Cross-Border Talks and Cybersecurity Law Consultation Ended

You are not alone if you did not even know there was a public consultation on cross-border talks.
Link to Pirate Party of Canada Press release: Transparent Public Consultation Needed for Cross-Border Talks.

Sequence of Today’s Events in Egypt; Obama and Mubarak Speak

Today’s sequence of events in Egypt:

• The day started with news of Israel being shocked at Obama’s betrayal of Mubarak. They questioned whether Obama is a reliable ally.
• Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions gathered at Tharir square. Millions across Egypt rallies.
• U.S. asked Mubarak Not To Seek Re-Election. However, Egyptian election is not due until September. Which is sure to disappoint protester demanding Mubarak step down now. Election in Egypt are also fraudulent, which is what kept Mubarak in power for so long.
• There is a report that President Obama’s envoy told Mubarak that it was time for him to step down.
• Mubarak gave a speech saying he will not seek re-election but will be staying until the election in September. He calls for Parliament to debate reforms. Egyptian tweet saying Parliament is made up of Mubarak’s men and that offer is not acceptable. Mubarak says he will die in Egyptian soil and threaten arrest against outlaws and instigators.
• Conflicting report: Voice of America (VOA) claims protesters applauded Mubarak announcement that he won’t seek re-election. While tweet accounts from Egyptians and report from Guardian reports anger.  According to one tweet from Sidhe D’mento, BBC think protester might accept such offer:  “Just woke up to BBC saying Mubarak isn’t going to run for Pres. again and saying “the street” might accept it. I f**n doubt it!”
  That VOA news item have been taken down at around 8pm EST and now shows a 404 page not found error. Google search of “Egyptians Applaud Mubarak” still shows various sites quoting VOA report.
  
• People are said to be chanting “leave, leave, leave” and “not enough, not enough!”
• Based on tweet accounts and eye witness accounts given to Al Jazeera, right after Mubarak’s speech, man armed with knives and weapons approached various protest sites simultaneously. These armed man in motorcycles and cars chanted support for Mubarak and started attacking crowd at Port Said and Alexandria causing them to disperse. The crowd tried to fight back with stones and clashes broke out. Soldiers fired in the air to disperse the fight.
• Nicholas Kristof from New York Times Tweet: “Just back from Tahrir. A bit unnerving: mob of pro-Mubarak forces running around, very aggressive, almost picking fights.”
• The simultaneous attack also targeted people at Tharir Square according to some tweeter’s account on #Jan25.
• A tweet from Noornet claimed 5 people were stabbed by “thugs” at Alexandria.
• Obama delivered a short speech but did not call for Mubarak to step down rightaway. He did however said transition must start now. So it is not clear if he is OK with Mubarak staying until September if transition or debate for reform happens now. Mubarak already announced he will start the transition and process for reform through Parliamentary debate. Obama acknowledged the youth of Egypt. Obama walked away right after reading his speech ignoring a question yelled out by a member of the press. He had stressed that transition must be peaceful.

A good humored tweet by tweetactivist before Mubarak’s speech:

Riot police [Not working] Curfew [Not working] Cabinet reshuffle [Not Working] Mubarak’s Jet [Not working?]

A tweet expressing support:

ReemAbdellatif: If a revolution pauses, it ends. #jan25 #keepgoing #egypt #freedom The world is with you.

And a tweet of advice:

monaeltahawy: Uprising has been beautifully peaceful. Imperative it stays that way. Must not allow #Mubarak thuggery 2 provoke. Selmiyya! Peaceful!

Pictures from MotherJones.com

 

What makes Egypt’s revolution so special is there are no political speeches, no grandstanding, no dominating leader. Just people, lots of them, making a statement in numbers. That’s how any democracy should be like. A real power of the people, for the people, by the people.

 

Egypt Provide Demo of Lieberman “Kill Switch”

When CNET reported on Monday (January 24th) that Lieberman has re-introduced an internet “kill switch” type bill – which would provide a president the power to shutdown the internet – I wondered what type of situation do they envision necessitating such drastic action. This bill would give Obama or any President a dictatorial like power and allow them to bypass the court. Egypt have provided a demonstration of how that can be done and for what purpose. We can argue that we have a Democratic government and the situation in Egypt is unlikely to occur here. However, looking at Joe Lieberman track record, it should cause us to pause and reflect on how this power could easily be abused. Lieberman used his position as chairman of Homeland Security to pressure Amazon, a private company, to take extra-judicial action against a whistleblowing site. This was done without proving guilt or citing what crime Wikileaks is being accused of. Isn’t due process the foundation of democracy and what set us apart from Authoritarianism? It is not hard to imagine what people like Joe Lieberman could do, or how little excuse they would need, to use a law that would allow them to bypass the court. All in an effort to stifle dissenting view, using national security as an excuse.

Retraction: Ok I’ve been chided by fellow blogger about putting Obama ‘s name in the title. Here’s my response.

OK, I’ve renamed the title to remove reference to Obama. If you search google for Obama kill switch, you’ll get all the different media outlet calling it as such. My initial read on the article was this bill was introduced before and involved a Democrat Senator. Obama have also created cybersecurity coordinator and wanted to craft a cybersecurity incident response. Although the Lieberman bill and a joint Republican-Democrat bill before that seems to came out of Obama’s voicing intent to create such response, I decided to remove his name on the title since I can’t find an article where he directly endorses the bill. So I’ll leave it at that.

Thanks for your comments.