its index, even though the original websites that published the information (including Spanish newspapers and Spanish official government journals) published that information legally and continue to offer it.

The legal question is important: should search engines like Google be responsible for the content of the web sites that they index? Should Google be forced to remove links from its search index, in the name of privacy, even if the websites that published it want to be included in its search index and the content is legal? Should search engines be used to make information harder to find, even if the information is legally published?

I have great sympathy with people who feel their privacy has been invaded by a web site that publishes information about them. But search engines shouldn't be asked to delete links to legal content that is published by a third-party website. These cases have sometimes been referred to as about the "right to be forgotten". In fact, these cases are not about deleting or "forgetting" content, but just about making it harder to find content. These cases would make it impossible for users to use search engines to find content that otherwise continues to exist on the web.

It's not hard to imagine the negative consequences for freedom of expression, if search engines could be ordered to delete links to any website that publishes content about a person that is deemed to have invaded someone's privacy. The debate about privacy v freedom of expression is an important and timeless debate, which is becoming more urgent in the age of the Internet. But it's wrong to try to use search engines to try to make legal information harder to find. It's wrong to use search engines as a indirect tool of censorship, since European law rightly holds the publisher of material is responsible for its content. Requiring intermediaries like search engines to censor material published by others would have a profound chilling effect on freedom of expression.

There are better ways to protect privacy online, by remembering that it should be the publisher of content who is responsible for it. Interestingly, the Spanish Data Protection Authority seems to be coming around to this conclusion itself. It recently issued a resolution ordering a website to use the robots.txt protocol to exclude some of its pages from search engine indexes. That's exactly the right approach. Now, the debate will turn to the websites that receive such orders: should they exclude some of their pages from search engine indexes, in the name of privacy, or should they refuse, in the name of freedom of expression? Newspapers worldwide, and in particular their online archives, will soon be in the middle of this debate. I believe that Spanish papers, like El Pais, are now respecting such orders. I would wager that The New York Times wouldn't, based on their reporting on Two German Killers demanding Anonymity Sue Wikipedia's Parent.

This is a difficult debate, and I'm sure that different publishers will come to different conclusions about it. That's how it should be.

a teacher punished a student for saying "bless you."

Thursday, September 29, 2011

SACRAMENTO (KABC) -- There's controversy at a high school near Sacramento after a teacher punished a student for saying "bless you."

A health teacher in Vacaville knocked 25 points from one student's grade for saying "bless you" when another student sneezed in class.

The teacher said his policy has nothing to do with religion - he just doesn't want class time to be disrupted.

"When you sneeze in the old days, they thought you were dispelling evil spirits out of your body. So they were saying, 'God bless you' for getting rid of evil spirits. But today, I said, what you're doing doesn't really make any sense anymore," said teacher Steve Cuckovich.

The school said it doesn't condone the punishment, and many parents agree, saying the teacher doesn't have the right to impose his beliefs on other people.

(Copyright ©2011 KABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

White House Condemns Possible Execution of Iranian Pastor

Iran isnt even going by their own laws in killing this man they must realy hate what he stands for

White House Condemns Possible Execution of Iranian Pastor

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Published September 29, 2011

FoxNews.com

The White House condemned the conviction and possible death sentence for an Iranian pastor who refuses to renounce his Christian faith on Thursday, saying the execution would further demonstrate Iranian authorities "utter disregard" for religious freedom.

Youcef Nadarkhani, 32, who maintains he has never been a Muslim as an adult, has Islamic ancestry and therefore must recant his faith in Jesus Christ, the 11th branch of Iran's Gilan Provincial Court has ruled. Iran's Supreme Court had ordered the trial court to determine whether Nadarkhani had been a Muslim prior to converting to Christianity.

An undated photograph provided by the American Center for Law & Justice shows Yusuf Naderkhani, an Iranian pastor who faces execution for refusing to recant his Christian faith.

"Pastor Nadarkhani has done nothing more than maintain his devout faith, which is a universal right for all people," the statement released by the White House read. "That the Iranian authorities would try to force him to renounce that faith violates the religious values they claim to defend, crosses all bounds of decency, and breaches Iran's own international obligations. A decision to impose the death penalty would further demonstrate the Iranian authorities' utter disregard for religious freedom, and highlight Iran's continuing violation of the universal rights of its citizens. We call upon the Iranian authorities to release Pastor Nadarkhani, and demonstrate a commitment to basic, universal human rights, including freedom of religion."

Attorney Mohammad Ali Dadkhah told The Associated Press on Thursday that his client has appeared before the appeals court over the past four days and expects a ruling by the end of next week. Dadkhah said he believes there's a "95 percent chance" of acquittal for Nadarkhani.

Dadkhah said neither Iranian law nor clerics have ever stipulated the death penalty as punishment for converting from Islam to Christianity.

The judges in the case, according to the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ), demanded that Nadarkhani recant his Christian faith before submission of evidence. Though the judgment runs against current Iranian and international laws and is not codified in Iranian penal code, the judge stated that the court must uphold the decision of the 27th Branch of the Supreme Court in Qom.

When asked to repent, Nadarkhani stated: "Repent means to return. What should I return to? To the blasphemy that I had before my faith in Christ?"

"To the religion of your ancestors, Islam," the judge replied, according to the American Center for Law & Justice.

"I cannot," Nadarkhani said.

An unnamed source close to Nadarkhani's attorney told the American Center for Law and Justice that a judge has agreed to overturn Nadarkhani's death sentence, but the report could not be independently confirmed.

Even if the sentence is overturned, Jordan Sekulow, the executive director of the ACLJ, said the message is that it would be unlikely that Nadarkhani would be set free.

Nadarkhani is the latest Christian cleric to be imprisoned in Iran for his religious beliefs. According to Elam Ministries, a United Kingdom-based organization that serves Christian churches in Iran, there was a significant increase in the number of Christians arrested solely for practicing their faith between June 2010 and January 2011. A total of 202 arrests occurred during that six-month period, including 33 people who remained in prison as of January, Elam reported.

An Assyrian evangelical pastor, Rev. Wilson Issavi, was imprisoned for 54 days for allegedly converting Muslims prior to his release in March 2010, Elam officials told FoxNews.com.

Nadarkhani, a pastor in the 400-member Church of Iran, has been held in that country's Gilan Province since October 2009, after he protested to local education authorities that his son was forced to read from the Koran at school. His wife, Fatemeh Pasandideh, was also arrested in June 2010 in an apparent attempt to pressure him to renounce his faith. She was released in October 2010, according to Amnesty International.

Nadarkhani was sentenced to death for apostasy last September based on religious writings by Iranian clerics, including Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite the fact that there is no offense of "apostasy" in the nation's penal code, Amnesty International reports.

In June, the Supreme Court of Iran ruled that a lower court should re-examine procedural flaws in the case, giving local judges the power to decide whether to release, execute or retry Nadarkhani. The verdict, according to Amnesty International, includes a provision for the sentence to be overturned should Nadarkhani renounce his faith.

Elise Auerbach, an Iranian analyst for Amnesty International USA, told FoxNews.com that an execution for apostasy has not been carried out in Iran since 1990. Nadarkhani's sentence is a "clear violation of international law," she said.

"The key is to keep up the pressure and to publicize the story because it obviously outrages most people," Auerbach said. "It's part of the pattern of persecution based on religion in Iran."

Kiri Kankhwende, a spokeswoman for Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a human rights organization that specializes in religious freedom, told FoxNews.com that Nadarkhani was asked for the fourth time to renounce his faith during a hearing early Wednesday and he denied that request.

"We're waiting to hear the final outcome," she told FoxNews.com. "We're still waiting to hear what they've decided."

Kankhwende said Nadarkhani could be executed Wednesday or Thursday.

"Iran is unpredictable," she said. "We can't say when it might happen. It's a very real threat, but we can't say when exactly."

Officials at the U.S. State Department declined to comment when reached on Wednesday.

House Speaker John Boehner said Nadarkhani's case is "distressing for people of every country and creed," according to a statement released on Wednesday.

"While Iran's government claims to promote tolerance, it continues to imprison many of its people because of their faith," the statement read. "This goes beyond the law to an issue of fundamental respect for human dignity. I urge Iran's leaders to abandon this dark path, spare [Nadarkhani's] life, and grant him a full and unconditional release."

Father Jonathan Morris, a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of New York and an analyst for Fox News Channel, said Nadarkhani's case is "unmistakable evidence" that Iran is executing Christians simply because they refuse to become Muslims.

Morris continued: "Will President Obama, and the free world, allow the United Nations to continue in its cowardly silence on this matter?"

"warrior for the working class"

www.denverpost.com / 28 September 2011

Standing in the parking lot of Abraham Lincoln High on Tuesday, President Barack Obama called himself a "warrior for the working class" in a feisty, campaign-like speech to push his jobs bill.

Oooo my gosh who is he kidding