Anarchopedia:Article in the news

File:Switch off internet in case of political dissent.jpg

Satirical graphic made in reaction to the internet blackout in Egypt

2011 Egyptian media censorship

On January 25 and 26, 2011, Wikipedia:Twitter was blocked in Egypt due to the 2011 Egyptian protests (WP), and Facebook was later blocked as well.

On January 27, various reports claimed that access to the Internet in the entire country had been shut down. The authorities responsible achieved this by shutting down the country's official Domain Name System, in an attempt to stop mobilisation for anti-government protests. Later reports stated that almost all Wikipedia:BGP announcements out of the country had been withdrawn, almost completely disconnecting the country from the global Internet, with only a single major provider, Wikipedia:Noor Data Networks, remaining up.

The Hacktivism group Anonymous displayed the altruistic side of direct action for the uninitiated, with techniques used in the 1989 Beijing protests, to update Egyptians behind the information 'Iron Curtain' as Andy Greenberg dubbed it; Egypt's loss of internet access had kept them from news about WikiLeaks-intercepted Egyptian diplomatic cables, but Anonymous ducked under the obstruction with a low-tech solution: Faxes.

Coalition to Save the Preserves

Coalition to Save the Preserves was a name chosen in 2002 by Mark Sands to cover up his arson of a building that he did not want in his area by portraying it as Propaganda of the deed (or more specifically, 'eco-terrorism').

The fact that Sands had been perpetrating a hoax, however dangerous a hoax, never seemed to fully sink into the minds of some US. security agency employees, and most likely others decided it would be expedient to ignore this fact, and they have issued numerous lists of terrorists with the CtStP included:

• In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security issued a threat assessment that included the CtStP as one of the threats on US soil that had carried out domestic terrorism.
• Listing on the Global Terrorism Database by START Wikipedia:National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a Center of Excellence of the US Department of Homeland Security based at the University of Maryland

Understandably, Sands' Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) activity was something of a threat to real direct action advocates, and Earth First!, with considerably fewer resources than the FBI or the later security agencies, was at the time, at pains to point out that it was not responsible for his activity

Killing the drug fields: Paraquat poisoning from Operation Intercept to present

Photo of a "Rebel" marijuana crop, taken by a US Department of Justice employee, during the course of their official duties

In 1969, US President Richard Nixon approved Operation Intercept, to destroy Mexican marijuana plantations. He did not bother asking the Mexican government for permission beforehand. Marijuana (WP) drug cultivation in the US now exceeds that of Mexico.

The power of US threats-as-diplomacy in global negotiations, trade or military, as evidenced by the fact that by the mid-70s, Mexico was a willing and active participant in programs aimed at eradicating cannabis plantations.

File:Chc bell 206.jpg

Bell 206 helicopter, one of two models sent by the US State Department to Mexico in 1975 to spray Paraquat and kill growers

In 1975, despite being warned by the Health Department to not allow the Mexican government to use the poisonous weed killer Paraquat in anti-narcotics operations, the State Department sent an official to Mexico to show operatives there how to more efficiently spray marijuana fields there with Paraquat from the air, in blue and white helicopters supplied by the USA. Mexico also sprayed bullets onto Mexican fields, and into Mexican growers, from some of that $21 million worth of helicopters, converted into gunships.

The Bell 212 model. It is not stated whether one or both models were used as gunships, although the 212 is widely used by governments, and both the US and Canadian military

In 1978, the State Department claimed it had ceased all operations of this type, but the Drug Enforcement Agency DEA (WP) took up Paraquat spraying again in 1988. It continues to be used in drug field eradication programs, not only in other countries, where the US acts with lesser regard for the life and health of the inhabitants, but in the US as well.

Since much of this was subsequently smoked by Americans as cannabis, the US government's "Paraquat Pot" program stirred much debate. Perhaps in an attempt to deter people from using marijuana, representatives of the program warned that spraying rendered the crop unsafe to smoke.

An United States Environmental Protection Agency manual states: "... toxic effects caused by this mechanism have been either very rare or nonexistent. Most paraquat that contaminates marijuana is pyrolyzed during smoking to dipyridyl, which is a product of combustion of the leaf material itself (including cannabis) and presents little toxic hazard." The amount of dipyridyl released by each process is not noted.

Statements by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (WP) contradict the EPA findings about the pyrolysis products of paraquat, finding that the product by pyrolysis, dipyridyl, is hazardous to human health.

A 1995 study stated: "no lung or other injury in marijuana users has ever been attributed to paraquat contamination".

More research into the effects of pyrolized herbicides is needed as they are also used to spray tobacco, and have continued to be used in anti-narcotics campaigns throughout the world. Paraquat spraying affects nearby crops as well, usually the cocoa, coffee, and tea grown in the same highland areas that are conducive to marijuana cultivation.

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