The Freedom Bulletin

Today the world lost a brave, strong leader and a true feminist. Margaret Thatcher, the first woman to serve as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, died today at age 87.

Lionel Shriver described in a piece for Slate how, unlike so many people today who call themselves feminists, Thatcher was the real thing:

Thatcher consistently defied gender stereotypes. A woman’s prerogative may be to change her mind, but Thatcher was decisive; her defense of British territorial interests when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982 was unequivocal, and helped to restore waning British self-regard. The Iron Lady was anything but sentimental, as evidenced by her refusal to be moved by the miners’ strike of 1984-85 (the breaking of which the British left has never forgiven her for). Though women ostensibly seek harmony, she never shied from conflict, which is why a string of powerful ministers in her Cabinets were driven to resign. From her first assumption of the leadership of the Conservative Party, no one ever had the nerve to call her weak.

As she confounded the expectation that a female political leader would err on the side of softness, accommodation, and dithering, Thatcher also upended the traditional power structure of marriage. Modest and retiring, Dennis Thatcher sat cheerfully in the backseat while his wife drove the car—and the country. Yet Maggie and Dennis were by all accounts happy together, and therefore writ large a new domestic model: If one of you has to be the boss, it can just easily be the wife.

RIP Margaret Thatcher.

Leave a message in her honor here.

Photo credit: Olivier Corsan / Le Parisien

For almost two years I have been a defender and supporter of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Anne Sinclair. I have written quite a few blog posts praising their relationship and taking their side in the various legal trials and tribulations that they have faced. So with the news of their recent divorce, I think it fitting that I share my thoughts on their relationship and its tragic end.

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In case you missed it, WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange recently spoke via video link at Oxford University. He was invited by the Oxford Union Society, and his address was part of the ceremony for the Sam Adams Award, an honor celebrating whistleblowers. This year’s recipient was Dr. Tom Fingar, the lead author of the US National Intelligence Estimate, which provided evidence that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Assange won the award in 2010. In this year’s ceremony he spoke out against censorship and of the importance of freedom of information. Also speaking at the ceremony were several other whistleblowers, including former FBI and CIA agents and diplomats.

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Yesterday lawyers for Megaupload and its founder, Kim Dotcom, filed a brief in a U.S. federal court in Virginia, asking for a dismissal of the criminal copyright infringement case against them. The brief argues that the government violated Megaupload’s rights by seizing the company’s servers and freezing its assets without notice, depriving the defendants of the evidence and funds needed to effectively defend themselves, as well as depriving users of their files:

“More than a year has now passed since Megaupload was branded a criminal, with no opportunity to date to clear its name or to challenge the charges against it. More than a year has passed since every penny of the company’s assets was frozen, yet there has been no pre- or post-seizure hearing for Megaupload to contest the propriety of that action. Megaupload’s servers—which house the universe of relevant evidence against which the Government’s allegations against Megaupload might potentially be fully and fairly assessed one day—have been taken offline for lack of funding (while the Government sits on all the assets it has seized from Megaupload), gathering dust and in danger of deteriorating. And Megaupload’s innocent consumers have been forced to go more than a year without any access to their property.

The ability of a criminal defendant to mount, not only in theory but also in practice, a fair defense should be beyond question. The Government’s conduct of this case is to the contrary, raising grave questions about whether the Government is intent on being judge, jury, executioner, and asset collector without benefit of the adversarial process and protections, including those of Rule 4, to which this corporation is entitled.”

Read the Memorandum in Support of Request for Dismissal here (PDF).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a memorandum in support of Megaupload’s position (PDF).

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Yesterday marked 6 months that Julian Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Tonight, to mark the occasion, he gave a speech from the balcony, which you can watch above.

Photo via International Monetary Fund

On Monday, Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s legal troubles in the USA came to an end. But this was not exactly the conclusion I had imagined. On July 1, 2011, when it was first reported that the criminal case against him was falling apart, it appeared that the story would turn out as a victory for defendants’ rights and true gender equality over media bias, presumption of guilt, and the sexist stereotype that all men are sexual aggressors and all women are victims. Unlike those who were convinced of Strauss-Kahn’s guilt merely because he was a man who was accused of rape, his wife, Anne Sinclair, showed that she was a true feminist by coming to his rescue, bailing him out of jail, financially supporting him, and fiercely defending him against his innumerable and vocal critics. It was truly a wonderful moment when they strode out of the courthouse, smiling slightly, his arm around her shoulders, when he was set free without bail.

But the victory was short-lived. Even before the sexual assault charges against him were officially dismissed in August of last year, public opinion, which had swung briefly in Strauss-Kahn’s direction when his accuser’s lies and inconsistencies first came to light, began to turn against him once more. Journalists and editorialists around the world vilified and shamed him for his reputation as a libertine. Self-professed “feminists” held up signs outside the courthouse to protest the dismissal of the charges. Instead of being welcomed back into French politics – and perhaps even the presidential race which in he had intended to be a candidate – he was shunned and bullied by his former allies. A French court decided to essentially convict him, with no evidence, on a writer’s decade-old allegation of sexual assault. Another French court decided to hit him with criminal charges for “aggravated pimping” despite the fact that there has never been any suggestion that he made money from prostitution. When he gave a speech about the global economy in Cambridge, England, hordes heckled him and threw things at him. And, worst of all, Sinclair went back on everything that she had so bravely stood for earlier, deciding to dump him and kick him out of the Paris apartment that was his home.

Monday’s settlement in the civil case between Strauss-Kahn and his accuser, former hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo, was far from the triumphant conclusion I had envisioned, but it was not entirely negative either. Although Strauss-Kahn still has the “pimping” charges hanging over his head (this Wednesday he’ll learn whether they will be dismissed), he must feel relieved to no longer have to worry about the New York case, or the pricey legal fees that it doubtless entailed. Against the odds, he is making a comeback as an economic advisor, having recently founded a consulting company called “Parnasse” and spoken at conferences in Ukraine, Morocco, South Korea, and Israel. He has a beautiful new apartment, which he showed off in a recent interview with Le Point. And he possibly has a new girlfriend, the communications director for France TV, Myriam L’Aouffir.

Was the settlement a just outcome? Here are a few thoughts that I have.

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I recently picked up a copy of Wired magazine, with its cover story about Kim Dotcom, the brilliant, eccentric, and fascinating Internet entrepreneur and freedom fighter. In January of this year, police conducted an armed raid on Kim’s home in New Zealand after a U.S. grand jury indicted him on charges of criminal copyright infringement for running the file-storage site Megaupload. He is currently on bail as he fights extradition to the United States. Reporter Charles Graeber spent 10 days at Kim’s mansion and shares many details about his everyday life, the raid, and the case against him (or lack thereof):

Kim Dotcom is rich enough to work however and wherever he wants. And what he wants is to work from bed.

His bed of choice is a remarkable piece of custom Swedish craftsmanship made by a company called Hastens. Each one takes some 160 hours to produce and is signed by a master bed-maker who lays out the most perfect matrix of horsehair, cotton, flax, and wool. Price after custom framing: $103,000. Kim has three such beds in his New Zealand mansion, one of which faces a series of monitors and hard drives and piles of wires and is flanked on either side by lamps that look like, and may well be, chromed AK-47s. This is Kim’s “work bed” and serves as his office. It was here that he returned in the early morning of January 20, 2012, after a long night spent on his music album, one of his many side projects.

Read the rest at Wired.com.

Despite his legal troubles, Kim is planning to launch a new website with file-hosting, email, video, and other functions – on the one-year anniversary of the raid. Kim is active on social media, where he regularly updates with news on his legal case, his business projects and hobbies, his thoughts on various topics, and pictures of himself, his gadgets, his home, his friends, and his family. He is friendly, funny, and down-to-earth and regularly interacts with supporters. I would highly recommend following him on Twitter (@KimDotcom) or visiting his official website, Kim.com.