Tech
Meet Facebook’s New General Counsel, Who Helped Write the Patriot Act
The surveillance state is alive and well.
One of America’s largest tech giants has hired a new general counsel who was responsible for “helping craft” the most powerful law ever enacted to spy on American citizens.
“Facebook announced today that Jennifer Newstead will join the company as General Counsel, overseeing the company’s global legal functions,” said a company statement.
The Verge did a deep dive into Newstead’s history, and it turns out that Newstead was an architect of the Patriot Act, implemented by President George W. Bush after 9/11, which allowed the government broadly-defined power to spy on Americans.
“Her enhanced leadership duties and her excellent service on a range of issues — including helping craft the new U.S.A. Patriot Act to protect the United States against terror — have earned her this important distinction. She is first among equals,” Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh said in a 2002 Department of Justice press release.
A 2017 BuzzFeed article described Newstead as the “day-to-day manager of the Patriot Act in Congress.”
“Jennifer is a seasoned leader whose global perspective and experience will help us fulfill our mission,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer in the statement.
The Patriot Act has been the subject of a great deal of controversy by Americans who value privacy. President Barack H. Obama originally campaigned on modifying, if not ending the law completely. He proceeded to renew it. It’s critics say that it is a serious invasion of privacy.
From The Freedom Forum Institute:
Detractors counter that the Patriot Act represents a loss of individual liberty and a naked grasp for power by the executive branch of government, particularly over the judicial branch. Robert Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, has written that the Patriot Act represents “the looming sacrifice of civil liberties at the altar of national security.”
The law permits roving wiretaps and so-called “sneak and peek” warrants, adds new terrorist crimes, knocks down the wall between foreign and domestic intelligence, amends the definition of domestic terrorism and makes many other changes too numerous to catalog.
Now, our tech overlords at Facebook, already embattled in numerous privacy scandals, have added another pro-spying former government official to their team.
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Free Speech
Hungary Will Take Action Against Big Tech Shadowbanning of Christians, Conservatives, and Other Right-Wingers
Holding Big Tech accountable.
The government of Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary, has announced its commitment to take on Big Tech’s shadowbanning of Christians, conservatives, and other assorted right-wingers.
In a Facebook post shared Monday, Hungarian Minister of Justice Judit Varga said she believes that shadowbanning—the secret restriction of a social media user’s visibility—violates “fundamental democratic legal norms that form the basis of Western-type culture.”
Because of Big Tech’s “systematic abuses,” Varga said she convened a meeting of the Hungarian Digital Freedom Committee and will soon meet with the president of the Hungarian Competition Authority regarding “the possibility of sanctioning unfair commercial practices.”
Varga also claimed she has personally experienced shadowbanning and then linked to the following tweets from James O’Keefe and the O’Keefe-run Project Veritas:
BREAKING: @Twitter Insider Secretly Records CEO @jack Detailing Agenda For Further Political Censorship
take our poll - story continues belowCompleting this poll grants you access to Big League Politics updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to this site's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.“We are focused on one account [@realDonaldTrump] right now but this is going to be MUCH BIGGER than just one account & it’s going to go on for much longer…"#ExposeTwitter pic.twitter.com/QhyyUTHlM9
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) January 14, 2021
"One strategy is to shadow ban so that you have ultimate control."
"It's going to ban, like, a way of talking."
"You just delete them, but the problem is there are hundreds of thousands of them, so you got to write algorithms that do it for you." pic.twitter.com/NQBsSziI2X
— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) August 29, 2018
Based?
The Hungarian government, along with the Polish government, is considered one of the last in the Western world that’s committed to some form of social conservatism and resistance against neoliberal globalism. Big League Politics has thus closely followed Prime Minister Orban and Hungary over the past several months, reporting on Orban’s various confrontations with George Soros and news such as their proposed constitutional amendment to prevent gay couples from adopting children:
God bless Hungary and God save the Hungarian people!
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