Censorship of Ed Snowden

 For the final project in my Equality course we took on censorship. Censorship is the act or practice of censoring, that means that censorship can play a part into many things such as adult content, harmful material, and or negative information that is trying to be put out to the public by someone or some people. Through out this last unit I learned about a hacktivist group called Anonymous, and a Chinese contemporary artist/activist named Ai Weiwei. Anonymous is an online mass of people that can hack almost anything and everything they feel like that needs to be put out there for the public to know about. Ai Weiwei is a Chinese man who is known to be openly critical to the Chinese Government's position on human rights and democracy as well. For my project I looked into the many things and people that were censored and I have created one about Edward Snowden. I will be presenting my information through a Censorship Collage and I will be explaining more below.

                                                  DS, October 2014. The Spies

Edward Snowden is an American computer professional which is someone who have undergone training in colleges, universities and computer institutes. Edward was the person who is known for leaking some classified information from the National Security Agency in Hong Kong on June 10, 2013. Edward released the classified information in Hong Kong because the U.S. Government can't capture somebody from a country that has a rule of capturing and imprisoning somebody they need or want. Legal documentation of why and when has to be filled out. The U.S. Government and Edward was involved in this event. In the U.S. Edward was censored and his rights were violated in a way. These are the First Amendment Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, & Freedom of Religion. His right of freedom of speech and freedom of the press was censored/violated by the American Government, because in America they won't let you access the specific information that he had leaked out when he went to Hong Kong to do this on May 20, 2013.  The end result of that was that he was charged with two counts of violating the Espionage Act which is when an U.S. citizen has foreign relation and foreign commerce. This is punishable by 30 years in prison and his passport was  as well by the U.S. government, so now he was put in the position of not being able to travel anywhere unless he was coming back to America.

      When the media/public heard about how Edward was censored they were outraged. All they knew was that the government was tapping and spying on them on almost everything they do electronically. The people of America did not know the specifics of what they were spying for and why they were doing it. Edward feels like the information that he had on the U.S. Government should be known by the people of the country because it's an invasion on their own privacy. The U.S. Government feels like Edward should be censored because he has no right putting out confidential information and he does not have the right power to do such actions ever. 

  Because Edward released the private information on the U.S. Government in Hong Kong, the history of censorship in Hong Kong came about on February 13, 2009 (on political views). The types of expression that were censored was freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Because Edward is putting out information about a country that could be true or false, that country has the right to censor what ever is being told or trying to be told to the countries. 

  When it comes down to whose side I will take on this issue of censorship I'd take Edward's side. Because I feel like Edward had the right intentions at heart to try to tell the world about how his government spies on the citizens of the United States via the Internet, Cellular Devices, etc. The way the U.S. Government is censoring this is bad because it goes against the consequentialist moral theories. The consequentialist moral theories are actions/beliefs whose rightful was is determined by how much good and happiness the action bring to the world, and people affected by it. The United States Government goes against this theory because this information that Edward Snowden has may be good and if it was put out & Americans got word of what their government was doing to them it would make them happy, if they didn't know already. It could also make them upset and angry because their  government is invading their privacy, but then make them happy again because now the people of the U.S. can rightfully vote or protest for that to stop happening. 

 Propaganda plays a big role in this event and Edward Snowden is the one doing the propagandizing. Propaganda is information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc. 

There are 7 types of propaganda and they are: Testimonial, Plain Folk, Bandwagon, Loaded Words, & Name Calling. The form of profane a that is being done in this event is Name Calling. This type of propaganda is used when someone or a group/organization of people is pointing the bad things that someone else does or another other group/organization does. In this event, Edward Snowden is doing the Name Calling towards the U.S. Government by calling them Spies and Liars to their own people of the country.





"Edward Joseph Snowden." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.
"propaganda." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 27 Oct. 2014.
"Espionage Act of 1917." West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. 2008. The Gale Group 27 Oct.

You Don't Need Water, But I Do

In the second Action Project for the Equality class, we wrote a manifesto that takes one side of a specific product/company of our choice. The purpose of this Action Project is to write a manifesto that empowers people to take action against inequalities in ownership. I focused on Ice Mountain water. I learned so much about the need of minimum wage workers and how their work is valued so much in companies. I am most proud of my final product and all the research I have done and the commandments I put together, my full manifesto is below:

                                                     Flickr, January 2009. Ice Mountain 
                     

Bottled water.  How are they all different? When did they originate? What’s up with it today? I am the CEO of Nestle, the company that produces Ice Mountain Water. We provide our customers with clean and convenient drinking water, but many people wonder how our water gross so much money. because it's great water but some wonder why it has a different label and grosses so much money. Water is the main component of what we use everyday. We cook, to , build buildings, and we simply need it to survive. All living things need water to survive and there is no other substance that can substitute it.

In 1767, Michigan Jackson Spa was the first establishment to bottle and commercialize water. The production of bottled water has changed drastically over time. There are more varieties of water such as, mineral water, purified water, filtered water, and distilled water. Today, there is a higher demand for bottled water because less cities in the United States have access to clean tap water. Because it is hard to access clean tap water, people go to their local stores and markets  buy bottled water. Bottled water is necessary so that people may get clean water whenever they want, without risking their health by getting water from their local wells or lakes.

I'll privatize water so with that I may provide clean drinking water to people in the communities from which we will pump our water and to people all over the world. Since I am providing clean drinking water to the people living where our factories are, I will also tax them for I am providing them with something they will otherwise not have access to.  I know that there are going to be some people devastated if they can't get their own water and their own kind of water that they want specifically, so I won't stop supplying water for the people.

As the CEO of Nestle, my goal is to get clean drinking water to as many people as possible. In order to do this, I will make sure that the people working for Nestle are well-paid and happy so that they continue to produce one of the most important products on the market.  As the CEO, I will buy out smaller companies to ensure that all people have equal access to the finest bottled water on the market. I believe that as the person that makes the most important decisions, that I receive a large percentage of the profits made from the sale of the water. . I believe in capitalism and I truly think that the economy will be better off handled by people with money and power. I would disagree with Marx and Engels theory because I believe in private property and only the rich can have control and power.

• Tax Em'! -  I will tax the people on their water because I'm the one making it better for them. I make sure that wherever I get this water from that it is filtered, even though some cities have "fresh" water me and my colleagues think it needs a little more processing before it is consumed by the people. I'm just trying to help you, but in order for me to help I'm going to need some more money to further this production.   
• The Freshest Water - Give people the freshest water at their local markets because not every city has clean consumable water. So this is for any place that needs fresh water and any place that has not tried my refreshing bottled water.
• Infinite Water - I will never stop supplying bottled water to people because I know that there are going to be some people devastated if they can't get their own water and their own kind of water that they want specifically.

Anonymous. 'Paul Bulcke. (2012): 2. Web 10/14/014 http://wikipedia.com

King, Hobart. 'Where Does Bottled Water Come From?. 3. (2013): 2. Web 10/14/014. http://geology.com

Minimum Wage In The US

Arguments On Minimum Wage

Minimum Wage in the US has been a debate for several years and many arguments on negatives and positives of raising pay. The Minimum wage in the US is 7.25/hr. People are fighting to reach a minimum wage of at least $15.00. Many workers went on strike and were able to raise it a little amount, but even that wasn't impactful. An argument made on this topic is that if pay is raised there will be less poverty. The majority of people working minimum wage have families they have to support and making $7.25/hr is not an amount that can create a sustainable. As great as it would sound that all these hard workers get paid $15/hr, people argue that if the price goes up, employment will decrease. Businesses will not be eager as much to hire the same amount of employees because that will cost them more money. These workers don't want to be unemployed so they would rather keep it a low price and make some money rather than none. If we didn't have a minimum wage people's lifestyle would not be living. Having a minimum wage is what protects people way of living.

Below are 2 Supply and Demand graphs I made comparing a Fast Food worker to a CEO of a business. A worker at a fast food place would want an increase in the minimum wage because he/she is working at a low price already, so the increase would affect him. With CEO's, if the minimum wage increased, you notice that it doesn't affect them at all, because it doesn't reach the lines which means that they are already making more than enough money

History on Minimum Wage

The first Minimum Wage law was first created 1938 for 25 cents. CNN Money compared the Minimum Wage in 1938 which was 25 cents and saw how much value it has today which equaled to $4.13. In 2007 minimum wage was raised from $5.15 to $7.25. Workers today have been struggling to try to raise the minimum wage in the US to $15.00. The highest minimum wage in the country is in Washington State at $9.19 an hour. An average minimum wage in the US is $7.57

Documentary on Minimum Wage

Below is a video I have created with a partner. We went out and spoke to people who work for Minimum Wage in Chicago. We went to several places where we got good information from economists and regular people who have opinions on raising the minimum wage.