E dopo Gualtieri, Grillo, De Luca e Volo: l'ennesimo attacco al diritto di voto e al suffragio universale

"Finché una popolazione non ha adeguata istruzione non può essere in grado di votare in modo legittimo".
Così Alba Parietti a "Stasera Italia" del 29 gennaio scorso.
Dunque dopo un Ministro della Repubblica, Roberto Gualtieri, dopo il capo dell'ex partito di maggioranza parlamentare, Beppe Grillo, due scrittori di successo Erri De Luca e Fabio Volo, ecco l'ennesima proposta brillante per limitare il diritto di voto e distruggere il principio del suffragio universale nel nostro Paese.

Link originale: https://www.tgcom24.mediaset.it/2020/video/alba-parietti-a-stasera-italia-la-popolazione-senza-istruzione-non-dovrebbe-votare-_14168757.shtml

Come mai proprio in Italia questo incredibile dibattito abbia preso piede, e tanti VIP di prima e seconda categoria si prestino ad esso con tanta naturalezza, è un mistero.
Il fatto che la maggior parte di questi siano esponenti di centro sinistra o simpatizzanti di un'area politica che ama presentarsi come democratica e contro tutte le discriminazioni, fa pensare.

Che il nostro futuro sia davvero un'epistocrazia come quella suggerita dal libro di James Brennan (sdoganato nientemeno che dalle edizioni Luiss)?
Tra il 2016 e il 2017 scrissi queste pagine riguardanti il futuro della democrazia in Europa:

Allora cercavo di rappresentare un futuro spaventoso ma fantasioso.  Oggi ho timore che il nostro presente stia andando proprio in quella direzione e più rapidamente di quanto possiamo immaginare...

"Stati Uniti d'Europa": tra presente e futuro, una prospettiva possibile.

"UROPIA", IL NOSTRO FUTURO SVELATO IN UN THRILLER?

Pietro Bargagli Stoffi, nel suo libro d'esordio "Uropia il protocollo Maynards", immagina l'Europa a dieci anni da oggi, nel momento di transizione al nuovo superstato sovranazionale - gli Stati Uniti d'Europa, come spesso si sente dire - appena instaurato.

Un periodo nel quale le tentazioni autoritarie di qualcuno potrebbero venire allo scoperto e mettere in pericolo la nostra democrazia, la nostra libertà, i nostri diritti.

Un movimento politico denominato "Uropia" creato dal prof. Johnathan Maynards (un personaggio ispirato a... scoprite chi nel video) si interroga sul rischio che sta correndo l'Europa.

"Uropia" è un thriller verosimile, realistico, e documentato; avvincente, ricco di personaggi, azione e colpi di scena si legge in un fiato vi lascia con la voglia di leggerne subito il seguito.

 @Orizzonte degli Eventi

Link originale : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce6NJn8-2lc

Giornalista del NY Times spiato da virus Pegasus del gruppo privato israeliano NSO

Stopping the PressNew York Times Journalist Targeted by Saudi-linked Pegasus Spyware Operator

By Bill Marczak, Siena Anstis, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, John Scott-Railton, and Ron Deibert

THE CITIZEN LAB January 28, 2020

Key Findings

• New York Times journalist Ben Hubbard was targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware via a June 2018 SMS message promising details about “Ben Hubbard and the story of the Saudi Royal Family.” 
• The SMS contained a hyperlink to a website used by a Pegasus operator that we call KINGDOM. We have linked KINGDOM to Saudi Arabia. In 2018, KINGDOM also targeted Saudi dissidents including Omar Abdulaziz, Ghanem al-Masarir1, and Yahya Assiri, as well as a staff member at Amnesty International.
• Hubbard is among a growing group of journalists targeted with Pegasus spyware. As part of our continued investigation into threats against journalists, Citizen Lab also identified evidence suggesting a Pegasus operator may have been infecting targets while impersonating the Washington Post in the weeks leading up to and after Khashoggi’s killing in 2018. There is no overlap between this activity and reported events surrounding the mobile phone of Jeff Bezos.

1. Background

Pegasus is the name of a mobile phone spyware product made by NSO Group, an Israeli-based company that develops and sells surveillance technology.2 Since 2016, researchers have documented the abuse of Pegasus against journalists, human rights defenders, and members of civil society. In one case, Pegasus was used to target the wife of a slain journalist in Mexico.

Several reports by Citizen Lab and Amnesty International in 2018 showed that a Saudi-linked Pegasus operator that we call KINGDOM was targeting dissidents and regime critics. On July 31, 2018, Amnesty International and Citizen Lab reported that an Amnesty International staffer, as well as a “Saudi activist based abroad” (later identified as London-based dissident Yahya Assiri) was targeted with Pegasus. On October 1, 2018, Citizen Lab reported that Canadian permanent resident and Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz was targeted with Pegasus. During the period when his phone was monitored, Abdulaziz was apparently in close contact with murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashogghi.

Figure 1: Graphic showing locations of likely Pegasus infections linked to the KINGDOM operator in 2018.

On November 11, 2018, Forbes reported that Saudi dissident, Ghanem al-Masarir, was targeted with Pegasus. If the targets had clicked on the links in the text messages they received, the KINGDOM operator would have been able to closely monitor these individuals’ communications and plans. Abdulaziz filed a lawsuit against NSO Group in Israel, and al-Masarir filed a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia in the UK.

2. New York Times Reporter Targeted

Ben Hubbard is the Beirut Bureau Chief of the New York Times. Prior to his promotion to that role, Hubbard reported on Saudi Arabia, including on Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman (MbS). In an announcement of his promotion, the New York Times noted that Hubbard had “turned out deeply revealing reports from a closed society that is changing rapidly under a headstrong crown prince,” and had “…peeled back the curtain from the prince’s relentless consolidation of power.”

2.1. Pegasus Infection Attempt

On June 21, 2018, Hubbard received an SMS on his phone stating in Arabic: “Ben Hubbard and the story of the Saudi Royal Family.” Hubbard provided this message to the Citizen Lab in October 2018 for analysis. With Hubbard’s consent, we are now able to report on this case.

Figure 2: Pegasus infection attempt received by New York Times journalist Ben Hubbard on June 21, 2018 (screenshots courtesy of Ben Hubbard).

The link sent to Hubbard led to the site arabnews365[.]com, and was sent from a sender that called themselves “Arabnews.” The full link is:

https://arabnews365[.]com/wqbgGdwlk

Hubbard recalls that he did not click on the link and we are not able to determine whether his phone was successfully infected.

2.2. Connection with Pegasus Infrastructure

At the time the SMS was sent to Hubbard, the arabnews365[.]com domain was active and belonged to the portion of NSO Group’s Pegasus infrastructure used by the KINGDOM operator. The domain was also independently identified by Amnesty International as belonging to NSO Group’s infrastructure. In a previous report, we provided a comprehensive technical description of how we identify and scan for Pegasus infrastructure. In this section, we briefly summarize this process.

In 2016, Citizen Lab published the Million Dollar Dissident report, the first public research to identify NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. In Million Dollar Dissident, we reported on an attempted intrusion of United Arab Emirates (UAE) activist Ahmed Mansoor’s phone using a text message with a malicious link promising “New secrets about torture of Emiratis in state prisons.”

Our investigation included scanning the Internet to find Command & Control (C&C) servers that behaved similarly to the ones communicating with the spyware sent to Mansoor. While the Pegasus servers we found were pulled offline even before we published Million Dollar Dissident, we continued to monitor them in case some of them might come back online. In the weeks after our report, we noticed a small number of Pegasus servers that came back online, but the servers no longer matched our fingerprint. We built a new fingerprint based on this behaviour, and began conducting regular Internet scans to find servers matching this new fingerprint.

In September 2018, Citizen Lab published Hide and Seek: Tracking NSO Group’s Pegasus Spyware to Operations in 45 Countries, which described the results of this follow-up scanning, conducted between August 2016 and August 2018. In these scans, we detected 1,091 IP addresses and 1,041 domain names matching our new fingerprint. We further grouped these IPs and domains into 36 distinct Pegasus operators using a technique we developed and named Athena. We also devised a new way to conduct DNS Cache Probing, and used this method to find likely infections, by identifying Internet Service Providers (ISPs) where one or more user was repeatedly looking up domain names associated with Pegasus C&C servers.

Figure 3: Locations of ISPs where we identified likely infections with Pegasus spyware (source: Hide and Seek report).

3. Commercial Spyware Harms Democracy, Press Freedom

As anti-democratic, authoritarian forces are on the rise in many countries, journalists are increasingly targets for surveillance and physical harm. Products like NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware provide government clients with a powerful tool to surreptitiously monitor journalists, their sources, and the stories on which they are reporting. Many of NSO Group’s clients appear to lack rigorous oversight over their security services, and have a track record of human rights abuses, including threats against journalists.

Un altro passo verso il sabotaggio della Democrazia

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Trump’s most baleful legacy? The end of trust in democracy and the rule of law

America’s founding principles are being eroded by a culture of partisanship and sycophancy – and the effect will be global

THE GUARDIAN, Simon Tisdall, Sat 25 Jan 2020 19.47 GMT

The charges against Donald Trump in his impeachment trial boil down to this: he tried to cheat his way to a second term, got caught, and attempted a cover-up. The difficulty is that Trump, notwithstanding heaps of damning factual evidence of deliberate wrongdoing, is 99% certain to get off.

Yet the trial in the Senate cannot be dismissed simply because the result is known in advance. Its perverse outcome, if confirmed, may seriously undermine respect for American democracy and the constitutionally based rule of law. That’s bad news for the world at large.

Take the legal aspects first. American observers of Britain’s Brexit travails had great fun ridiculing the archaic rules and conventions that for months tied parliament up in knots. Yet the US situation is arguably worse.

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The impeachment process, contingent on proof of “high crimes and misdemeanors”, is a game played under 18th-century English rules, though not English spelling, that even American legal scholars struggle to explain. Trump is charged, firstly, with abuse of power. The framers of the constitution “were particularly concerned that a sitting president would abuse his office to get re-elected,” said Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor, in a recent analysis.

According to the “English tradition” followed by the likes of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, Feldman said, impeachable offences occurred “when a high office-holder took gifts of value to do his job”.

In Trump’s case, the alleged gift of value was Ukraine’s looked-for agreement to investigate his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, and his son, for evidence of corruption.

Yet the president’s lawyers reject the basic premise. They say Trump was fulfilling his duty to root out corruption in Ukraine, a recipient of US aid. There was no “quid pro quo”. What Trump did, they argue, cannot be defined as a high crime or misdemeanour – whatever they may be.

Republican sycophancy means the Senate often more closely resembles Russia’s rubber-stamp Duma or Iran’s Majlis

Trump’s defence goes much further. By denouncing the entire process as a hoax and refusing to cooperate – which gave rise to a second charge of obstruction – he has, de facto, denied Congress’s right to impeach him at all. The very idea an accused person could take such a stand was never envisaged by delegates to the 1787 constitutional convention in Philadelphia and is wholly unprecedented.

“A president who cannot be criminally investigated [due to the immunity traditionally afforded an incumbent] and also cannot be investigated by Congress would be effectively above the law … Denying Congress’s power to conduct an impeachment inquiry subverts the foundation of democratic government,” Feldman wrote.

This reliance on time-worn, disputed English legal precedents has exposed a dangerous US constitutional weakness, as Adam Schiff, the House of Representatives’ “lead prosecutor”, recognised last week. “I don’t think the impeachment power is a relic. If it is a relic, I wonder how much longer our republic can succeed,” he said.

“The president has shown he believes he’s above the law and scornful of constraint … If we don’t stand up to this peril today, we will write the history of our decline with our own hand… Our future is not assured.”

Political aspects of the trial are no less threatening for US democracy. The Senate was conceived as a body of independent, high-minded individuals acting in the national interest. Today it is anything but, dominated by a rabidly partisan Republican majority determined to acquit Trump no matter what.

Quite why Chief Justice John Roberts, who presides at the trial, calls the Senate the “world’s greatest deliberative body” is puzzling. Republican sycophancy, fed by fear of Trump, means it often more closely resembles Russia’s rubber-stamp Duma or Iran’s Majlis.

Roberts’s supreme court provides more evidence of a fundamental breakdown in the fabled US constitutional system of checks and balances. Trump has successfully nominated two conservative justices to the court – Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – and more may follow. He is also shamelessly packing the federal bench. Public trust in the independence and open-mindedness of the judiciary is plainly at risk.

It’s entirely possible the electoral college, another 18th-century remnant, will deliver the presidency to Trump in November, contradicting the popular vote (as happened in 2016 and 2000) and, for many, rendering the election meaningless.

Unchecked, underhand voter suppression, gerrymandering of electoral districts, and antiquated and insecure voting equipment all fuel doubts that the US is still capable of holding free and fair elections.

The chronic failure to curb a system of money politics that favours incumbents further exacerbates democracy’s credibility problem. So, too, does the politicisation of offices of state such as attorney-general – where the present incumbent, William Barr, acts more like Trump’s consigliere than chief government law officer.

Factor in digital meddling by foreign powers, notably Russia, and Trump’s “fake news” culture of lies and manipulation, and a sobering picture takes shape of a democratic system on its knees and close to possible collapse.

For a watching world where democracy is widely under attack from autocrats and populists and where the US claims to set an example, this is a chilling spectacle.

Of all the many wrong things Trump has done, his most terrible legacy may be the destruction of trust in the workings of democracy, the US constitution, and the rule of law. His weird, slightly unreal trial in absentia symbolises that dread prospect.

E pluribus unum – out of many, one. And that one a tyrant, just as the founding fathers feared.

Link originale: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/25/trump-legacy-end-of-trust-in-democracy-simon-tisdall

Un divieto di anonimato non impedisce l'odio in internet, ma lo alimenta? Ricerca dell'Università di Zurigo.

Hasskommentatoren verzichten im Netz häufig auf ihre Anonymität

Hasskommentare in sozialen Medien können innert Kürze die Reputation einer Person oder eines Unternehmens beschädigen oder gar zerstören. Der Grund für solche Posts sei, so die gängige Meinung, dass die Verfasser im Internet meist anonym aufträten. Eine Forschungsarbeit der Universität Zürich zeigt nun aber, dass Hasskommentatoren zunehmend mit vollem Namen agieren. Ein Anonymitätsverbot dürfte die gefürchteten «Shitstorms» somit nicht verhindern, sondern möglicherweise sogar anheizen.

Hasskommentatoren agieren zunehmend mit ihrem richtigen Namen (© badmanproduction / iStock)

Politiker und Prominente, Unternehmen und Organisationen sowie Menschen bestimmter Nationalitäten und sozial Benachteiligte – die Liste der Betroffenen von Hassstürmen in sozialen Medien ist lang. Beleidigende, bedrohende oder abwertende Kommentare gehören heute zum digitalen Alltag. Mögliche Folgen dieser virtuellen Hexenjagden sind, ob gerechtfertigt oder nicht, Reputationsverlust, Rücktritt, Kündigung, soziale Ausgrenzung oder sinkende Aktienkurse. Die vermeintliche Anonymität in Netz lasse, so die gängige Meinung, die Hemmschwelle beim Posten von Hasskommentaren sinken.

Nicht anonyme Hasskommentatoren werden zunehmend salonfähig

Eine Studie von Forschenden der Universität Zürich kommt nun aber zu einem ganz anderen Ergebnis: Das Team unter der Leitung von Katja Rost vom Soziologischen Institut konnte zeigen, dass nicht anonym auftretende Online-Hasser zunehmend die Regel statt die Ausnahme sind. Die Auswertung von mehr als 500'000 sozialpolitischen Kommentaren aus rund 1'600 Online-Petitionen der deutschen Plattform www.openpetition.de zwischen 2010 und 2013 ergab, dass die Verfasser von Hasskommentaren, die unter ihrem vollen Namen posten, sogar häufiger sind als anonyme Hasskommentatoren.

Viele Online-Newsportale oder Social-Media-Plattformen sind bestrebt, der Verrohung der Sprache in Kommentarspalten oder in sozialen Netzwerken Einhalt zu gebieten. «Als Mittel für eine zivilisierte digitale Diskussionskultur ertönt häufig der Ruf, die Anonymität im Internet abzuschaffen», erklärt Soziologie-Doktorandin Lea Stahel. «Gemäss der gängigen Meinung enthemme Anonymität die Menschen bei offensichtlich unrechten Taten, weil sie ihre Selbstverantwortung abstreifen könnten und sie vor unmittelbaren Konsequenzen schütze.» Wieso verzichten viele Hasskommentatoren im Netz trotzdem darauf, anonym aufzutreten?

Wer seine Anonymität preisgibt, ist glaubwürdiger und beliebter

Erstens halten es viele Online-Hasser schlicht nicht für nötig, anonym zu sein. Anstatt rein persönliche Racheakte sind Hasskommentare oft Reaktionen auf Verletzungen einer sozialen Norm wie die Einhaltung von Umwelt- oder Plagiatsstandards oder Verstösse gegen sozial erwünschtes Verhalten wie politische Korrektheit. Wieso sollten sich Verfasser von Hassposts, die ihren Protest als moralische Pflicht rechtfertigen und sich für eine gerechte Sache einsetzen, verstecken? Zudem kann ein Online-Hasser davon ausgehen, dass sein aggressives Verhalten kaum je geahndet wird. Es wird als sehr unwahrscheinlich erachtet, dass ein viel beschäftigter Politiker oder ein angeschlagenes Unternehmen gerade ihn verklagen würde, wenn eine ganze Flut von Beleidigungen die Betroffenen überschwemmt habe, so Stahel.

Verbot von Anonymität verhindert Hassstürme nicht

Zweitens können Hasskommentatoren die Mitmenschen in ihren sozialen Netzwerken leichter überzeugen und mobilisieren, wenn sie mit ihrem richtigen Namen auftreten. Dadurch signalisieren sie Risikobereitschaft, um ihre Meinungen öffentlich kundzutun, und erarbeiten sich so einen Vertrauensbonus. Im Idealfall kann dies ihren sozialen Status erhöhen, da sie sich in digitalen Netzwerken wie Facebook in «Freundeskreisen» bewegen, in denen ihre Äusserungen dank «Shares» und «Likes» widerhallen. «Die Abschaffung der Anonymität führt daher nicht automatisch zum Verschwinden von Hass-Stürmen, sondern möglicherweise gar zu deren Zunahme», gibt Lea Stahel zu bedenken.

Literatur:

Katja Rost, Lea Stahel, and Bruno S. Frey. Digital Social Norm Enforcement: Online Firestorms in Social Media. PLoS ONE. June 17, 2016. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155923

Universität Zürich, 

Medienmitteilung vom 25.07.2016

Rapporto OXFAM: la ricchezza globale resta concentrata al vertice della piramide distributiva

La ricchezza globale, in crescita tra giugno 2018 e giugno 2019, resta fortemente concentrata al vertice della piramide distributiva: l’1% più ricco, sotto il profilo patrimoniale, deteneva a metà 2019 più del doppio della ricchezza netta posseduta da 6,9 miliardi di persone.

Nel mondo 2.153 miliardari detenevano più ricchezza di 4,6 miliardi di persone, circa il 60% della popolazione globale.

Il patrimonio delle 22 persone più facoltose era superiore alla ricchezza di tutte le donne africane.

Se le distanze tra i livelli medi di ricchezza dei Paesi si assottigliano, la disuguaglianza di ricchezza cresce in molti Paesi.

In Italia, il 10% più ricco possedeva oltre 6 volte la ricchezza del 50% più povero dei nostri connazionali. Una quota cresciuta in 20 anni del 7,6% a fronte di una riduzione del 36,6% di quella della metà più povera degli italiani. L’anno scorso inoltre, la quota di ricchezza in possesso dell’1% più ricco degli italiani superava quanto detenuto dal 70% più povero, sotto il profilo patrimoniale.

In un mondo in cui il 46% di persone vive con meno di 5.50$ al giorno, restano forti le disparità nella distribuzione dei redditi, soprattutto per chi svolge un lavoro.

Con un reddito medio da lavoro pari a 22$ al mese nel 2017, un lavoratore collocato nel 10% con retribuzioni più basse, avrebbe dovuto lavorare quasi tre secoli e mezzo per raggiungere la retribuzione annuale media di un lavoratore del top-10% globale. In Italia, la quota del reddito da lavoro del 10% dei lavoratori con retribuzioni più elevate (pari a quasi il 30% del reddito da lavoro totale) superava complessivamente quella della metà dei lavoratori italiani con retribuzioni più basse (25,82%).

Nel report Time to care – Avere cura di noi, che pubblichiamo oggi, alla vigilia del meeting annuale del World Economic Forum di Davos, evidenziamo un fenomeno, elevate e crescenti disuguaglianze, che mettono a repentaglio i progressi nella lotta alla povertà, minano la coesione e la mobilità sociale, alimentano un profondo senso di ingiustizia e insicurezza, generano rancore e aumentano in molti contesti nazionali l’appeal di proposte politiche populiste o estremiste.

Il rapporto è la storia di due estremi. Dei pochi che vedono le proprie fortune e il potere economico consolidarsi, e dei milioni di persone che non vedono adeguatamente ricompensati i propri sforzi e non beneficiano della crescita che da tempo è tutto fuorché inclusiva.

Abbiamo voluto rimettere al centro la dignità del lavoro, poco tutelato e scarsamente retribuito, frammentato o persino non riconosciuto né contabilizzato, come quello di cura, per ridarle il giusto valore.

Dopo il rapporto Ricompensare il lavoro, non la ricchezza del 2018, dedicato al lavoro sottopagato e a moderne e invisibili forme di sfruttamento nelle catene di valore globale, Time to Care – Aver cura di noi presta attenzione al lavoro domestico sottopagato e a quello di cura non retribuito che grava, globalmente, soprattutto sulle spalle delle donne. Uno sforzo enorme per garantire un diritto essenziale il cui valore è tuttavia scarsamente riconosciuto.

Basti pensare che:

• le donne a livello globale impiegano 12,5 miliardi di ore in lavoro di cura non retribuito ogni giorno, un contributo all’economia globale che vale almeno 10,8 trilioni di dollari all’anno, tre volte il valore del mercato globale di beni e servizi tecnologici;
• nel mondo il 42% delle donne di fatto non può lavorare perché deve farsi carico della cura di familiari come anziani, bambini, disabili. Solo il 6% degli uomini si trova nella medesima situazione;
• in Italia, al 2018, l’11,1% delle donne, per prendersi cura dei figli, non ha mai avuto un impiego. Un dato fortemente superiore alla media europea del 3,7%, mentre quasi 1 madre su 2 tra i 18 e i 64 anni (il 38,3%) con figli under 15 è stata costretta a modificare aspetti professionali per conciliare lavoro e famiglia. Una quota superiore di oltre 3 volte a quella degli uomini;
• le donne svolgono nel mondo più di tre quarti di tutto il lavoro di cura, trovandosi spesso nella condizione di dover optare per soluzioni professionali part-time o a rinunciare definitivamente al proprio impiego nell’impossibilità di conciliare i tempi di vita e di lavoro. Pur costituendo i due terzi della forza lavoro retribuita nel settore di cura – come collaboratrici domestiche, baby-sitter, assistenti per gli anziani – le donne sono spesso sotto pagate, prive di sussidi, con orari di lavoro irregolari e carichi psico-fisici debilitanti.

Solo politiche veramente mirate a combattere le disuguaglianze potranno correggere il divario enorme che c’è tra ricchi e poveri. Tuttavia, solo pochissimi governi sembrano avere l’intenzione di affrontare il tema.

È ora di ripensare anche il modo in cui il nostro modello economico considera il lavoro di cura. La domanda di questo tipo di lavoratori, non retribuiti o sottopagati, è destinata a crescere nel prossimo decennio dato che la popolazione globale è in aumento con percentuali di invecchiamento sempre più alte.

Link originale: https://www.oxfamitalia.org/davos-2020/