Journalist Burned Alive In India For Facebook Post Exposing Corruption 219
arnott writes: Journalist Jagendra Singh used a Facebook page to expose corruption in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Though he posted under a pseudonym, he was quickly found and burned alive by police, allegedly on the order of the minister accused. He died a week later from his injuries. This is not the first case of a journalist being attacked in this state. Amnesty International had urged the local government to launch an official investigation, and now five policemen and a politician have been brought up on murder charges. What can Facebook or other companies do to help these journalists report on corruption in a safe manner?
Burning people? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps India should look into the US 2nd amendment. Moral majority prefer better living conditions for everyone, corruption apposes that, be messy but the smart money is on the masses.
Re:Burning people? (Score:5, Funny)
And right now, they could buy Colt really cheap.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Burning people? (Score:5, Funny)
The .45 or the 40 ounce?
You got two hands, right?
Re:Burning people? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not like all of India is run this way, any more than all US police forces spend all their time shooting blacks and seizing assets; but there are places(Uttar Pradesh is a good candidate to be one of them) where you are liable to get some really, really, bad news about how 'rule of law' actually works if you cross the wrong local strongman.
Re:Burning people? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not like all of India is run this way
India is actually becoming much less corrupt, and for a reason that should make us nerds happy: technology. India runs vast welfare schemes, including subsidized rice [wikipedia.org] and fuel, and guaranteed work programs [wikipedia.org]. In the past, these were done on a cash basis, and hopelessly corrupted, with each layer of authorities skimming off their percentage, until only a fraction reached the poor. But the cash has been replaced with a combination ID and debit card [wikipedia.org] that cuts out all the intermediaries. This has weakened corrupt networks, and raised people's expectations, so they are demanding cleaner government in other areas. The Internet, and especially social media, has made exposing corruption much easier. Sites like I Paid a Bribe [ipaidabribe.com] are very popular in India.
It is sad that this journalist was killed, but it is actually a sign of progress, because at least the crooks saw him as a viable threat. A decade ago he would have just been ignored.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Burning people? (Score:4)
Why? Because those people are clearly of insufficient value to be considered viable, deemed so by the All Jerking Invisible Hand of the Holy Market?
Viewing the poverty line as if it were made of piano wire is a dangerous thing, especially since with the increasing levels of automation in the world, it will continue to sweep towards the right of the income curve.
Re: (Score:2)
None of those schemes should make you happy, whether it's done via cash or done via debit card.
Yeah, they should.
See what I did there?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps India should look into the US 2nd amendment.
Ha ha, yeah what you need is another reason for the corrupt police to shoot you...
Re: (Score:2)
It does not help. Why? Because it is lack of FIRST amendment combined with gov. enforcement that allowed this.
Sad that you do not understand the difference between these or even how the 2nd is applied.
Re: (Score:2)
No, the evidence (number of live human burnings) simply has little to no correlation with gun rights, or lack thereof. It certainly does not provide evidence against gun rights.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Russia had gun control when Stalin was busy killing off - what? 20 million people?
China had gun control while it experienced it's revolution, also while it suffered the Japanese occupation, and during the time the Communists were killing off yet more millions.
Hitler enjoyed the benefit of gun control laws.
Pol Pot didn't have to worry about an armed citizenry.
I think the numbers support the necessity of gun rights. The difference between a free man and a slave is the right to bear arms.
Re: (Score:2)
When Stalin ruled the soviet union (20 million people is a figure vastly overblown by the way, otherwise USSR would have been depopulated after that and WW2) Soviet citizens actually were armed to the teeth due to a civil war that only ended in in early 1920ies and widespread hunting.
Same in Germany, Hitler came to power in 1933, but his gun control law (which, by the way, was not vectored against ordinary citizens but jews and dissidents) only was introduced in 1938. Funny fact, Hitler's supporters back th
Re: (Score:2)
Gun control is gun control. Some of what you state is true, while some of it is just so much spin.
http://www.nationalreview.com/... [nationalreview.com]
"In 1931, Weimar authorities discovered plans for a Nazi takeover in which Jews would be denied food and persons refusing to surrender their guns within 24 hours would be executed. They were written by Werner Best, a future Gestapo official. In reaction to such threats, the government authorized the registration of all firearms and the confiscation thereof, if required for
Re: (Score:2)
When Stalin ruled the soviet union (20 million people is a figure vastly overblown by the way, otherwise USSR would have been depopulated after that and WW2) Soviet citizens actually were armed to the teeth due to a civil war that only ended in in early 1920ies and widespread hunting.
http://istmat.info/node/31996 [istmat.info]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually - yes I am. I watch people avoiding the police. I watch people saying "Yes sir" and "No sir" to the police. I watch people groveling in front of the police.
I address police in one way, and one way only. I address them as equals. I am a free man. Cop says "Stop!" I say, "What for?"
Delusional, you say? The numbers support my view. The cops don't come out into the rural parts of the country, and throw concussion grenades into cribs, killing little babies. They only do that in the cities, wher
Re: (Score:2)
Do you understand that the entire point of "gun control" means removing them from the police too (excepting rare circumstance).
Thought not.
Re:The UK doesn't have a 2nd. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually - yes I am. I watch people avoiding the police. I watch people saying "Yes sir" and "No sir" to the police. I watch people groveling in front of the police.
I address police in one way, and one way only. I address them as equals. I am a free man. Cop says "Stop!" I say, "What for?"
Let me guess. You're a white guy.
Re: (Score:2)
You really have no clue what the fuck you're talking about. It sounds like you're referring to the recent incident in Georgia, but somehow assumed it was in Atlanta instead of rural north Georgia where it actually occurred. This article about it [washingtonpost.com] even has a depressingly-long list of instances where police used grenades like that, including instances in
Re: (Score:3)
If there's one thing the data has shown us, it's that we're all much safer in an interaction with the police if they honestly believe we might shoot them.
Do you reach into your waistband, just to make sure they know th
Re: (Score:2)
That seems to be changing. Have you watched 'India's Daughter' yet? No, I'm not from India, so I can't verify anything, but I do read the news.
I think this is the full movie - I have it on hard drive, but I routinely delete history, and can't remember where I downloaded it from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
In terms of legislation, you may be right. In terms of actually enforcing such protections, not so much. The US is hardly perfect and this regard, but it is light years ahead of India in protecting women's rights, minority rights, and civil liberties in general.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Burning people? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Getting divorced isn't dumb luck, you know. The divorce rate "on average" may be 50%, but that's because you're averaging together poor uneducated people who got married as teenagers (high likelihood of divorce) with rich educated people who got married in their 20s (low likelihood of divorce). I'm still over-simplifying, of course, but I assume you get the idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not up to Facebook to do anything, other than comply with the applicable laws of the country they're located in. If the company inserted itself into a local and controversial political problem, then it could be putting its own employees at risk.
Re: (Score:2)
You are effectively correct. About the only things that will change the corruption would be those willing to put themselves at risk to expose it and the masses unwillingness to accept corruption when it is exposed.
Re:Nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Wikileaks was indeed built for anonymous disclosure, but Facebook has the audience; if you want to expose corruption, which site provides the widest dissemination?
Personally, I am firmly convinced that anonymity should be permitted (with few and obvious exceptions) on any web platform, and expressly for this purpose. It's not up to Facebook (or any other website owner) to provide a means to intimidate folks who actually do speak truth to power (as opposed to the trite over-use of the phrase here in the US b
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much.
The big question should be what can India do to stop murder and corruption. It is not Facebooks job to do but the government's. If the Government will not do it then international pressure needs to be applied.
Maybe Amnesty International or the EFF should have some system for whistleblowers.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
One way to apply immediate and powerful pressure from the US government's point of view: suspend the issue of all H1-B visas to workers from India until India gets their shit together.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not up to Facebook to do anything, other than comply with the applicable laws of the country they're located in. If the company inserted itself into a local and controversial political problem, then it could be putting its own employees at risk.
Correct, and as demonstrated by the USA, rouge police officers don't need warrants or probable cause in order to access all records held by facebook.
Especially, not if it's related to "terrorism" or "national" security...
This is why the surveillance programs are so bad, they legitimize the same conduct in countries where abuse is much more likely.
Not that we don't know the US already abuses it's powers for industrial espionage.
Re: (Score:2)
Best case for encryption, ever (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Good idea. Put out a message nobody can read.
Re: (Score:3)
So seriously, you don't get the connection between non-attributability of authorship and encryption? You thought I was saying "encrypt the story", not "encrypt the source of the story"?
Seriously .. or this was a joke?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In good stories, the verifiable facts speak for themselves . That is pretty much the definition of good journalism.
We don't believe journalist's stories because we trust the individual journalist. We believe their stories because of the evidence those journalists assembled in their stories.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
UH strong crypto is what enables obfuscation of meatspace identity in wiredland. Are you feeling okay?
Yes, it keeps (some) of your communication private. Of course, the author's intent was to disseminate the information widely, so that aspect of encryption is lost. It's especially lost when you add enough distinguishing characteristics to the work itself that you can piece together who the author is.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
SEe above. It's not about encrypting the story, it's about encrypting your connection so your anonymity remains secure.
Re: (Score:2)
SEe above. It's not about encrypting the story, it's about encrypting your connection so your anonymity remains secure.
Only if what you're doing is sent to another party, and that party then strips out identifying information.
And by "another party," I don't mean Facebook or any hosting service. More like a foreign journalist.
There are two separate issues here, transmission and hosting. Encryption helps protect anonymity during transmission (and it can verify that the endpoints of the transmission are who they claim to be), but that's not what got the journalist identified. He was identified because his public posting was no
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt encryption would help here. If the set of possible authors is 7 Billion then encryption might help. But given the context, writing style, locale etc the set of possible authors is probably one or two.
So strong encryption doesn't really help deter the police in figuring out who the author was.
Re:Best case for encryption, ever (Score:5, Interesting)
I clearly need to be more detailed in my comments. My bad. See two comments aboe you for connection between encryption and anonymity.
Encryption -not of content (the story) but of internet connections- is what permits people to post and read online anonymously.
If people can find out what your IP address is or otherwise get at what computer you were using to author the story then they have an excellent chance at identifying you. To defeat this and remain anonymous, encryption is used by software like TOR to hopelessly obscure the actual source of the computer.
If you surf using some form of encryption to hide your actual IP address it makes it hard for low-level bad guys, even ones with govt. connections, to know who you are.
Of course very powerful goverments like the US can track you, absolutely using a VPN (we know this from Snowden) and probably even TOR can't protect you anymore - that is just my best guess given how TOR works and the what resources that government has at its disposal.
But it takes a nation-state level effort to do that. This guy was not killed by someone with access to that kind of power.
HTH
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Creating a fake Facebook profile isn't exactly all that hard:
Hi, Facebook! Oh, you want personal info to register my account? Okay: My name is John Barlow. I was born on 5/16/1982. My email address is you.silly.dumbass@gmail.com
Oh, wait... none of that personally identifies me.
Now, couple that with a cheap/easy VPN connection from your computer to use when you set up (then use) Facebook and gmail, and you're nigh on untraceable - at least to some local despot.
Re:Best case for encryption, ever (Score:4, Informative)
Facebook anonymity (Score:3)
Re:Facebook anonymity (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't teach your journalists how to avoid being murdered. Teach your boys not to murder to gain and remain in power.
Re: (Score:3)
I'd stick with the teaching of the journalists to avoid being killed, if I were you. Being a psychopath isn't exactly a course of study in school. Even for boys.
Journalists need to stay alive to expose those people.
India is RL "Judge Dredd" (Score:5, Informative)
Indias legal excecutive is basically "Judge Dredd" in real-life. Courts are so behind, murder investigations and convictions can take up to 25 years before even starting. The police solve this on their own to maintain order by staging "encounters" for people who've killed more than once. They basically find you, arrest you for something petty they can pin on you and then shoot you for resisting/trying to flee.
With such factually absolute powers for the police, they're bound to turn corrupt.
I'd say it's no surprise that in such a system an exposure of police corruption get's you killed mafia style.
Re:India is RL "Judge Dredd" (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly, for American readers, it's like the Wild West. Courts are literally packed smoked filled rooms filled with defendants, police, lawyers and a judge all shouting and screaming and the defendant is basically unable to decipher what or when the judge is handling his case except his lawyer comes up periodically and tells him something .
Cases take years and decades to go tot trial and in the meantime, anything goes usually, dependant on the connections and wealth of the defendant. IF yo're poor, you're fucked. If it's high profile, you have a right to a speedy kangaroo court. If you're rich with connections , you skate.
I know people who legally own homes and property that other just random people have taken up residency in and there's really nothing they can do about it. They can take them to court but it will take years and years for the case to be heard and in the meantime, those random people are just go non living there.
It's like that.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow. For all the troubles the American court system has (and there are plenty of them), the Indian court system makes the American one seem like Utopia by comparison.
Re: (Score:2)
What can Facebook do? (Score:2)
...What can Facebook or other companies do to help these journalists report on corruption in a safe manner?...
For starters, they need to want to do something to help. Just because someone happens to post on a Facebook webpage, does that put the onus on Facebook automatically to protect that journalist? Probably not.
.
So it then comes down to Facebook actively wanting to provide such a mechanism for journalists.
Will Facebook want to do that?
Probably not, as Facebook appears to be more interested in tracking people [dailytech.com] than providing posting sanctuaries for journalists.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly this. Facebook - and other websites with "real name" policies - hardly seem the place to post anonymously. Want to post anonymously for free? Set up a Wordpress.com site under a pseudonym and post there. You can even share it on Twitter under a pseudonym account. Will it be impossible for people to find out who you are and where you live? Of course not, but if you do it right, it should be much harder to track than Facebook.
I found his FB page [facebook.com] and it not only shows his photo, but lists his nam
Wasn't Really Trying to Hide in the First Place... (Score:3)
Re:Wasn't Really Trying to Hide in the First Place (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I found his Facebook page. Not only did he have his photo, but his full name on the page as well. If posting under your real name counts as a pseudonym, then I guess I'm posting under a pseudonym as well. *sits back confident that nobody will EVER guess my real name*
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook has a policy against creating fake accounts or using false information.
Not saying this journalist should have regarded Facebook's policies as more important than his own security, but Facebook is not a platform for anonymity and I doubt even incidents like this will change their mind. It will probably just result in being told "then don't use Facebook for that purpose".
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't a matter of how important the journalist thinks FB's policies are, it is a matter of him posting in a place and in a manner that would give away his identity when he has no reason to believe that they wouldn't.
Facebook makes no claims to protect users from being discovered. Quite the opposite, really. They are very upfront about the fact that they want you to be identifiable.
I can only believe that this journalist either was unaware that it would go this far, or that he was willing to risk his li
Firewall (Score:3)
If you're not very careful with your security, you might get burned.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Forgot to add, "I'll bet I get modded flamebait for this..."
What can Facebook do? (Score:2)
Nothing.
It is up to local checks and balances to meaningfully protect their journalists and combat corruption in whatever form it may take. And, let there be a local population that will take a stand for such measures rather than appeal to the corporation.
If a system requires the brutality and death of journalist or more open-speaking critics so that checks and balances occur, that is more a question of how local governments of those systems can improve in meaningful ways.
If Facebook or any other corporati
This sounds crass but... (Score:3)
Why is it Facebook's responsibility?
There's corruption in Uttar Pradesh? (Score:3)
http://www.damninteresting.com... [damninteresting.com]
Unless you count the thousands of still-living people there that have been declared legally dead by bribed public officials and stripped of their property.
Just a Fan of Game of Thrones (Score:2)
Get Out The Back Jack (Score:2)
What could Facebook do? (Score:2)
What can Facebook do? (Score:2)
Re:one should note: governments are same everywher (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Sickening (Score:3)
"innocent" being Aryan-code for "white".
US (Score:2)
Wow, that didn't long for the irrelevant anti-US swipe, just 5 posts. This has jack-squat to do with the US, you know. Isn't this brown-skinned people oppressing other brown-skinned people? Can't deal with that truth though, so let's make an obligatory mention of the "evil" US.. And if you'd care to look at real statistics, cops don't routinely kill "innocent" people; incidents have occurred, yes, but it's certainly not a matter of policy or even general practice. The media might have you think otherwise, but they promote the hell out of sensational dirt, it's good for their bottom line, which is all they really care about.
0. Concur OP was kinda ridiculous.
1. The US has brown-skinned people too.
2. Concur that killing innocent people isn't a matter of policy, but it is much less clear how routine or common it may be. A part of that is statistics (routine across a lots of cops each day, so not routine for individual cops) and a part is obscured by the playbook (a culture which hates a cop who doesn't back up another cop, unions which care more about defending their members than about whether their members are murderers, and th
Re: (Score:2)
Better question: how often do we have to see irrelevant posts that serve only to promote a poster's favorite hate obsession? Simply put, this happened in India, not the US. It would seem all roads of negativity lead back to the US. It gets old, that's all.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh huh. Right.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how rigged the elections are in that province. You'd think that using MAFIA-style tactics would have too much risk of backfiring in any place which is not effectively a single-party dictatorship.
Let's see... in 2014 the BJP and allies won a pretty lopsided victory in Uttar Pradesh (73 out of 80 seats). In the three elections before that the results were much more evenly split, with SP beating the BJP in 2004 and 2009. Looks competitive, at least on paper.
It's weird... quietly killing a troubleso
Re: (Score:3)
The minister who ordered the murder must have felt totally untouchable.
I think he felt totally Brahmin, actually.
But let's just say it's not a complete surprise that Uttar Pradesh has a very lively Maoist rebellion going on. I'd probably join them, if I was a peasant living there.
Re:The mafia state (Score:5, Interesting)
If it did, it wouldn't be crime, now would it? A state openly run by the Mafia would simply be your run-of-the-mill military dictatorship or warlord-ridden anarchy, depending on whether a single faction was supreme or not.
No, what we're seeing here is the difference between official and real culture. That is what corruption is, at its core: a culture tries to pretend it's something else - something better - than it actually is, a kind of "werewolf state" which mauls people by night and damns wolfs by day. Everyone goes along with the lie because when someone points out the hypocrisy, the mask of decency slips and the beast comes out.
But when the beast is out, it can be seen by all. That is its weakness. People can no longer pretend everything is fine; they must either openly submit to the wolf - and accept they're going to be devoured - or fight to rid themselves of it. And this beast has no claws of its own, only those lent to it by its slaves. Knowing that, it too must choose whether to strike back and risk breaking its spell entirely, or give up some of its malevolence and become less like a wolf and more like a human.
Re: (Score:2)
So true and so beautifully written ! Thanks, you made my day (well, at least my breakfast).
Re: (Score:2)
Don't ever think that it's less risky anywhere else. You may not risk being killed everywhere, but you can suffer badly anyway if you go against the corrupt people.
Re: (Score:2)
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
We would like to be perfectly safe, and not have to worry about being murdered for exposing corruption. But that ideal may be impossible. Instead, there will always be a need for patriots willing to risk everything. Oppressors must be constantly reminded that threats, even of death, cannot silence everyone. Journalists have to be willing to risk torture and death.
This particular oppres
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is actually a good point. Although, they could just wound you, and then burn you to death.
But at least you'd have the chance to take one or two of those motherfuckers with you. That might make them think twice.
Re: (Score:2)
Almost everyone that commits suicide agrees: Getting shot to death is a better way to go than burning to death.
Mance Rayder and the rest of the Free Folk agree! That's why Jon Snow shooting him as he was getting burned alive was a mercy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Guns are nothing but a security blankie for those that grow up paranoid of everything.
Re: (Score:2)
One person against the government, yes. They will get swatted.
That said, it drives up the cost of every action. When enough people go into armed opposition, it becomes a lot more difficult for the government to act with impunity.
It is true that the Second Amendment was written in a time where the concept of Federalism and states' rights were stronger. The huge monstrosity of a government we have today was not envisioned, so it was probably assumed that the militia could deal with the government, if neede
Re: (Score:3)
> there's even less you could do against a bomber or a tank.
This is presumably why the US are arming police forces all over the country with ex-military surplus.
They're preparing for the inevitable war against their populace. We should probably be infiltrating the police.