ABC NEWS COMES UNDER FIRE FOR TABLOID STYLE DEBATE QUESTIONS

GUARDIAN BLOG CLASSES IT "WORST. DEBATE. EVER."

Two ABC News reporters were criticized for the quality of the debate questions they posed to the two senators competing for the Democratic nomination for the US presidency. Some critics have said the questions were reminiscent of the kind of exaggerations and innuendo typical of "character-assassination" campaigns waged by Republican operatives in other election cycles.

Demonstrators outside ABC-parent Disney's Burbank headquarters carrying signs reading "restore the Fourth Estate" implied the performance was part of an ongoing "dumbing down" of the American press.

Sen. Barack Obama was asked about whether he has personal ties to an individual linked to the Weather Underground, a 1960s radical group that had at times planted bombs. Obama had made the acquaintance of Bill Ayers in the process of community organizing in Chicago, hardly a sign of political weakness or poor judgment, much less an issue for public debate. At best, this sort of inquiry is a "juicy tidbit" for a one on one interview, not fodder for a serious intellectual debate on national issues.

Greg Mitchell wrote for the Huffington Post:
In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years. ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.
Will Bunch, a blogger for the Philadelphia Daily News, wrote "I am still angry at what I just witnessed, so angry that it's hard to even type accurately because my hands are shaking",adding "that was no way to promote democracy".

In a shocking revelation about how ABC News "crafted" the debate now decried as one of the worst examples of yellow journalism in modern TV history, Bunch reports the network actually sought out one video questioner directly, after having learned of her obsession with the "issue" of whether candidates "believe in the American flag". The network planted her as a character interrogator, playing to perhaps a specific demographic, or obsessively keeping to James Carville's 24-year-old riff on the industrial state with "Alabama" in the middle.

Hence Bunch classing the debate as a "travesty of a mockery of a sham of a presidential debate". The story here is that one of America's major news networks has sacrificed its respectability in a comprehensive and deliberate way in exchange for the opportunity to use a presidential debate forum as a petty tabloid smear chamber.

PHILADELPHIA SPEECH ELEVATES LEVEL OF DISCOURSE TO PRESIDENTIAL VISION, BAR RAISED FOR RIVALS

Sen. Barack Obama's Philadelphia speech continues to bring new faith to his message of hope and unity. The message has been called "historic" and "presidential", lauded even by conservative pundits as the most important address of the '08 campaign. Observers have speculated widely that his "A More Perfect Union" speech was a tipping point that led to New Mexico governor Bill Richardson's resounding surprise endorsement yesterday.

CNN has reported that as recently as Friday, both Clintons phoned Richardson to ask for his endorsement. He had been spoken of as a likely choice for running mate, should Hillary Clinton become the nominee. In his endorsement of Obama, Richardson called him "a once in a lifetime leader" and called on Democrats to stop fighting among themselves and come together to wage a national campaign under "a new generation of leadership".

The blow to the Clinton campaign is potential severe: Richardson was the rival candidate who was closest to the Clintons, and he made an impassioned case for handing the reins to the popular frontrunnner. He is a friend and watched the Super Bowl with them, but while acknowledging their friendship, he raved about the unique character of Sen. Obama and suggested he would be the most effective and judicious commander-in-chief.

He said in his endorsement address:

My great affection and admiration for Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver. It is time, however, for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and to prepare for the tough fight we will face against John McCain in the fall.

Meanwhile, the news media are full of reports about the other two candidates either losing ground, or slipping up. Polls show a volatile shift between the top candidates in public opinion, the sands shifting subtly with each new revelation or speech.

Sen. McCain, the "presumptive" Republican nominee, reportedly asserted three separate times this week that Iran (a Shi'a theocracy) was training the group known as 'al-Qaeda in Iraq' (some say a more accurate translation is 'al-Qaeda affiliate of Mesopotamia', a Sunni Arab militant group).

His campaign's defense was a disastrous assertion that the mistake was easy to make and that he has a long career of experience. One of two possibilities arise: he was not thinking clearly and spoke without precise reference to the facts, or he intellectually associates all insurgent groups with the term "al-Qaeda", a lack of nuance that worries policy analysts.

Needless to say, not only supporters of his opponents, but even prominent journalists have said the defense suggests the senator from Arizona is claiming age and fatigue as a defense, hoping that "experience" would be enough to override the fact that he would be the oldest president to begin a first term in the nation's history.

Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton has been feeling increasing pressure from the grassroots of her party as the nation marked the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, which she supported. Her increasing determination to end the war has led to accusations of switching positions, and her campaign has struggled to persuade that her views have been consistent or her declarations forthright.

Her candidacy has depended heavily on the demographic projections that suggest she will "carry" the Hispanic vote throughout the primaries. But that has not been the case in every state, and Gov. Richardson (the most prominent Hispanic-American politician at the national level) may have done a lot yesterday to warm Obama's candidacy to Hispanic voters.

It was a bad week for Obama as well. The Philadelphia speech won chimes of historic redefining of race issue in America, and polls report overwhelming support for his message, polls projecting the November election outcome are still weakened for Obama in the wake of the firestorm over his former pastor's inflammatory rhetoric.

But perhaps most importantly, if we look at the text and the context of Obama's Philadelphia address, we find that he has effectively raised the bar for his rivals. He continues to campaign, even as both Clinton and McCain are taking the weekend off, and his stature has come more in line, in the public consciousness, with the responsibilities and vision expected of a serving president.

The speech is not merely a sign of leadership, it is a landmark that sets much of the vocabulary for discourse on the subject of race, not merely in the campaign, but in the future direction of American politics. It was a bold if risky move, and it now leaves both Clinton and McCain with little probability of being able to formulate better arguments on the subject.

Washington Post columnist David Broder has written:

What Obama showed in Philadelphia is the potential similarly to inform, educate and inspire people, if he is allowed to fill "the bully pulpit" of the presidency. If that is what people sense, this will indeed make the Philadelphia speech a historic occasion.

OBAMA REDEFINES HOPE OF RACIAL RECONCILIATION IN PHILADELPHIA SPEECH

'WE THE PEOPLE, IN ORDER TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION' SPEECH TACKLES RACIAL DIVIDE IN U.S., DISTANCES CANDIDATE FROM PASTOR'S REMARKS

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, by the slimmest of margins the frontrunner for the Democratic party's nomination for president, yesterday delivered a major policy speech on race and tolerance in America. Major mainstream media were describing the speech, delivered at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center as "Lincolnesque" and reminiscent of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.

The comparisons were in part about eloquence, but mainly because the speech spanned American history, evoked Constitutional ideals, and augured a future in which we grapple ably with the burning sword of past injustices, and live as a nation of citizens and not of races. Obama invoked the foundational promise of working toward "a more perfect union", recognizing the "original sin" of slavery and the serious complexities of a society that still struggles to shake off that burden.

On cable news commentary panels, even Republican strategists said the speech was "towering" and "historic". And what Sen. Obama achieved, as a politician, is enviable: he transcended the moment, the race, his own personal situation, and spoke of timeless American aspirations and values.

Perhaps most importantly, he framed the debate in such a way that it will be hard for either John McCain or Hillary Clinton to say anything on the issue of race other than what Sen. Obama laid out in this speech. He left them little room to innovate on the subject, and he "unequivocally disavowed" the inflammatory comments of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

But the senator from Illinois refused to "disown" his former pastor. He cited the need to understand human beings as human beings, and compared the act of disowning this man who was a leader in his community and who did good and brought hope to many, to disowning the entire community of African Americans who feel disadvantaged by still prominent tensions about race in society, or to disowning his own "white grandmother", who loves him and whom he loves, but who at times had uttered "racial stereotypes that made me cringe".

Sen. Obama also looked to frame the controversy about Wright's incendiary remarks as an issue of whether or not the American people are able to focus on issues of real political significance and work together to effect change:

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through — a part of our Union that we have yet to perfect.

And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Politicians and commentators alike recognized the surprising significance of the moment, which stems from the fact that he spoke of realities that may seem obvious and commonplace facts, but what was surprising was to hear a politician of national stature, in a global, televised forum, address such sensitive everyday realities so directly.

With unflinching common sense, the senator explored the real possibility that we as a nation could overcome the cruel realities of a racially divided past, but only if we are willing to face those realities, recognize them, and have the consequent discussion. He reiterated what he has said many times in recent weeks, that he is not "naïve" as some critics allege, that he does not expect absolute unity to stem from merely hoping for it, but that he believes people can come together and find common interest, if they accept one another's differences and diverging interests.

The tone of Obama's speech, at once daring, conciliatory, and empathetic, helped him make the case that while the Constitution was "stained" by its not prohibiting slavery, the virtue of the Constitution was clear in that it laid the framework for abolishing such an evil system, establishing if not in words then in principle the equality of all Americans before the law.

He cited his "unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people" as the foundation of his belief that tensions regarding race and political division can be eased and a moderate coalition can be formed in order to dream that "more perfect union", which he reminds his audience is the perennial and necessary project of American democracy.

WEB 3.0 MUST MAKE INFORMATION MORE FREE, THE INDIVIDUAL MORE AUTONOMOUS

HotSpring.fm :: We are on the verge of a major communications and global economic revolution, in which major media, technological advances, cloud computing and dispersed optimization, adapt to and take over new models for living and producing in human society. The New Scientist magazine reports in its March 15-21, 2008 edition that “web 3.0 will be about making information less free”.

We must, as end-users, content creators, innovators and even pioneers in media and technology, consider that for very serious and transcendent reasons, this cannot be permitted to become true. Web 3.0 must be liberating, and it must expand, not shrink the freedom of information that stems from the First Amendment to the US Constitution, free and open society in general, a free press specifically, and the Internet’s empowerment of the individual.

If we are to be a global society, or a “globalized” society, if we are to have a planetary consciousness, or benefit from the “village” dynamic inherent in global trade and telecommunications, then we must ensure that individual freedoms are not limited by global media powers or by governments who think there is something expedient about limiting media freedoms. When freedom of information is restricted, human beings suffer, in real terms, and economic vitality is slowed and economic resilience damaged. [Full Story]

RFID TECHNOLOGY WILL BRING PERSONAL SPACE, TASTES UNDER CONSTANT SCRUTINY BY ANONYMOUS WATCHERS

Radio Frequency ID chips (RFID) are an increasingly popular technology for commercial and security application. They are used to provide information to those who need to check the provenance of an object or the identity of a person or that person's belongings. "Supply chain efficiency" is the great cause they take on, but their real commercial potential lies in the way they can be used to aggregate information and identify tastes and market trends.

It is believed that RFID will soon be commonly used as a way of assisting marketers in providing "personalized" advertising to people, by matching —for instance— the constant presence of a cereal brand in a home, with that family's address, then sending related information via mail, e-mail or telemarketing. When we sit back to think of the implications, these "tags" could be emitting signals at all times, from quiet corners of our homes, providing invisible voyeurs with a dense fabric of information about our habits, tastes, even reading material.

Wired reports "RFID-enabled refrigerators could warn about expired milk, generate weekly shopping lists, even send signals to your interactive TV, so that you see 'personalized' commercials for foods you have a history of buying. Sniffers in your microwave might read a chip-equipped TV dinner and cook it without instruction." But such tags could combine with other tagged items to provide an all-too-intimate portrait of life in a given home.

For one, commercial items may be linked to credit cards or bank cards, jeopardizing the security of these vital accounts, and putting consumers at enhanced risk of identity theft. They might also facilitate the harvesting of time stamps, in which case information about one's movements and schedule would be scooped up along with other data (though in most cases, this information would be useless white noise).

Governments could use the technology as a way to gain access to information that would traditionally be subject to Constitutionally mandated judicial warrants and warranted searches. The slide away from evidence-based prosecution (in which evidence must be available before personal materials are seized), could jeopardize the basic liberties on which a free system is based.

Corporate-government collaboration in the area of in-home-spying is not fantasy: reference the NSA wiretapping program, which violated federal legal constraints by not using warrants, and the complicity of major telecoms in carrying out the illegal wiretapping, which allegedly affected millions of innocent citizens.

Also according to Wired, "With tags in so many objects, relaying information to databases that can be linked to credit and bank cards, almost no aspect of life may soon be safe from the prying eyes of corporations and governments, says Mark Rasch, former head of the computer-crime unit of the U.S. Justice Department."

There are many reassuring words put out by the institutions that want to implement these technologies, often major distribution networks or chain stores. For instance, the claim is often made that privacy is not under threat, because most RFID chips for commercial uses will carry only item-specific data, like a bar-code does, and would not be able to identify the consumer personally.

But, the US Government Accountability Office found in a 2005 report that "once a tagged item is associated with a particular individual, personally identifiable information can be obtained and then aggregated to develop a profile". So, while corporations may have a vested interest in keeping customer data private, the government may find the more intrusive applications of the technology a convenient way to circumvent important Constitutional procedures regarding personal documents, information and property.

• Wired: "Microchips Everywhere: a Future Vision"
• Malaysia Star: "Microtag to launch RFID tracking device"
• Sentido.tv: "DATA SHADOWS & IMPROBABLE CONSENT"
• Sentido.tv: "US STATE DEPT. MANDATES NEW PASSPORTS WILL CONTAIN RFID TRACKING CHIPS"
• Sentido.tv: "IS YOUR CEREAL BROADCASTING YOUR SECRETS?"

HYPER-CONVERGENCE OF MEDIA & SERVICES NECESSITATES NEW PARADIGM FOR SECURING PERSONAL DATA

IN PART, USER PRIVACY WILL HAVE TO BECOME PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The potential for broad-scope "electronic agents" —preprogrammed service aggregators and self-organizing databases with proactive marketing capability—, aiding in everyday information-related activities, will require a new security standard to prevent identity theft, which could become one of the gravest threats to economic performance and individual liberty.

Digital IDs will have to be maintained through unbreakable private information management systems, entirely parallel to and separate from the information actually sent, which will behave as a single identifying set of characteristics for a given internet user, when ID is called for. [Full Story]

AT&T ANNOUNCES PLANS TO INSPECT & FILTER INTERNET TRAFFIC & CONTENT

PLANNED FILTERING WOULD END OPEN INTERNET AS IT HAS EXISTED UNTIL NOW, REPLACING IT WITH STRATIFIED, PREMIUM-BRAND CONTROLLED CONTENT FORMAT

AT&T is proposing the implementation of new filtering technologies "at the network level" that would essentially interrupt in a definitive way the public's freedom to access online content. The concept known as 'net neutrality' refers to consumers and netizens' ability to freely gain access to any site, paid or unpaid, without major telecommunications companies programming access as they do with cable television.

The movement against net neutrality has been spearheaded by giant internet service providers (ISPs) like AT&T and Verizon, who want to profit from permitting consumers access to specific sites. They already charge for end-user access and for content-providers' access, and they charge more if you want higher speeds (bandwidth). Now they seek to ensure that freedom of access be impeded, in order to allow them to manipulate access and information in order to further line their pockets with a medium they did not develop, did not fund, and have not produced. [Full Story]