Robert Gibbs: Basket of Individual Freedoms Includes Freedom to Access the Internet
In a press briefing on the situation in Egypt (and probably his last briefing ever), Robert Gibbs made a stunning, but important statement.
We believe in the basket of individual freedoms includes the freedom to access the Internet and the freedom to use social networking sites.
Gibbs did not say (and none of the reporters asked) whether this includes access to the Wikileaks site. Or whether it includes access to the Internet at broadband speeds.
I wouldn’t read too much into Gibbs’ statement EW, he’s just getting used to using the word basket, as in, “would you like a basket of fries with that?” ; )
Basket Case.
I also wonder how various ISPs feel about Gibbs endorsing the very idea of net neutrality that they’re trying to kill.
Nor did Gibbs say that along with the “freedoms” in that basket is the government’s assertion that they get to snoop on you exercising your “freedoms”. Further, Gibbs did not get around to adding that “freedom isn’t free”, therefore the internet will soon turn into a toll road. Sure is a pretty basket though.
They want us to access the internet because they can watch it. We need to go back to talking over the back fence or in the kitchen.
Boxturtle (I’d PGP everything, but I don’t say anything worth snooping upon)
After he said that, somebody should have asked him about Holy Joe’s internet kill switch.
Boxturtle (And then asked him if that includes cash transfers to Wikileaks)
Likk to the “kill switch”
We should all be very concerned.
See what is happening in Egypt?
They can’t organize very well.
“Basket?” (not gonna watch the clip – did he really say that?) I hate Washington-speak.
yeah, you know . . . the one we’re all going to hell in, thanks to TPTB
BBC interviewing a demonstrator right now who went to work this morning and was turned away because there was no internet (therefore no way to do his job), so he joined the demonstrations. Taking down the ‘net was worse than a crime, it was a blunder…
What’s Arabic for “D’oh!”?
Boxturtle (Or is that one of those universal words?)
And a blunder of the worst order.
This may be the only time that I’d love to be a fly on the wall at Davos, and on trading desks around the world: “You wanna invest in that place where the dictator cuts off the Internet every time he feels threatened…?”
‘Blunder‘ is a polite way of putting it.
teeheehee
O/T Speaking of spying:
Greenpeace Airship Hovers Over Secretive Koch Summit with Message “Koch Brothers: Dirty Money” LINK.
Good on Greenpeace. There must be some way to rein in the Koch Bros.
RIGHT ON!!!!!! Go Greenpeace! Excellent way to speak truth to power.
Really, though, of course, who gives a good g*d damned what Gibbs has to say. He’s lamer than a stuck duck. But, thanks, EW, for following this idjit so I don’t have to.
Barry hissef will be speaking sooon.
oww oww can’t fucking wait to see him lie again… and smile all the way..
Unlike others around here (or so it seems), I have a lot of sympathy for Obama. Complicated situation, and he appears to be dealing with a leader who’s completely delusional (Mubarak).
But this statement by Gibbs strikes me as something that people will look back on in future years, and there’s no way in hell that Gibbs said that without triple-checking it with multiple parties. I personally view it as momentous, and to me it is code for: “Mubarak, you’re done here. Half your nation is under 30, they know they’re screwed, you had your chance. Get the next plane out while we can still help cover your ass, buddy.”
Although, given what the Guardian is reporting from Israel (that “Israel doesn’t think it is the right time for Arab democracy” or some such drivel), clearly we have more than one delusional party involved. Jeebuz.
Given that Obama has engaged in torture cover up under the state secrets ruse, claiming in essence that Executive Branch arranged torture for its kidnap victims in other countries, like Egypt (like al-Libi – whose whole episode, from kidnap to foreing lands through being suicided, Obama has refused to investigate and may have even faciliated) is somehow international diplomacy and exempt from judicial review – – nah, I don’t feel sorry for him.
Lay down with torturers, wake up tortured.
More Fuckery by the BO Administration:
Nurses Blast Obama Administration for Removing OSHA Safety Rule
Saying one thing while doing the opposite, has become Obama’s trademark.
IOKIYAE. Not if you’re American.
Obummer’s gonna speak!
Send in the troops! (just kidding)
But first we have to listen to that wanker Kerry, who is rubbing elbows with his compatriots at Davos, carry on about how Mubarak can turn things around. Delusional. Kerry should be required to watch Al Jazeerah for a few hours so he can catch a clue.
I assume I’ll be able to get a critical parsing here, because I sure ain’t gonna watch it.
Now that Hosni has disbanded the rest of the Government, Obummer is going to tell the world to support President Mubarak in his endeavors going forward as he brings the Egyptians Change They Can Believe In™
Damn, you’re good, you know that? Ever thought about a career in politics?
Oops, didn’t mean to insult you!
You appear to have left out the end of the full statement.
If he follows Kerry’s lead, that is exactly what he is going to say.
Of course not, dummy.
Freedumb has its limits.
Kerry (from Davos) up on alJ, being irrelevant as usual.
Is fdl going to live blog Obama’s talk?
It’s on the Al Jazeera live feed.
Mrs. Mubarak and son are in London…I suspect Mubarak is too.
“Our first concern is preventing injury and loss of life so I want to call on Egyptian authorities to refrain from violence on any protesters”
O up. Remember the rule. Whatever he sez, he means the opposite.
I’m sure that I’ll be jeered around here, but IMVHO, Obama just cut Mubarak off at the knees.
Obama, recall, did speak in Cairo almost two years ago.
He also referred today to “a new generation”, i.e., ‘the half of your nation under 30’.
And social network technology.
My guess — and yes, I’ll be jeered — someone’s still cutting deals.
And Israel doesn’t want change, and probably Big Oil is flipped out and shitting bricks and clogging phone lines to US gov’t.
Big Oil is looking forward top the increase in both Oil Prices and margins from the Egyptian and Jordanian Emergencies. As we all know, these countries are huge produces of crude oil & refined petroleum.
Big Oil is now on the conference call now, calculating how quickly it can raise the price of gas to $4.50, and blame it on “instability” in the region.
Despite the fact the NO crude WHATSOEVER goes through the Suez canal. That was fixed after 1967, I believe the fix was crude Tankers (aka: Supertankers) over 100,000 metric tons (over the Suezmax limit).
Can I just tell you once again that I think you are some kind of genius ;-)
What intrigues me is my sense that part of what we’re seeing is that the old ‘dictatorship and terror model’ ain’t working any more.
My sense is that a lot of these Egyptians are so pissed, so furious that NOTHING is going to stop them. All the earlier movements — none of them were preceded by people immolating themselves. But when people would rather kill themselves than exist under this kind of tyranny, it just looks like violence isn’t keeping people in line anymore.
Thank you. I think.
It would sure seem that way. I wish them well and hope the violence can stop and that they get a govt that they really deserve that will actually serve “small people.” Hope that’s still possible in today’s world.
The Egyptians are Revolting?
Yup. I hope the same.
I have to admit that I’m admiring the Egyptians.
Well indeed. We US citizens should certainly be taking notes and ginning up some Dutch courage, imo.
I agree. BigOil is probably doing happy Snoopy dances right now. Great *excuse* for price gouging. I don’t think BigOil is at all unhappy right about now, albeit I could be wrong.
It’s all about 30% margin. The higher the price the greater the margin in $.
Just ask any Health Insurance Company.
Yes, quite. And just recently we’ve had the price of petrol rise at the pumps without any real reason. The PTB can “claim” that there’s no artificial price-fixing, but that’s a load of bull… and so are the *insane* increases in health care insurance, for that matter. As with the price of oil, health care insurance is just price gouging so that the Fat Cats at the top rip off ever more giant salaries or Board member fees or whatever…
Oh, I think they’re probably nervous. And they’ll hike prices.
But in the US, consider the fact that we have very few reporters who even speak Arabic – at least, from what I’ve seen.
MSNBC has … maybe two? (Richard Engel and Jim Maceda)
CBS have any?
CNN probably has… one?
Fox has none.
So how the hell would we get the info we need?
Let alone about Big Oil, but about other nations.
This is a **huge** opportunity for Al Jazeera, and for MSNBC. Engel’s carrying a whole network on his shoulders. That’s just nuts.
Yeah, like the military “firing” gay translaters who were dual-language in Arabic and English (and sometimes knew other Middle Eastern languages as well). Can’t “trust” teh gheyz, now kin we? Such dumbitude and another way in which our ridiculous empire is being pushed beyond the breaking point. All this Team USA USA USA is really blinding even the idiotic PTB to what it *really takes* to run an empire like this.
Pride ever goeth before the fall… stupid eeejots.
Yeah BigOil may be somewhat nervous, but they’ll certainly use this opportunity to price gouge. You can count on it. Wait to hear about it.
Not a bug. Was a feature. Then you could not be told what you didn’t want to hear.
Q: Where’s Al Quaeda?
A: Al Who?
Q: Al Quaeda!!
A: You got the wrong country. Try Saudi Arabia.
Q: Wrong answer. Kill him then Waterboard him.
A: But he said Al Quaeda are in Saudi Arabia.
Q: What? That’s wrong. You must be gay. You are discharged.
Q: Anyone around here speak Arabic? No? Ok, lets go arrest some Arabs and find Al Quaeda. We have a quota to meet, 59 Al Quaeda arrests per week.
A: Yesssir!!
Here’s my opinion of what has happened today:
Remember that top Egyptian military officers just happened to be in DC today. They left sometime around late afternoon–by that point, Mubarak had already called out the military to “protect the police.” As it turns out, most of the troops didn’t crack down on protesters as you might have thought, and in some places–Alexandria–they were quite chummy w/protesters.
Whether intended or not, that demonstrated to Mubarak that he was not in charge.
Then there’s confusion. The Speaker of the Parliament is about to give a speech (I’m guessing from State TV), but at the last moment Mubarak comes on–from Nile TV–and gives an “I am not a crook speech,” talking all about liberty. The kind of speech a dictator might give if given certain guidelines from the US. Only AFTER that does Obama call him, for the first time. And after THAT O gets on and says Mubarak has one last chance to make his words good.
In other words, the govt made sure it had first demonstrated that the military WASN’T going to back Mubarak, and only then gave him a script.
The US doesn’t want a new govt. If one happens, it’ll raise the price of oil and make it impossible for Israel to treat Gaza like a cage.
Clearly neither Mubarak nor the US can control the course of events in Egypt. So now Obama et al. have to be very very careful because they cannot afford to alienate whoever/whatever comes next. That’s a tough line to walk and I’m not sure they will succeed.
From what I’ve seen so far today, the protesters are not at all happy with the US and we may well find ourselves on the wrong side across the board when the dust settles in N. Africa & the Middle East.
Our so-called “leaders” are so pathetic and full of hubris that they’ll just be flapping and twirling trying to force things to go their way.
My take is that PTB in the USA (and possibly other westernized nations) are just about as dumb and bamboozled, as the small people, by the ongoing drumbeat of US exceptionalism and the vast rightwing nuttiness that everyone seems to subscribe to these days. the PTB think just because they’ve managed very well to cow under and dumb down the idiotic US public into “taking” their crap, they believe that every other serf on the planet will just bow and scrape to them, as well.
As we see across N. Africa and across possibly into parts of the Middle East, that may just not be the case. And if people are angry enough and motivated enough… well, time will tell. We shall see.
Power to the people!
Well, I’m only catching up late in the day, and I don’t speak or read Arabic.
And your track record for analysis and prediction is far ahead of mine ;-))
But with that said, I don’t think it matters so much what the US wants, nor what Israel wants — IMVHO, Israel is so paranoid that they have overplayed their hands too many times.
It makes sense that Obama has Mubarak’s ‘nuts in a vice’ (at least, I hope he does). It also makes sense that Israel still thinks they call the shots.
But as you are aware, I have a strong interest in literacy, as well as ‘the neurology of learning’. And I have a healthy respect for demographics.
Over half the Egyptian population is under 30, the young can’t afford to get married. And the literate among them can’t find enough decent employment.
I put those facts together, then add on the stupidity of the Egyptian security forces insulting the entire nation – aiming right at literacy, at the sense of identity of Egyptians, and I don’t think that what the US wants is all that relevant at this point.
It’s a political Katrina.
Anyone who thinks they can change the underlying dynamics, which are demographic, neurological, is a moron.
Doesn’t mean they won’t try.
Who am I, after all? Just a DFH blog commenter ;-))
But from my perspective, the only smart thing here is to cut Mubarak loose and that appears to me to be what the US is in the process of doing.
Meanwhile, as near as I can tell on about 4 US networks, we have too few reporters who speaks Arabic: Richard Engel of MSNBC is a rarity. Embarrassing, to have so few Arabic reporters when we’re dealing with populations as huge – and as young! – as in Egypt.
Not any more. I believe there is a different hand on the vice, The Egyptian People.
O’s lost his grip.
I think you have a point there ;-))
BTW: Anyone interested in this ‘social media’ theme might want to watch an interview that Dylan Ratigan has up today with Andrew Jencks (formerly? of MTV). I’m not saying they have all the right answers, but their questions and the topics they cover fit right with this thread.
(Jencks is 24.)
I don’t know about others around here, but my kids can’t seem to be without their cells-Blackberries (and Androids and iPhones) and Twitter.
There’s a case to be made that this Egyptian upheaval has a desktop vs Twitter-mobiles aspect to it.
I think they may be “distancing” themselves from Mubarak in the way we “distanced” ourselves from Marcos. IOW, making arrangement behind the scenes, trying to help him with positive spins and movements of money, trying to line up the generals that matter and target them (even if that’s against their own people) in an organized fashion to prevent a vacuum, and making sure Mubarak cleans up all the evidence he can of US dirt and filth in Egypt- the disappeared, the tortured, the dead, etc. and anything that tracks back. Then they’d be happy to help him out with a big payoff for being our boy.
Obama just spoke with Mubarak. supports him staying in power. Concrete steps that advance the rights of the Egyptian people… it’s a 2008 campaign speech!!!
We got a special on drones this week only, joy stick cowboys optional. Guaranteed to save your ass. Hillary can also look into U.S. troop support with Israeli advisors with no money down.
Oh gag. O told M to ‘give meaning to his words.’
Yeah, but not the meaning you think those words might mean. That’s O’s stock in trade.
As I noted in 36.
Everything is okay now, President Professor Barry has educated Mubarak on the phone…
Obama: “economic reforms”
WooHoo, austerity all around. That oughta do the trick.
More out of touch with reality.
That’s access to the internet at 110 baud. /s
shit thats worse than the old phone modem at 300 Baud….I dis-remember those dazes…
It’s a teletype. Good luck with the graphics, and as for Flash? LMAO.
EEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee duz I really have to di-remember?? I started in communications on microwave and FM Mux systems… Even had to repair a 1938 Microwave German system at the M/W site I was stationed at… Oh yeah the SSB radio’s.. but they were fun..
My first toy was a Radio my parents bought second hand before WWII. An HMV model. It glowed in the dark, and kept we warm at night.
Last time I saw it was in my sister’s basement in 1978.
Oooww the glowing Tubes, cut my teeth learning the electronics behind how they worked… and never stopped learning new technology over the years…
Ya think thats where the term InterToobs came from??
I think it came from this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes
No. Not so high tech.
Someone told him the internet passed information, and the only item he was familiar with that passed things were his InnerToobs.
I have a friend who once had to send an urgent teletype message via telex, or something very similar. There apparently was a phone number you could connect them through.
Egyptians: US all talk no action on reforms.
Yep. That’s pretty much the long and short of it.
Link to the “kill switch”
http://fedupmontrealer.blogspot.com/2011/01/us-senate-to-reintroduce-internet-kill.html
Gibbs:
He cut himself off; he meant to say
Obama wants an Internet kill switch for us that he can flip when he finds a national emergency (and this decision would not be subject to judicial review).
But he wants a functioning Internet elsewhere.
Control of nukes is the issue now.
Muslin Brotherhood, Muslim Brotherhood. Shut The Front Door media.
‘
A tisket, a tasket,
I want my Freedom Basket
Or else…
methinks Hosni has had all the chances he will get in the past 30 years…moveon dot org old man!
It IS fun watching the flapping, though, isn’t it.
Hubris is a wonderful spectator sport.
Especially as a few ox are getting gored:
AIPAC? MIC? US Foreign Palsy?
Where’s our security now, bitches?
Well, for starters, you’d need more people who speak Arabic, and know the histories of Middle East nations, and their literature. Yeah, I’m a dreamer ;-)
I suppose you believe in Ready, Aim, Fire and not Ready, Fire, Aim too?
I imagine the outgoing press secretary also means the basket includes the freedom of internet service providers to charge whatever they want, including differential rates for preferred/despised vendors and sites.
Freedom in America starts with corporate freedom. It’s up to progressives to ensure that it doesn’t end there.
As far as I know, the US government hasn’t attempted to block public’s access to Wikileaks, so I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at here. re: access to broadband: again, the government hasn’t prevented people from obtaining broadband, so I don’t get what you’re driving at here. (although it seems you’re wrongly trying to convert a negative freedom into a positive entitlement)
Is this like the “basket of kisses” on Mad Men?
BTW – am I mistaken (since I didn’t watch much of Obama’s SOTU) or didn’t Obama make as similar refernce to a right to access the internet in connection with maybe Tunisia?
That basket all includes the freedom to pay CEO’s whatever they demand, regardless of performance, a new normal as normal as 9%+ unemployment, and considerably greater underemployment:
Goldman Scratch and executive offices generally seem to be lone holdouts of freedom from age age, sex and “prior unemployment” discrimination.
In October 2009 Finland became the first country (and I think the only one so far) to establish that broadband internet connectivity of at least 1 mbps was a basic human right.
The law went into effect on 7/1/2010.
Even more glaring that the USA is still considering if food, housing, education, or healthcare are basic human rights, or (as the hate-sters rant) that a right is what someone decides to give you out of the goodness of their heart.
There’s at least one justice who doesn’t believe that privacy is a human right.
I took a quick look throught the SOTU address and can’t find it there, but this Wired article
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/01/does-obamas-internet-freedom-agenda-hurt-the-u-s-without-helping-dissidents/
indicates I did hear something, somewhere, bc they reference Obama saying on Thurs that the right to social networking is a fundamental right.
If U.S. officials really wanted to keep gov’t stable in Egypt, then allowing Mubarak to openly tee up his son to be heir apparent was probably a little clumsy.
Who are the red coats now? I have no idea. But thank you, GOP, for shutting down President Carter’s attempt to begin weaning us off oil back in 1976, and for shutting down every attempt since. Nice work.
Not stunning that the O crew talks as much shite as the W crew.
Not important that Gibbs is just another WH “basket case”.
However, I do find it telling that the medium that has replaced actual organizing is now considered irreplaceable to make “organizing-programs related activity” possible. I suppose without broadband, the revolution can’t move from the armchairs to the streets. That would explain why some half-arsed phrased uttered by a non-entity like Gibbs as part of his “da capo” contribution to the modern “information theater” performance art is echoing through the foaming void of blogging discourse.
Shall we add broadband to the 2nd amendment? As delusionary as the wingnut pretentions to collective action might be, compared with this they are downright practical. Welcome to the uprising in the Cloud, now with off switch.
If the medium is the message, then the Internet signals the final capitulation of the many to the few.
Nothing either about the chilling effect on speech of continuous monitoring of all Internet packets.