Thanks, Sascha. I've been delayed on the article due to our work on
Tunisiaand our newest effort in particular, Project Swift Assist. I
was actually
thinking of asking for your input but I'm not sure to what extent
it would
be practical for you to be involved in such things while serving in
yourcurrent role in your particularly country. Suffice to say that
things are
moving rather quickly; here is a press release we've just begun
sending out
regarding a press conference/rally at which I'll be speaking in NYC
thisApril.
Press ReleaseFor Immediate Distribution
January 13th, 2011
An unprecedented coalition of information activists and
organizations have
come together in an effort to advance the ongoing campaign against the
informational tyranny that has been on view as of late in the
context of
Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and Bradley Manning. All three of these
partieshave been subjected to state oppression, without due regard
for the alleged
"rule of law;" all three have been maligned in dishonest and often
bizarreways; all three have earned such treatment by way of having
together ensured
that all of humanity may, for the first time in history, together
learn how
it is that their wealth, loyalty, and lives are being used by those
whoplead national security while having provided no such thing to
their own
citizens and even seizing it from those living elsewhere.
In response to these latest outrages against competence and
decency, our
coalition - comprised of veterans and anti-war groups, a faction of
theAnonymous movement, the distributed think-tank Project PM, and a
loosenetwork of journalists, media professionals, scientists,
former intelligence
and government officials, and related organizations - announces a
stepped-up
campaign of information and direct action that begins tomorrow and
whichwill culminate in a rally and press conference on the steps of
New York City
Hall on April 7th at 3:00 pm. This event, the Rally for Information
Freedom,will be supplemented by a campaign on the part of
Anonymous, Project PM, and
related entities to bring attention to the dozens of significant
storiesthat have been largely ignored due to the unfortunate
dynamics by which too
many media have come to operate. The New York conference -
conceived by
longtime resident activist, Navy veteran, and acclaimed
photographer John
Penley - will feature about a dozen speakers including Penley,
author and
Project PM founder Barrett Brown, key Anonymous activist and Chanology
co-instigator Gregg Housh, and National Lawyer’s Guild executive
directorHeidi Boghosian. Messages from other figures in the pro-
transparencymovement will also be presented in lieu of their
ability to attend.
Never in human history has mankind endured a period in which so
much of the
terminology employed at its end would have been unrecognizable at its
beginning. The last twenty years have changed the landscape in
which man
operates, expanding the potential for human collaboration in such a
way as
to eliminate the barriers that rendered the nation-state a viable
institution. As those barriers fall, so too does the primacy of the
world'sgovernments, which in turn have increasingly found
themselves unable to
maintain the secrecy through which they have run a great portion human
affairs with results that may be politely characterized as mixed. The
various states have responded to these developments with a collective
message to the effect that such secrecy is necessary if they are to
continueoperating without the informed consent of their respective
populations,though this has generally been expressed in slightly
different words.
Meanwhile, several such governments have, through their specific
conduct in
the wake of the last year, provided a timely reminder as to why it
is that
many of those who truly value liberty and morality have lost faith
in those
same governments.
This event is part of an effort to counter the dishonesty and
injustice of
the states which have reacted to such emergent phenomena with
censorship and
persecution while also forging greater coordination among the various
parties that have been fighting on behalf of the cause of
informationalliberty. To this end, a series of meetings both formal
and otherwise will be
held throughout the first week of April; further information will
be relayed
in a second press release in late March.
Confirmed Speakers
John Penley is a Vietnam era Navy vet who was put in solitary
confinement in
1984 by the U.S. government for a past protest at the Savannah
River Nuclear
Weapons Plant. A 59-year-old veteran of New York City housing, anti-
war and
civil rights activism, Penley is also a longtime photojournalist
whose work
has been pubilshed by most NYC major media outlets; his photo
archive is
housed at New York University’s Tamiment Library.
Barrett Brown is a writer and author as well as the founder of
Project PM.
His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Huffington Post, The
Guardian, The
Onion, New York Press, Skeptical Inquirer, American Atheist, and other
outlets. He has been active in the Anonymous movement for several
years and
serves as an advocate for efficient, ethical alternatives to
traditionalmethods of governance.
Gregg Housh is an Internet activist involved with the online non-group
Anonymous. His work has included coordinating global demonstrations
againsthuman rights abuses in the Church of Scientology and
assisting Iranian
members of the Green Movement in reaching the global media. Having
built a
strong sense of trust among several disparate subgroups of
Anonymous, Housh
now acts as a media interpreter for major online initiatives such as
Operation Payback.
Heidi Boghosian is the executive director of the National Lawyers
Guild, a
progressive bar association established in 1937. She is co-host of the
weekly civil liberties radio program Law and Disorder on WBAI, New
York and
over 30 national affiliate stations. She has published several
articles and
reports on policing, protest, and the First Amendment.
Sebastian Gillen is a 21-year-old graduate of Tufts University.
When he was
eight years old, he was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma, a
rare form
of pediatric cancer, and given two weeks to live. More than ten
years later,
he is still cancer-free and an active advocate for childhood cancer
research. He has spoken at rallies on Capitol Hill and Greg
Norman's Shark
Shootout, among other places. He thinks science is totally awesome
and runs
a blog at Weareinthefuture.com and administrates Project PM’s Science
Journalism Program.
Faith Laugier is a musician, artist, activist, and New York native
who’sworked with many of the city’s human rights organizations,
culturalnon-profits, and homeless centers in an effort to advance
the inherent right
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
General Press Inquiries
Barrett Brown
barriticus@gmail.com
(512) 560-2302
On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 1:25 AM, sascha vongehr <vongehr@usc.edu>
wrote:
Dear Barrett,
sorry for abruptly stopping the last time and not getting back to
you -
things here are a little crazy.
In case the being cited on is still relevant: The stuff I said
about Felisa
I put into my newest blog entry, and some of the stuff I wrote
about my own
experience in nanotech I will put into the next entry (maybe in
two or three
days). This is because I am asked to write a four post set for
the IEET
site, and I want to test them first on my blog, see whether
comments can
help me improve them before it goes to the new venue.
Anything that is on my blog already is obviously free to be cited by
anybody.
Some of the other stuff that I wrote about, well, if you should be
interested, we can at some point collaborate in whistle blowing.
The problem
is, right now is not the time and it has to be done carefully, or
it will
just puff away in thin air. I firstly fear having nothing
afterward and
secondly it is strategically unwise if we want to make a positive
and useful
message out of my experiences (which involve also plagiarism and
so on).
How is your article coming along?
Have a great day
Sascha
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Sascha Vongehr (风洒沙)
Department of Philosophy and
National Key Laboratory of Solid-State Microstructures
Dept of Materials Science and Engineering
Nanjing University, Kexue Jishu Guan 324, Hankou Lu 22,
Nanjing, Gulou District, Jiangsu Province 210093, P.R. China
http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme
Alternate mail: vongehr8@yahoo.com
http://cn.LinkedIn.com/in/SaschaVongehr
--
Regards,
Barrett Brown
512-560-2302