After our Award, Gatekeeper Project Censored threatens Lawsuit

Pioused Gatekeeper of Media Thinks it Owns the Words 'Censored News'

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Aug. 8, 2015
English with Dutch and French translations

After receiving a Project Censored Award in 2008, Project Censored is now threatening to sue me because it thinks it owns the common words 'Censored News.'

It shows the depth of degradation that even the so-called alternative media has succumbed to, attempting to strangle freedom and preside as a gatekeeper.

This is the danger of placing oneself in a position of righteous power for too long -- in the end you can become the very thing you set out to eradicate.

Shame on Peter Phillips and the Media Freedom Foundation. If you sue me, you will find that I have used my own meager funds to keep Censored News alive for the past nine years, after being blacklisted and censored.

All you will get is the suitcase I drag around and the disgrace of your action.

You should have done your homework before threatening to sue me, as you have used my copyrighted material from Censored News more than once without my permission.

Brenda Norrell, publisher Censored News

Censored News is a service to Indigenous Peoples and grassroots human rights activists published without advertising or grants.
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Al Giordano, publisher of Narco News, responds to Project Censored's attack

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/08/al-giordano-responds-to-project.html?m=0

Thanks to Alice Holemans, NAIS Gazette, for Dutch translation!
http://www.denaisgazet.be/nieuws/censored-news-bedreigd

* BRENDA NORRELL, UITGEVER VAN ‘CENSORED NEWS’ WORDT BEDREIGD MET RECHTSZAAK DOOR PROJECT CENSORED.

Vrome media- waakhond denkt dat de woorden ‘Censored News’ zijn eigendom zijn!

Brenda schrijft ons:

Na ontvangst van een Project Censored Award in 2008, dreigt Project Censored nu om een rechtszaak tegen mij aan te spannen omdat hij denkt dat de doodgewone woorden ‘Censored en News” zijn bezit zijn.

Dit toont de diepte van het verval aan waarin zelfs de zogenaamde alternatieve media zich laten mee sleuren; de pogingen om vrijheid te wurgen en als waakhond te heersen.

Dit is het gevaar wanneer men zichzelf te lang de plaats van rechtvaardige macht toekent- op het laatst kan je dan net dàt worden dat je aanvankelijk wou uitroeien.

Schaam u Peter Philips en de Media Freedom Foundation.

Wanneer u me vervolgt zal u er vlug achter komen dat ik, nadat ik op de zwarte lijst gezet werd en mijn artikels gecensureerd werden, steeds mijn eigen magere inkomen gebruik om Censored News, nu reeds in zijn negende jaar, levend te houden.

Alles wat u hieruit kan halen is de valies die ik steeds rondsleur en de schande van uw actie.

U zou beter uw huiswerk gemaakt hebben voor u met de dreiging van een rechtszaak kwam, dan zou u merken dat u mijn copyrighted artikels en foto’s van Censored News meermaals gebruikt heb zonder mijn toelating.

Brenda Norrell

Uitgever Censored News

Nota van NAIS

Wanneer Brenda schrijft: “Alles wat u hieruit kan halen is de valies die ik steeds rondsleur,” mag dit letterlijk genomen worden.

Haar valies is zo wat het enige dat ze bezit.

Van in het begin heeft ze consequent advertenties geweigerd.

Wat het grootste respect van ons verdiend.

Ook NAIS weigert de speelbal van de ‘commercie’ te zijn.

Na jarenlang als staf- reporter aan verschillende kranten in de US gewerkt te hebben werd ze door Indian Country Today ‘afgevloeid’.

Haar artikels werden gecensureerd.

Haar artikels waren té raak, té eerlijk, té onthullend!

Maar ze is steeds doorgegaan, zelfs onder de meest moeilijke omstandigheden.

Wanneer er een ‘Strong Woman- Award’ zou uitgereikt worden, zou die met onze zegen naar Brenda moeten gaan.

NAIS wil hierbij oproepen om Censored News te steunen.

To Brenda Norrell:

Keep going friend, we need your honesty, integrity and dedication!

Keep strong,

Alice Holemans

NAIS

French translation by Christine Prat

APRES LEUR AVOIR ATTRIBUE UN PRIX, LES CHIENS DE GARDE DE ‘PROJECT CENSORED’ VEULENT POURSUIVRE CENSORED NEWS EN JUSTICE !

On August 10, 2015, in Cops all of countries.../Flics de tous les pays..., by Chris P

Le zélé Chien de Garde des Médias pense qu’il est propriétaire des mots ‘Censored News’[‘Informations Censurées’]

Par Brenda Norrell
Censored News
8 août 2015
Traduction Christine Prat
Nederlandse vertaling door Alice Holemans

Après que j’aie reçu le Prix Project Censored 2008, Project Censored me menace maintenant de me poursuivre, parce qu’il considère être propriétaire des mots courants ‘Censored News’.

Cela montre à quel niveau de dégradation en sont arrivés même les médias soi-disant alternatifs, dans leur tentative d’étrangler la liberté d’expression et de dominer comme chien de garde.

C’est le danger d’assumer une position de pouvoir ‘juste’ pendant trop longtemps – à la fin on devient précisément ce qu’on s’était proposé d’éradiquer.

Honte à Peter Phillips et à la Fondation de la Liberté des Médias [Media Freedom Foundation]. Si vous me poursuivez, vous vous apercevrez que j’ai utilisé mes maigres fonds personnels pour maintenir Censored News en vie depuis neuf ans, après avoir été sur liste noire et censurée.
Tout ce que vous obtiendrez, c’est la valise que je traîne avec moi et la honte pour votre action.

Vous auriez dû faire votre travail avant de me menacer de poursuites, étant donné que vous avez utilisé des informations de Censored News sous copyright plus d’une fois, sans ma permission.

Brenda Norrell, éditrice de Censored News
Censored News est un service pour les Peuples Autochtones et les militants des droits de l’homme de la base, publié sans publicité ni subventions.
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Al Giordano, éditeur de Narco News, a réagi à la menace de Project Censored et sa prétention hypocrite d’être propriétaire des mots ‘censored news’. Al Giordano a lui-même refusé le Prix Project Censored en 2007, considérant Project Censored comme une arnaque destinée à tromper des journalistes et a demandé alors à Peter Phillips de ne pas utiliser ses écrits, vu qu’il le soupçonnait de poursuivre des buts lucratifs. Il estime que, 8 ans plus tard, ses accusations sont parfaitement justifiées. Il avertit que lui-même et alliés de l’Ecole de Journalisme Authentique[School of Authentic Journalism] suivront l’affaire de très près. Il demande à Peter Phillips de lui prouver qu’il avait déposé les mots ‘informations censurées’ avant que Brenda Norrell ne les utilise pour son blog.

Voir l’article d’Al Giordano en entier – et en anglais – sur Censored News

Tagged with: Censored News • Censored News censuré • poursuite contre Censored News

Grand Canyon Tram Scam: Notes on NBC News Story

Grand Canyon Tram Scam: Notes on NBC News’ story

Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma: "These landscapes and the canyon and the confluence today are still very, very important to the Hopi people and we'll never let that go. We're not going to give up on being good stewards of these lands. Never."

 by Roger Clark, Grand Canyon Program Director

Photo credit Kristen M. Caldon

Navajo President Ben Shelly sees himself “as guardian of the Navajo people and nation.” But the titular president, who was seventh-runner-up in last year’s primary election, does not have the authority to “give the developers the ‘OK’” to build Grand Canyon Escalade, as reported by NBC Nightly News.

Crumbs! Cobell Settlement

Is the Cobell settlement another scam?
UPDATE: Attorneys ask judge to more than double their feesBy Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/


Attorneys in the Cobell settlement jacked up their bill in January, more than doubling it, and the United States is now attempting to buy up Indian lands under the settlement.
Indian land owners, long cheated by the US government, will be receiving peanuts. Individual Indians are expected to receive on the average $1,200, of the $3.4 billion settlement.
Native Americans question if the settlement is no more than another US scam to buy up Indian lands.
Never sell the landVi Waln said she has already received three letters, with increasing offers. Waln is Sicangu Lakota, editor of Lakota Country Times and lives on the Rosebud Indian Nation in South Dakota.
"I got three letters on the Cobell settlement. And I will get more letters offering to buy my fractionated interests. Every time they send me a letter with an offer to buy the fractionated interests they offer more money. Maybe I will sell if they offer me $99.9 million like the Cobell lawyers are getting," Waln said.
"But then again I always tell my family to never sell the land, even if the letter says you own only one acre!"
Attorneys want a big chunk of the pieNow that the US has agreed to the Cobell settlement, the attorneys, including a large number of non-Indian attorneys, are seeking to more than double their fees.
The $3.4 billion class action settlement, Cobell v. Salazar, seeks to resolve claims related to Individual Indian Money (or IIM) accounts and land held in trust by the federal government for the benefit of individual Indians.
The attorneys now say that $99.9 million isn't enough. On Jan. 25, the attorneys asked a presiding judge for far more: $223 million plus $1.3 million in expenses and costs (see court petition below.)
Although some of the attorneys are Native Americans, the majority are not.
Washington solo practitioner Dennis Gingold and a team of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton attorneys told a judge their fees should be more than doubled.
The National Law Journal online reports, "Kilpatrick Chairman William Dorris in Atlanta, who bills at $690 an hour, revealed in court records the hourly rates for nearly 100 current and former partners, associates and counsel in Washington; Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Atlanta, among other cities."
Ben Carnes, Choctaw in Oklahoma, questions why the United States isn't paying the legal fees.
"What is absent to me is why the defendants (US Government) isn't paying the attorney fees, which is what is usually requested in civil actions. Unless the negotiations in the settlement were that their payday came from the plaintiffs.
"There has been an argument that many of the current plaintiffs have passed on since the filing of this case, but that has been going on for more than a hundred years. If there is a fear they won't get money in hand before their deaths, then it disturbs me. One should never give up just so they could be bought out."
What about criminal charges?
Carnes said he views the settlement as a cover-up, aimed at protecting the criminals involved in the theft and fraud of billions of Indian dollars.
"My opinion of the Cobell settlement is that it is a cover-up. There is no doubt that to do an historical accounting would be a monumental undertaking, but the costs would be more than dollars.
"It could cost careers, expose covert illegal activities and where possible, lead to a demand for federal indictments. Someone mentioned that during the Iran-contra hearings evidence was revealed that funding had been diverted from our accounts.
"As to the fractionated lands issue, I was told that the lands purchased would be turned over to the tribal government as a part of the consolidation. Since these entities are created by the federal government, it wouldn't be a far stretch to think that the federal government could 'lease' these lands more easily than dealing with heirs."
"Another aspect I haven't seen mentioned here is that when notices are sent out, and if an heir couldn't be reached, they will lose out anyway. These lands will be purchased at fair market value, but when these lands are gone, they will be gone."
Through the years, whistleblowers, including one at the BLM in Farmington, N.M., exposed the fact that the amounts of oil and gas being extracted from the Aneth, Utah, oil and gas fields on the Navajo Nation, were intentionally underreported to benefit the corporations. Navajos in Aneth had long protested the hundreds of oil and gas wells around their homes that were poisoning their families.
Sweetin' the pie: Indian scholarshipsThe dangling carrot of the offer of Indian scholarships was supposed to sweeten the pie, but American Indians aren't buying that either. They've seen these vague scholarship offers fall by the wayside, or end up with most of the funds going into the pockets of CEOs and for travel, or squandered in more fraud.
Theresa Yarbrough listed many concerns over the settlement.
"The scholarship fund is nothing more than dangling an apple in front of the lead plow horse," Yarbrough said.
The vague wording in the settlement states: "Depending on the level of participation in the land consolidation program, up to $60 million will be set aside to provide scholarships for higher education for American Indian and Alaska Native youth."
The truth is, "up to $60 million," is vague wording and means anything less than this amount.
US seeks to benefit from its crimesYarbrough points out that the United States would never enter into the Cobell settlement, unless it benefits the United States.
In the settlement, as usual, the US states that it has done nothing wrong.
"They agree to settle, they don't believe they have committed any crime or wronged anyone," Yarbrough pointed out.
"Another thing wrong with this is that the settlement allows for a huge amount of the monies to establish a new government program that will be used to buy up fractionated lands. This is nothing more than another land acquisition movement," she said. "Unless the land is returned to the Indians with a land patent, and all mineral and resource rights, it is still property of the United States," she said.
Native Americans point out that the US can not be trusted. Further, they point out that tribal governments are entities manufactured by the US government. When it comes to land, and revenues from energy, many Native Americans feel neither the tribal government nor the US government can be trusted.
Although the settlement says the newly-acquired lands purchased will become a "benefit" to the tribes, beware. The US also considers toxic waste dumps as good economic development for Indian country.
It is the purchase of fractionated interests that is a red flag among many.
"Under the Settlement Agreement, $1.9 billion will fund a Department of the Interior program to buy fractionated interests in trust or restricted land from willing sellers to benefit tribal communities and aid in land consolidation."
Yarbrough said what the government is really saying, with the land acquisition is: "We will benefit from your lands and keep you from leaving it to your heirs."
Grassroots Natives remain uninformedThe settlement comes with many warnings that may never reach the grassroots Native people who live without electricity or Internet. For some, English is a second language. Still, if they don't opt out, they are considered part of the settlement.
"Individuals wishing to keep their right to sue the federal government over mismanagement claims covered by the settlement must exclude themselves from the settlement by April 20, 2011," according to the settlement.
Hush moneyAs with any settlement, this means an end to claims.
"Settlement means just that, once the deal is accepted, the issue is settled, put to rest, and can never be brought up again," Yarbrough said.
Crumbs again for the people
As more is learned about the settlement, it increasingly resembles some of the casino negotiations.
These resulted in casino management companies and the states receiving fortunes from lucrative casinos. The grassroots Native people whose tribes operate lucrative casinos, including the Tohono O'odham, continue to live in desperation, seeking food, homes and jobs, while profits go to casino management companies and large percentages to the states.
MoreUPDATE Feb. 2, 2011: Cobell is holding meetings with land owners:http://64.38.12.138/News/2011/000330.asp
Current payout information for landowners:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/court-ordered-notification-in-34-billion-indian-trust-settlement-to-begin-114639824.html
Attorneys petition for increased fees:"This fee petition is submitted by plaintiffs on behalf of Dennis M. Gingold, Thaddeus Holt and the law firm of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, LLP, including William E. Dorris, Keith M. Harper, Elliott H. Levitas, David C. Smith, Adam H. Charnes, G. William Austin and Justin M. Guilder (collectively, “Class Counsel”) in accordance with the terms of settlement. Work after December 7, 2009 will be the subject of future applications.
Court petition:http://www.indiantrust.com/docs/20110126_petitionbrief.pdf
National Law Journal: Cobell attorneys seek $223 million
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202480032511

Takeover of DC office to expose 'carbon credits' as scam

Climate Activists Invade DC Offices of Environmental Defense, Daughter of ED Founder Accuses Group of Pushing False Solutions to Climate Change

By Rising Tide North America
Sent to Censored News by Indigenous
Environmental Network director Tom Goldtooth
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com


WASHINGTON -- As the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change opened today in Poznan, Poland, grassroots climate activists took over the Washington DC office of Environmental Defense. The activists stated that they had targeted ED, one of the largest environmental organizations in the world, because of the organization's key role in promoting the discredited approach of carbon trading as a solution to climate change.

Dr. Rachel Smolker of Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition read a statement, which said in part, "My father was one of the founders of this organization, which sadly I am now ashamed of. The Kyoto Protocol, the European Emissions Trading Scheme and virtually every other initiative for reducing emissions have adopted their market approaches. So far they have utterly failed, serving only to provide huge profits to the world's most polluting industries. Instead of protecting the environment, ED now seems primarily concerned with protecting corporate bottom lines. I can hear my father rolling over in his grave."

The activists rearranged furniture in the office, illustrating how marketing carbon is "like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." Others held signs reading "Keep the cap, ditch the trade" and "Carbon trading is an environmental offense."

Leo Cerda, an indigenous activist with Rising Tide Ecuador said, "ED wants to turn the atmosphere and forests into private property, and then give it away to the most polluting industries in the form of pollution allowances that can be bought and sold. Not only is this an ineffective way to control emissions, it is also a disaster for the poor and indigenous peoples who are not party to these markets and are most impacted by climate change."

ED has been key in establishing the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a business consortium advocating for a cap and trade system with extremely weak emissions reductions. US CAP allows polluters like Duke Energy, Shell, BP, DuPont, and Dow Chemical to claim they are green while continuing with business as usual. In recognition, activists awarded ED the "Corporate Greenwash Award," a three foot tall green paintbrush. "We think this award is appropriate since Environmental Defense spends more time painting polluters green than actually defending the environment," said Matt Wallace of Rising Tide North America.

Opposition to carbon trading is growing as it becomes apparent that market based schemes do little to fight climate change while helping corporations rake in profits. Earlier this year, over 50 groups came together in the US to denounce carbon trading in a Declaration Against the Use of Carbon Trading Schemes to Address Climate Change. Globally, hundreds of environmental, social justice, and indigenous groups have come together to oppose such market based initiatives as inherently unsustainable and ineffective in creating a just
transition away from fossil fuels.
Off-site Media Contact: Matt Wallace, Rising Tide North America, ph: 828-280-3462
On-site Contact: Dr. Rachel Smolker, Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition ph: 802-735-7794
For full statement from Dr. Rachel Smolker visit:
http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/connections.php?ID=214http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2008/12/01/climate-activists-invade-dc-offices-of-environmental-defense-daughter-of-ed-founder-accuses-group-of-pushing-false-solutions-to-climate-change