Final Project- Wild Card

Press freedom is one of the most vital components of a democracy. Without press freedom the ability for vital information to reach the citizens, those who need this information most is greatly reduced. The death of press freedom is also the end for the people to speak freely and express themselves freely. It eliminates the ability for the citizen or the journalist to critique their current government. When the people have no ability to understand or speak out against their government for fear of imprisonment democracy has ended and authoritarianism has taken hold. This crackdown on the freedoms of people thorough out the world has increased in recent years in throughout the world and Turkey is one of those countries. 

Erdogan

Currently Turkey holds 73 journalists in prison the most in the world beating out both China in second and Egypt coming in third. All of these countries imprison journalists on anti-state charges which generally means they criticized the state in some way. Why exactly does Turkey hold the first place spot, well in 2016 a coup overthrow the current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was attempted but ultimately failed. Sections of the military in favor of the coup attempted to take control by attempting to occupy the parliament in Ankara and bombing the presidential palace. The coup forces had men in every level of the chain of command but it wasn't enough. The main reason that the coup failed was the coup leaders did not think that the people of Turkey would come out in support of Erdogan's government, this allowed Erdogan to stay in power. 

Loyal citizens and soldiers

After the coup failed all of the military forces that were involved were obviously imprisoned, but Erdogan did not stop there. He then began a purge were he detained upwards of 25,000 people. 9,000 police officers were fired a move which the New York Times calls, "Like firing every police officer in Philadelphia, Dallas, Detroit, Boston and Baltimore". The Turkish military has had 10,012 of its soldiers detained with half of the top generals and admirals were either fired or put in prison.  He revoked the teaching license of 21,000 private school teachers, he also forced 1,500 deans at universities to resign, and fired 21,700 officials from the Ministry of Education. Erdogan also suspended 2,745 member of his judiciary even members on the highest court, 1,500 Minister of Finance officials, and shut a staggering 100 media outlets. Now you might be wondering what exactly is the criteria being applied here for all this, the military and police they participated in the coup in 2016 physically so it makes sense, the journalists and media outlets they criticized Erdogan so there, but what about everyone else teachers, judges, and government administrators. Well to the method to Erdogan's madness is one man who currently resides Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. 

Gulen 

Fetullah Gulen is a Turkish born Muslim Cleric who has lived in exile in the US since the late 90's. Gulen is described by supporters as a "moderate Muslim cleric who champions interfaith dialogue" he has a loyal group of followers who are called Gulenists who follow the Hizmet movement. Which is described as, " a moderate, Pro-Western brand of Sunni Islam that appeals to well-educated and professional Turks". This is the man to which Erdogan believes is the mastermind behind the coup, Gulen denies involvement. This has not stopped Erdogan from issuing a warrant for his arrest in 2016 and recently arresting and sentencing 24 journalists to prison terms of 6 to 7 years on the charges of being suspected members of Hizmet. The journalists worked at the major newspaper Zaman which was one of the 100 outlets closed in the purge. The Turkish government also gave 6 journalists life imprisonment for allegedly knowing that the coup would take place shortly before the attempt. 17 journalists were tried for allegedly aiding terrorist groups from the last large independent newspaper in Turkey Cumhuriyet many of whom were senior staff including the editor and chief executive. The chief executive Akin Atalay stated that the their trial had two goals, the first to "silence" Cumhuriyet and to "show other journalists their fate and in practice what will happen if they write what the government does not like.". Erdogan believes Gulen to be his adversary something that was not always the case but is believed by some. 

Gulen and Erdogan back in the day

Gulen at one point was a strong supporter of Erdogan and even backed investigations into alleged coup plotters such as military personal, secular writers, academics and businessmen. One writer Ahmet Sik author of the book " The Imam's Army" was imprisoned for the book that was critical of Gulen before it was published. In Sik's view Erdogan and Gulen are the countries two most powerful Islamic leaders and has said that "On the one side, there is the Gulen community, a dark opaque power that can damage the powerful administration in Turkish history, And on the other side, you have an administration that under the guise of fighting the community can and has suspended all legal and democratic principles,". Now whatever the case that Erdogan is using as a scapegoat or Gulen is the leader of a massive conspiracy, the fact remains that Erdogan has done as Sik said and destroyed the ideas of freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Turkey is on the way to or already has become a dictatorship.  

New York Times article on Gulen here. 

New York Times article on Erdogan's purges here.

New York Times article on the 24 Journalists here.

New York Times article on the 17 Journalists here.

CNN article on 6 Journalists imprisoned for life here. 

CNN article on Gulen here.

Committee to Protect Journalists article on imprisoned journalists here. 

   

 

#2- Supermarket tabloids

Tabloid journalism inhabits a special place in the world, those places being the checkout aisle at any supermarket and the internet. From more outrageous publications like the New York Daily News telling any tale about a politician, to more acceptable outlets like People and TMZ covering that celebrity gossip that people care about. Tabloids by and large operate on the principle that as Director David Fincher puts it "people are perverts", they want to know every detail of someones life especially the parts that are taboo we know this and they know this. This business of collecting rumors and fabrication will only stop when people stop looking which will be never and because of that they have the power and money which allows them to do what they do.

Karen McDougal

Enter The National Enquirer a tabloid that you no doubt have seen in its usual spot in the check-out aisle has been recently discovered to have "assisted" President Donald Trump in the cover-up of stories involving an affair with former Playboy model Karen McDougal and the payoff of a Trump tower doorman Dino Sajudin. McDougal's affair with Trump began in around 2006 and lasted until 2007 all of which Trump's is married to his current wife Melania. This affair remained a secret until 2016 when McDougal was in talks to tell all to ABC when the Enquirer's parent company American Media(AMI) agreed to pay her $150,000 for two years of fitness columns, magazine covers, and most importantly the life rights to the relationship with "the married man" who is Donald Trump. McDougal thought that the story would be published but the agreement that she reached with AMI forbid her from being able to tell the story anywhere and did not obligate AMI to publish it. This tactic is called "catch and kill" and is not the only documented time AMI has used this. Dino Sajudin was paid by AMI $30,000 dollars in so that he would not talk about a rumor that Trump allegedly fathered a child with a former housekeeper. Why exactly is AMI so concerned with Donald Trump you might ask it can't be for circulation reasons as they did not publish either story.

David Pecker and Trump

Well it is very simple as the current CEO of AMI David Pecker and the President are long time friends, with Pecker saying that he greatly admires Trump. This is backed up further from former American Media spokesman Stu Zakim saying, " This boils down to friendship. Pecker is taking care of his friends,". McDougal and Sajudin are just of the stories that we know of that were subject to the "catch and kill" tactic with Zakim also saying that, "AMI has often paid for stories to take them off the market -- i.e., no one else can print it -- to protect David's friends. Trump is one of his close friends, so take the leap". The fact that a man like David Pecker the CEO of The National Enquirer helps his friend Trump really makes every time Trump says "fake news" reach new levels of irony.

Wall Street Journal article here.
CNN article about "catch and kill" here.
CNN article about Sajuin payoff here.

#10 - Freedom of Information

Like many countries around the world Canada has a law which allows for citizens access to information that would otherwise be unknown to them. The aptly named Access to Information Act serves as useful tool so that journalists and citizens can be more informed on the goings on of their own government. The requested information would then be examined for anything that could be security concern and be distributed to the person who requested it. The information that was requested would now become a public record and could be accessed. 

David Fraser

Since this is such a common practice it is surprising that a 19 year old Halifax, Nova Scotia man's home was raided by police on April 11th. Why was he raided well he had downloaded all 7,000 documents from the Nova Scotia freedom-of-information web portal. Some of those 7,000 documents contained personal information that the local Halifax government said he "illegally accessed". Now, he is facing the charge of "unauthorized access of a computer" which carries a sentence of up to ten years. A charge that David Fraser a privacy lawyer said was "jumping the gun, unless the police got a statement from him at the time that did in fact have some fraudulent or nefarious purpose". 

Evan D'Entremont

The question then is what exactly was the 19 year-old's intent. As it would turn out according to the him their was no nefarious intent. He says that he was interested in a labor dispute involving teachers. This led him to the freedom-of-information web portal and after looking through many documents with no success decided to just download them all. This was done by creating a simple script and using the number at the end of every URL on the website and copying the data. A process that software engineer Evan D'Entremont says he has done "hundreds of times" in security research. It is apparently so common that Fraser even said that it is used by search engines and online archives.

The raid and his charging has led to outrage with D'Entremont saying that the 19 year-old is being "railroaded" to cover for the government. Fraser had a very similar take saying, " It certainly does have the appearance that charge was laid in order to appear that they were doing something about this. Obviously, this was something that's particularly embarrassing to the provincial government and I can imagine that there is a fair amount of pressure to find a scapegoat, point the finger and press some charges".


Link to CBC.ca article on initial story here.
Link to from BleepingComputer here.
Link to article with Fraser and D'Entremont here.

9# - College Media

College newspapers exist in a difficult time, print is very quickly becoming entirely irrelevant and most news is consumed from online sources. The problem of where the funding will come from has become a priority at many institutions of student journalism. This was the case at the Southern Methodist Universities The Daily Campus who was closing due to funding problems and after providing ninety years of service. Its closing and the student backlash at the university acted as a catalyst for other student news outlets to take notice of their situation. 

Image from collegemediamatters.com

That is where Melissa Gomez, the editor in chief at the The Independent Florida Alligator comes in. Gomez along with other managing editors have decided have created the #SaveStudentNewrooms hashtag as a call to arms of other student media outlets for Support Student Journalism Day. A media blitz of editorials on the importance of student news outlets, videos, best stories produced by said outlet, testimonials of alumni, and how they can donate to their outlet all occurring on April 25th. Now while this might be successful this time in helping some college media outlets stay afloat a more permanent solution is needed. So, Gomez has formed a private Facebook group along with other heads of student media outlets so that they better understand the issues they face and offer support to each other. This group is not purely for their own benefit as the group wants to expand the platform to as many outlets as possible in the hope that this will allow for better understanding of the issues with one of it founders Catilin Ostroff saying, "We hope to have the people who have the answers start talking to each other. These issues are going to be very real in the next 10-15 years. Aggressive and accountable coverage of these insinuations is going to be so important". 

Link the article covering the #SaveStudentNewsrooms here.    

8# - Investigative Journalism

In 2017, a storm came to five states in the Midwest and while this would normally be a normal weather event the storm stayed and flooded the area. Roads, rail, and river all closed. Residents all over the area fortified homes that had not been flooded with assistance from the National Guard. At the end of it, the damage totaled $1.7 billion and a human cost of five lives.

Elkhart, Indiana

In the aftermath of that event ProPublica along with Reveal from The Center of Investigative Reporting and the Telegraph of Alton, Illinois published a story the revealed a lobbying group called the 408 Coalition and their efforts to remove regulation from the levee system. The regulation they seek to remove is the Section 408 permit which is an authorization the Army Corp of Engineers give to a district if they want to raise their levee and determine if this would be "injurious to the public interest". The 408 Coalition see this as Federal overreach and wish it to be replaced with the 1944 statue that leaves out the part about "public interest".

Who is the 408 Coalition? Well that was difficult seeing as how the Coalition has no public records or website and the organization itself does not keep records. It took a guess from a Telegraph of Alton, Illinois reporter to guess that the Sny Island Levee Drainage District who has ignored the regulation in the past, might be involved and upon further investigation this turned out to be true. Not only were Sny involved they were the Coalitions largest contributor and brought at least 22 other local drainage districts from Missouri and Illinois into the fold. 

Rep. Garrett Graves

With all of the districts banding together it is not surprising to learn the 408 Coalition has spent $230,000 lobbying and that is just what has been officially reported to congress, with reporters discovering $98,000 being spent by individual districts. This allowed for the Coalition block two amendments in the water resources bill, one of which was written by Louisiana Republican Representative Garrett Graves who has been skeptical of the Corp's since Katrina. He has praised the Coalition saying, " The 408 Coalition is attacking real injustice" and the Coalition in response held a fundraiser for him in Washington. The Coalition also has had some influence in the White House with two of their talking points being delivered to a White House infrastructure adviser. This happened before the Trump administration infrastructure plan which includes the idea to simplify taking levees out of the federal system. 

Now, while the 408 Coalition has disbanded as of the end of 2017. This is not the end for its members with many including the Sny becoming clients publicly of the Husch Blackwell lobbying firm. 

ProPublica article here. 

Reuters article on the 2016 article here. 

      

7# - Exploiting a News Story

After the shooting a Parkland, Florida the national debate on what to do about gun violence has been brought to the forefront. While this sense of urgency was caused in large part due to tragedy itself, the survivors of the tragedy have really made the dent by putting a face to the problem. While it is sadly true that Americans are used to hearing about school shootings frequently, which has led to increasing safety measures and some political debate. This always ends with purposal's from both sides and the issue being put to bed by a speech from the current sitting President on what could be done.

David Hogg

However because of students like Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg who have been the most visible. With Hogg having appeared on news channels CNN, PBS and on HBO's Real Time Bill Maher and Gonzalez having also appeared on CNN, but more was brought into the public eye with speeches at Rally to Support Firearm Legislation and at the March for Our Lives, which both Hogg and Gonzalez participated in. 

Emma Gonzalez

All of this exposure has been both positive and negative, positive in that is was good for the the gun legislation movement and negative that with both Hogg and Gonzalez being public figures makes them easy targets for political opponents.

In February David 2018, Hogg was accused of being a "crisis-actor" in the pocket of anti-gun legislators or is being coached by his father who is a former FBI agent.

In March 2018, Emma Gonzalez appeared in an article with several other teenage activists where in which she tore apart a shooting target. After this article came out the image was altered to show Gonzalez ripping up the constitution instead of the target. The altered image was first appeared on the social media platform Gab which has been criticized for having a largely far-right and white nationalist userbase.

At left is @tyler_mitchell’s photo of @Emma4Change for the cover of @TeenVogue. At right is what so-called “Gun Rights Activists” have photoshopped it into. #MarchForOurLives pic.twitter.com/jW6tTOv2Db

— Phillip Picardi (@pfpicardi) March 25, 2018

Washington Post article about the edited picture here.
CNN article about edited picture here.
Teen Vogue here.

#6- Copyright and Fair Use

When something is created whether it be an artistic work like a painting or a film it is your creation and deserves protection from others who might to use it without your permission. In order for the works to be protected they are copyrighted which then makes the idea itself your property. Copyright does protect artistic works but it also extends to things like architecture and the tech industry.

BlackBerry has brought a lawsuit on Facebook for supposed copyright infringement, where they claim that Facebook has "created mobile messaging applications that co-opt BlackBerry's innovations". More specifically they allege that Facebook uses messaging security, messaging notification and other intellectual property that was created by BlackBerry. 

While these lawsuits might seem like a waste of time considering the amount of power Facebook holds in the messaging world, BlackBerry has actually one cases with similar claims. In 2017 they sued Nokia, sued Qualcomm and were awarded $800 million, and in 2016 sued Avaya.

This is unusual because of the speed to which the silicone valley tech industry moves ideas are frequently taken from each other. Facebook has blatantly copied from others like it competitor Snapchat's Facial recognition and it's Stories feature. Facebook also uses the FourSquare check-in in its applications. 

With all of these events and with Blackberry's exit from the mobile device market. It seems that BlackBerry has started to use it's copyright lawsuit's as a business model. 

Link to the story about BlackBerry's lawsuit's. 
Link to the story about Facebook's copying competitors.
Link to another story about BlackBerry lawsuit's. 
Link to some copyright protections.