Anonymous ID: 9e603a May 9, 2018, 1:50 p.m. No.1351111   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1146 >>1343

World Wide Web Inventor Tim Berners-Lee Defends Net Neutrality: ‘I Invented an Open, Permissionless Space’

 

The inventor of the World Wide Web tweeted his support for net neutrality on Wednesday, writing that he created the network as "an open, permissionless space" made for everyone, not just those who can afford to pay.

 

His comment came as Democratic lawmakers pushed colleagues in the Senate to consider new legislation that would put the Federal Communications Commission's decision to end net neutrality under review.

 

"I invented the web as an open, permissionless space #foreveryone. The FCC’s repeal of #NetNeutrality threatens to take that away," wrote computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. "Tell the Senate they must protect net neutrality to keep the web open." He also tagged Senators Lisa Murkowski, John Kennedy and Jeff Flake in the tweet—conservative lawmakers whom supporters believe may swing a potential vote on the issue.

 

http://www.newsweek.com/net-neutrality-ajit-pai-fcc-code-red-world-wide-web-founder-917895

Anonymous ID: 9e603a May 9, 2018, 1:55 p.m. No.1351159   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>1211 >>1453

Abortion Clinics Experiencing Surge in Death Threats, Harassment Under Trump, Study Finds

 

Before Laura Laursen drives to work at a women’s health clinic in southern Illinois, where she provides abortions about once a month when she isn’t performing them as an OBGYN on the University of Chicago’s campus, she first must do some mental preparation. She knows that when she drives up to the clinic, she’ll be met with anywhere between two and two dozen anti-abortion protesters. Some of them will be holding signs with blown-up photos of fetuses, while others may be silently praying, letting it be known that they think Laursen, who’s been an abortion provider for the last two years, will go to hell.

 

Either way, Laursen knows what to do: She avoids the physicians-only parking spaces and makes sure she pulls into a spot different from the one where she parked last time, just in case.

 

“I’ve gotten used to it by now,” Laursen, a fellow at the pro-choice organization Physicians for Reproductive Health, told Newsweek on Tuesday. “But if I were any other kind of physician, this kind of violence and harassment wouldn’t be part of my daily job of providing patients with medical care.”

 

Anti-abortion harassment has become more pronounced under the Trump presidency, according to new findings from the National Abortion Federation. In 2017, abortion providers reported 62 death threats or threats of harm, a number that has nearly doubled since 2016. Instances of trespassing more than tripled in 2017, while incidents of obstruction—protesters blocking providers and patients from entering a clinic—rose from 580 to more than 1,700 in the space of 12 months.

 

Last year also brought the first attempted bombing of an abortion clinic in years, when local police found an “incendiary device” at an Illinois practice in November. (In March, an Illinois attorney charged three men who were also suspected of a Minnesota mosque bombing of the attempted clinic bombing.)

 

“The protesters are feeling emboldened by the political environment and seeing what they could get away with,” Vicki Saporta, the federation’s president, told the Associated Press. “They want to make it more difficult to provide care, without going to very extreme forms of violence.”

 

Over the past year, Laursen has noticed the escalation in violence. A few months ago, she said she checked her office mailbox to find a letter directly addressed to her calling her a “baby killer”—the first time she’s received direct harassment from anti-abortion activists.

“I was really taken aback,” Laursen said. “There wasn’t anything violent in the letter, but it was very nerve-wracking to realize that people know I’m an abortion provider and can reach me if they want.”

 

There were 287 more instances of hate mail, like the letter Laursen received, and harassing calls in 2017, according to NAF’s report.

 

http://www.newsweek.com/abortion-clinics-death-threats-harassment-916184

Anonymous ID: 9e603a May 9, 2018, 2:02 p.m. No.1351220   🗄️.is 🔗kun

EXCLUSIVE: Alleged Top Arms Trafficker Arrested by Interpol in Spain

 

An alleged arms trafficker who has been on the run for close to two decades for arms smuggling and fraud was arrested in an Interpol raid on May 4 in Spain on an Argentine warrant. The French-born Jean-Bernard Lasnaud was wanted in Argentina, where he is accused of arms smuggling and fraud in operations between 1992 and 1995 to sell weapons to Croatia and Ecuador. He is regarded as one of the world’s most infamous arms dealers.

 

According to a May 7 indictment obtained by The Epoch Times, filed in Buenos Aires’ Economic Criminal Court 3, Lasnaud was arrested on a detention order that had been in force since July 17, 2003.

 

It states that he was arrested on the “crime of export smuggling for the removal of customs control, aggravated by the fact that it is war material.”

 

It states Lasnaud could face four to 12 years in prison on at least one of the charges. It can’t be confirmed whether Lasnaud faces additional charges.

 

Lasnaud was previously arrested in May 2002 in Switzerland under the same Argentina request to Interpol and faced 22 years in prison for arms smuggling and abuse of authority before he was let off the hook. In the end, he was not extradited and was instead allowed refuge in the United States—a series of events that was widely attributed to his past as a CIA asset.

 

This time may be different. According to a well-placed source within the U.S. Intelligence Community, the recent arrest of Lasnaud has been kept “very hush-hush.” He was apprehended in a hotel in Spain while meeting with a Colombian military contractor.

 

“We’ve got solid confirmation that he has been arrested,” the source said. “He was a partner in business with the Colombian businessman who is a military contractor. His arrest was because of a 20-year-old Interpol warrant in Argentina.”

 

According to the source, Lasnaud was staying in France where he had relative safety from extradition. He traveled to Spain, however, with the Colombian military contractor, and “somehow the Spanish authorities found out about this meeting, they arranged a big operation, and they arrested him.”

 

An alleged Interpol notice is now trying to extradite Lasnaud to Argentina, and the source said the case is “extremely controversial in Spain at the moment.”

 

The indictment provides justification for the arrest, saying, “Let it be known that, in short, international rogatory is carried out under the terms provided by law No. 23708 that approved the ‘Treaty of Extradition and Judicial Assistance in Criminal Matters between the Argentine Republic and the Kingdom of Spain, held in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentine Republic.”

 

It adds, “Reciprocity will be offered in similar cases.”

 

The source said the case is significant since Lasnaud was in the past a U.S. government asset, and that “it looked like his case went dead when he was living in France.” He added that while it is known that Lasnaud met with the Colombian military contractor, there is not yet concrete information on the nature of their meeting.