In the wake of a horrific rampage, in which Mohamed Merah (now dead after a 32-hour standoff with police) reportedly murdered three French soldiers, three young Jewish schoolchildren, and a rabbi, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has begun calling for criminal penalties for citizens who visit web sites that advocate for terror or hate. "From now on, any person who habitually consults Web sites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence will be criminally punished," Sarkozy was reported as saying.

Apart from the obvious flaws in Sarkozy's plan--users, can, of course, use anonymizing tools to view the material or simply access it from a variety of locations to avoid appearing as "habitual" viewers--there are numerous other reasons to be concerned about criminalizing access to information.

First, there's no guarantee that criminalizing access to hate speech or terrorist content will end the very real problems of hate crime and terrorism. Extremist violence didn't start with the Internet and it won't end with it, either.

Second, who defines "hate speech"? In France, that definition includes Holocaust denial, which in the past resulted in Yahoo! discontinuing auctions of Nazi memoribilia (the collectors of which are not, by any stretch, all sympathizers). And negative comments about France's Muslim community have also resulted in criminal penalties, most notably in the case of actress Brigitte Bardot, who has been convicted five times for "inciting racial hatred." While Holocaust denial and comments about Muslims such as those made by Bardot may be deplorable, they should not be criminal.

Finally, while Sarkozy is not--yet--calling for websites to be blocked, it wouldn't be a stretch; after all, France already offers mechanisms for blocking child pornography and "incitement to terrorism and racial hatred." If Sarkozy were to decide censorship is the answer, one major risk would be overblocking: there's nary a country in the world that censors the Internet without collateral damage (in Australia, for example, testing on a would-be censorship regime found the site of a dentist blocked, among others).

EFF has serious concerns about the implications of Sarkozy's comments. When a democratic country such as France decides to censor or criminalize speech, it is not just the French that suffer, but the world, as authoritarian regimes are given easy justification for their own censorship. We urge French authorities to judge crime on action, not expression.

The following are important facts that may help you understand the background to the recent shocking events in South Western France.

Three servicemen have died and in another attack on a Jewish school, a teacher, two of his own children and a third child were tragically gunned down by a masked man riding a motor scooter.

Important fact number one: the first round of the French presidential election is scheduled for April 22nd. A final encounter between the two front runners is scheduled for May 6th, should no clear winner emerge from the first round.

And number two: the incumbent Nicholas Sarkozy is fighting for his political life. He has trailed his socialist opponent Francoise Holland for months now. He has not led in the polls against any socialist contender since November 2009.

To sum up, Sarkozy is one of the consistently least popular presidents in the history of the Fifth Republic. He looked every inch the loser engaged in a race to the bottom. His populist lunges at the over-bearing EU, playing the anti-Turkish card over the Armenian genocide issue, barely registered more than a temporary flicker on the political Geiger counter.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out strongly against extremism, but urged his countrymen not to stigmatize Muslims, after a 32-hour siege that resulted in the death of a radical Islamist gunman who confessed to killing seven people.

Sarkozy has proposed a raft of new anti-terrorist measures.

Speaking in a press conference straight after the end of the siege in Toulouse, the French president said anyone regularly visiting websites "justifying terrorism" or "preaching hatred and violence" would be prosecuted.


Sarkozy also called for punishments to those who travel to radical Islamic camps, even if they commit no crimes on French soil.


It is suspected that the Mohamed Merah, the gunman who numbered three Jewish children among his victims, visited Afghanistan and Pakistan on several occasions, fighting alongside the Taliban. Merah claimed links with Al-Qaeda during the siege.

Another day, another false-flag terror event in another advanced Western democracy. This time, the people of France are the target of Western state-sponsored terrorism and the strategy of tension. The patsy's name is Mohammed Merah. The names of the people who were murdered by the French state are Jonathan (Yonatan) Sandler, plus two of his young children named Aryeh and Gabriel, and another child named Myriam Monsonego.

This is an ordinary state-run terrorist operation to increase tension, fear, and hatred in Western society. This is what the fascist State does when it is free to write history on the spot and blow stuff up. It kills innocent children to make the submerged public gasp for air, hate the scapegoat, and demand security and steel nerve from the leaders of the State.

Vincenzo Vinciguerra, an Italian neo-fascist and terrorist, described in 1984 the existence of a shadow network of military officials and political leaders in Italy who frequently organized terror attacks to keep the country within the sphere of right-wing politics. This network was part of a larger structure known as Gladio that included government fascists in Europe, America, and NATO. Vinciguerra, who was a mercenary of this secret state-terror network until the day he raised awareness of its existence, said in the famous documentary, Operation Gladio:

You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.

Police hunting a gunman suspected of killing seven people in southern France have surrounded a flat in Toulouse.

The 24-year-old Frenchman from Toulouse has said he belongs to al-Qaeda and acted to "avenge Palestinian children".

Police are now negotiating with the man, who is still said to be heavily armed but has indicated he may give himself up in the afternoon.

Two police officers were injured in exchanges of fire during the raid and there are reports of a fresh blast.

The suspect's brother is under arrest.

The suspect's mother, who is Algerian, has been brought to the scene, but Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who is in attendance, said she had refused to become involved as "she had little influence on him".

The minister said the suspect had made several visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In its latest effort to panic the American public, the FBI last month fabricated an alleged al Qaeda terror plot against the U.S. Capitol Building. According to reports published by Russian news outlet RT and others, after arresting an intoxicated American-born drug dealer of Moroccan descent, FBI agents drove him to the Capitol and handed him a fake bomb before summarily rearresting him on Feb. 17.

Over the course of a year, 29-year-old Amine El Khalifi, who was clearly mentally ill and often high on cocaine and other drugs, was persuaded by an FBI informant to agree to attack the U.S. Capitol. Because El Khalifi didn't have a gun, a bomb or a car, the FBI informant graciously offered to provide him all three - and thus El Khalifi was driven to the U.S. Capitol building by the FBI, handed a gun and a bomb, and then arrested as an "al Qaeda operative."

"Why people even said Dr. Crandon committed illegal operations on little children and murdered them."

Mina/Margery Crandon

On April 29, 1911, Houdini debuted his famed Chinese Water Torture Cell escape in Southampton, England, though he had perfected and copyrighted the act well over a year earlier. The inherently dangerous stunt caused quite a sensation: "Just the sight of the apparatus was enough to give you shivers and make you believe, as one critic noted, that you were about to witness a ritual sacrifice."

Around that same time, Houdini was, for reasons unknown, busily buying mothballed electric chairs at auctions across the country.

In 1913, Houdini's beloved mother passed away, which apparently resulted in Harry learning some deep family secret. Following her death, Houdini sent the following cryptic note to one of his brothers: "Time heals all wounds, but a long time will have to pass before it will heal the terrible blow which Mother tried to save me from knowing." The meaning of this rather provocative note remains a mystery. Houdini, by the way, was in Denmark when his mother died, and he requested a delay of her funeral to allow himself time to return to the States. Despite strict prohibitions in Jewish law, the entertainer's request was, of course, granted.

In December 1914, just a few months after the staged provocation that allegedly triggered World War I, Houdini was summoned to the nation's capitol for a private audience with then-President Woodrow Wilson. It is anyone's guess what business the two men discussed, but it probably had little to do with stage tricks.

A year-and-a-half later, on that most notorious of dates, April 20, an estimated 100,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C. to watch Houdini perform a straightjacket escape. Other than for a presidential inauguration, it was said to be the largest crowd ever assembled in downtown Washington. One year later, in April 1917, the US declared war on Germany.

For the duration of the United States' involvement in the war, Houdini spent a considerable amount of time aiding the war effort, both through fundraising and by frequently visiting the front lines, where he ostensibly went from camp to camp providing entertainment for the troops.

Houdini's Hollywood career also began just as the US was entering the war. It has often been said that one of his first credits was as a special-effects consultant on the Mysteries of Myra cliffhanger serial, though others have claimed that Houdini had no involvement in the production. Curiously, the real consultant for the project is said to have been occultist/intelligence asset Aleister Crowley.

It turns out that the propagandist behind the KONY 2012 campaign is a raving lunatic. But what about the propagandists behind the OSAMA 2001 campaign that brainwashed the planet into thinking that Osama Bin Laden did the 9/11 attacks? Aren't they also raving lunatics like Jason Russell of the KONY 2012 fraud?

Anyone who has seriously studied the psychopathy of the state terrorists and totalitarian propagandists who did the 9/11 attacks knows that they are total nutcases. They are capable of orchestrating mass murder on a large scale, all the while presenting a straight face to the public as if they're not completely insane war criminals.

In the immediate hours and days after the September 11 attacks, propagandist chiefs Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, all appeared on television to put out their twisted narrative that Islamic extremists were responsible for the tragedy, without providing any evidence for their assertions.

The videos that are linked above are of Wolfowitz on PBS, Netanyahu on NBC, and Barak on BBC. Every interview is worth watching. If you are interested in human psychology, history, cultural anthropology, sociology, and media studies, then you will find greater value in this archival footage.

What is socialism?

Socialism is an economic system characterized by public ownership and centralized planning of all major industries (manufacturing, services, and energy), banks and insurance companies, agribusiness, transportation, the media, and medical facilities. Under capitalism, these giant enterprises dominate the economy but are privately owned and operated for the purpose of generating wealth for their owners by extracting it from working people who are paid only a small fraction of what their labor produces. Socialism turns this around so that the class that produces the wealth can collectively decide how it will be used for the benefit of all.

Translated by Sott.net reader
Before the dust from the previous meteor had settled down, a new meteor illuminated the night sky over the eastern part of Norway. Tonight's fireball was observed at 00.09.30 on the 14th of March, and was visible for just under 6 seconds, Steinar Midtskogen told Dagbladet.

The astronomy enthusiast had erected a camera that surveys the sky from Voksenlia in Holmenkollåsen. It is so far not possible to determine whether the object burnt up in the atmosphere or if parts of it reached the ground in the form of meteorites.

This one was weaker than the one we saw on March 1st. Whether it produced any meteorite downfall is too early to tell but it is definitely a candidate that should be followed up, according to Midtskogen.