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Internet Rights

What laws would you sign? International law by plebiscite?

One of the interesting spin-offs of the ACTA controversy is the newly discovered devotion that national representatives have towards what they deem to be “public opinion”. There are undoubtedly a number of factors  that have precipitated this state of affairs. Primary among these is the general feeling of misrepresentation that has increasingly gripped the European demos following the economic crisis. Austerity measures are seen as a direct consequence of mismanagement and decisions taken in the name of the people without their consent. When government start using your money to pay for other people’s (bad) debts then you are bound to explode.

Then came PIPA and SOPA – the US’s attempt at controlling the net as we know it. ACTA “went public” soon after – too soon – and the governments of many countries like Poland and Malta found out that they were signatories of – to put it mildly – not too popular an international agreement. Following the recent fad of playing to the public tune governments such as those in Poland and Malta swiftly backtracked and opened the way for public consultation. Of what? For what? And that is the question. This is an international instrument and agreement that facilitates the cooperation between already existing laws and jurisdictions. And yet, and yet we are suddenly bemused by the whole process of signature and ratification.

How dare Dr Gonzi sign ACTA without consultation? How dare they sign an agreement negotiated in secrecy? Yes how dare the government sign an international agreement without consulting the people?

Excuse me but what the hell is ratification if not the process of obtaining the consent of the people via a parliamentary vote? This is not the first time that our nation becomes signatory to another convention without so much of a squeak from the community. In actual fact were it not for the fuss kicked up about “international corporations and their agenda” we would probably never have heard of ACTA or its signing. Instead now we have the anti-ACTAvists forcing parliament to become an open house of consultation in order to get to the  point where we will have a unanimous show of anti-ACTA hands pandering to public perception. If only all laws were passed in this manner we’d legalise marijuana tomorrow.

Then again how about an example of hypocrisy from the pro-internet freedom crowd. I do not see anyone calling for a public consultation on the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. It’s now 10 years and more since it was originally signed and includes protocols on “hate crime in cyberspace”. On the 17th January 2012 10 years had passed since Malta put its signature on the Convention. For some reason I do not know Malta has not ratified the convention yet but that’s not my point. Here’s article 10 from this convention:

Article 10 – Offences related to infringements of copyright and related rights

1 Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law the infringement of copyright, as defined under the law of that Party, pursuant to the obligations it has undertaken under the Paris Act of 24 July 1971 revising the Bern Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and the WIPO Copyright Treaty, with the exception of any moral rights conferred by such conventions, where such acts are committed wilfully, on a commercial scale and by means of a computer system.

2 Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law the infringement of related rights, as defined under the law of that Party, pursuant to the obligations it has undertaken under the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations (Rome Convention), the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty, with the exception of any moral rights conferred by such conventions, where such acts are committed wilfully, on a commercial scale and by means of a computer system.

3 A Party may reserve the right not to impose criminal liability under paragraphs 1 and 2 of this article in limited circumstances, provided that other effective remedies are available and that such reservation does not derogate from the Party’s international obligations set forth in the international instruments referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 of this article.

I’d love to hear what the eager legal beavers of the Anti-ACTAvist camp have to say about this particular article. Not to mention the fact that a sufficiently creative mind might even construe the provisions on corporate liability to be a vague attempt at putting the onus of criminal acts on ISP providers. Whoaaaaa… I’ve just read Article 18 and I think you should read it too…

Article 18 – Production order

1 Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to empower its competent authorities to order:

a a person in its territory to submit specified computer data in that person’s possession or control, which is stored in a computer system or a computer-data storage medium; and

b a service provider offering its services in the territory of the Party to submit subscriber information relating to such services in that service provider’s possession or control.

Dare I show you article 19? Sit down. Take a deep breath. We’re entering the territory of vague references to strip searching you for that USB key you keep tightly hidden up your anus…

 

Article 19 – Search and seizure of stored computer data

1 Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to empower its competent authorities to search or similarly access:

(a) a computer system or part of it and computer data stored therein; and

(b) a computer-data storage medium in which computer data may be stored in its territory.

Hmm. I wonder if those scheming corporations have taken over the Council of Europe too? I’ll let you discover the other interesting questions such as “interception of data” or the juicy bit about “extradition” (I wonder if you could get interned into Guantanamo). That’s nothing. Look at the  …

ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL TO THE CONVENTION ON CYBERCRIME, CONCERNING THE CRIMINALISATION OF ACTS OF A RACIST AND XENOPHOBIC NATURE COMMITTED THROUGH COMPUTER SYSTEMS

….  Malta signed this protocol too (28th January 2003) but it has also failed to ratify it. The aim of the protocol is to criminalise acts of racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems (duh). Quite topical no? Here is a sample article (Article 5):

Article 5 – Racist and xenophobic motivated insult

1 Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally and without right, the following conduct:

insulting publicly, through a computer system, (i) persons for the reason that they belong to a group distinguished by race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion, if used as a pretext for any of these factors; or (ii) a group of persons which is distinguished by any of these characteristics.

2 A Party may either:

(a) require that the offence referred to in paragraph 1 of this article has the effect that the person or group of persons referred to in paragraph 1 is exposed to hatred, contempt or ridicule; or

(b) reserve the right not to apply, in whole or in part, paragraph 1 of this article.

It’s quite a useful instrument especially in this day and age when we seem to be feeling the need for defining such “aggravated” crimes.

Unfortunately Malta has neither ratified the Convention nor of the Protocol. I doubt whether ten years down the line somebody will start yelling about the lack of consultation when Dr Fenech Adami’s government put its signature at the end of both. Why we have delayed ratifying both is a question I’d love to find an answer to. What I’d also like to know is why all the newly discovered legal experts who have summarily judged ACTA’s content have not also been barking and warning about the dangers of some of the provisions in this convention… you never know when it will become law do you! Nor whose behind it (right Mr Scicluna?)

How come this MAAG and other similar groups are suddenly awakened in their V for Vendetta guise challenging this particular agreement and not others? How come nobody has warned against the much more intrusive Convention on Cybercrime?

 

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Internet Rights Politics Values

Fighting the law and winning – Censorship

University Rector Juanito Camilleri has  indicated that he would not have reported an undergraduate to police for publishing an explicit story in a student newspaper had the law been clearer, though he sees no reason to apologise. Now that’s interesting. Here is the rector:

“Whether it is a fictional story or not is beside the point as far as I am concerned. I was not acting from a moral standpoint, nor as a literary critic… I acted with prudence and referred the matter to the police for their consideration because it was not at all clear whether the text, the way it was presented without disclaimer, and the way it was being distributed, even to minors, was in breach of the law or not.”

It’s hard to get this straight. The rector was, by his own admission, acting on legal advice – as he should in such cases. It should be safe to assume that the legal advisor was a little more clear about the import of the law than that and yet he or she still advised a referral to the police. In this particular case (hereafter referred to as the Realtà Case) we had a case that dragged two persons (author and editor) and that involved a police prosecution as well as an AG appeal. At stake, according to many was our “freedom of expression”.

“People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish… but that’s only if it’s done properly.”  – Banksy

If it ain’t broke…

What really was at stake was a definition of our laws on obscenity in accordance to the mores of the day. In simpler terms – we have a law intended to protect citizens (especially those who are unable to protect themselves) from obscenity and pornography. The basic assumption in our law is that you can publish and be damned. What you cannot do is publish something that can be deemed to be obscene (I’ll stick to one out of the two). IF there is a suspicion of obscenity you still have exceptional circumstances that would protect the publication from attack: one of these is generally (and vaguely -as Anti-Acta campaigners would have it) is art.

There lies the crux of the matter. In order for this law to work you need to define a piece of work as “art”. Away from the philosophical world of “what is art?” you still need a qualification in order to have a law that works and, ironically, that is not intrusive. The issue with this kind of law is that it is time-sensitive. It needs to be tested time and time again as mores and attitude changes. Let’s exaggerate for the sake of example. Imagine one exception to obscenity is if it was a piece of “music”. I love to use the example of Igor Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring. At it’s premier, the piece of “music” was violently criticised as being anything but.  Here’s good old Wikipedia describing the goings on in Paris that night in May 1913:

The première involved one of the most famous classical music riots in history. The intensely rhythmic score and primitive scenario and choreography shocked the audience that was accustomed to the elegant conventions of classical ballet. The evening’s program began with another Stravinsky piece entitled “Les Sylphides.” This was followed by, “The Rite of Spring”. The complex music and violent dance steps depicting fertility rites first drew catcalls and whistles from the crowd. At the start, some members of the audience began to boo loudly. There were loud arguments in the audience between supporters and opponents of the work. These were soon followed by shouts and fistfights in the aisles. The unrest in the audience eventually degenerated into a riot. The Paris police arrived by intermission, but they restored only limited order. Chaos reigned for the remainder of the performance.

To add to the intrigue various historians allege that Stravinsky actually invented the stories of the riots to spice up the reception to his new music but that is not my point. Discussions on art and its nature can be highly controversial and many would agree that the place to discuss this would not be the straightjacket chamber of a law court. The point is though that the rules of society that allow us to coexist need take into consideration the right of an artist to express himself conjointly with the right of weaker members of society not to be harmed. Having an exception to obscenity laws which is based on a legal definition of art carries baggage with it.

So yes, Alex Vella Gera and Mark Camilleri were inconvenienced by the immediate need to “update” the definition of art. The law is not unclear though. It is a necessary law that need not be tampered with. All you need to do is imagine the law prohibiting obscenity without qualifying exceptional circumstances such as art. Can you imagine that? I hear you now yelling “self-censorship” as though it is only now that we discovered such a maravilious concept. Self-censorship is obviously one of the basic implied precepts of most of our freedoms at law. Not just in our law but in basic Human Rights texts. Fighting the law to obtain “better” definitions of what can or cannot be published or produced is counter-productive. It is a naive invitation to the dabblers in law to create faulty legislation by attempting to define the undefineable.

“Policemen and security guards wear hats with a peak that comes down low over their eyes. Apparently this is for psychological reasons. Eyebrows are very expressive and you appear a lot more authoritative if you keep them covered up. The advantage of this is that it makes a lot harder for cops to see anything more than six foot off the ground. Which is why painting rooftops and bridges is so easy.”  – banksy

A certificate to rebel?

I am angrier at the local art community than at Juanito Camilleri. They seem to have been waiting for an official certificate for them to be able to write or paint about vaginas, sexual lust and urges. Not all of them mind you. Alex Vella Gera has gone on record more than once that he would have preferred avoiding this mess. Others like Immanuel Mifsud have been quietly publishing thought provoking explicit stories without so much as a whimper. The impression from the “Front Kontra c-Censura” front is that of others who almost abet the nanny state concept. Artists don’t wait for their expression to be legal before expressing it. They express. The logic of it all – even within our supposedly archaic constrained legal order – is that if it’s art then it’s good.

That’s not how some of our artists seem to think. They are caught up in this anti-ism of Big Brother, Censorship Laws, etc and suddenly become all preoccupied about what is legal and what is not. Their primary concern is not art but legal art – and they themselves have wrought an ugly mental cage from which it is hard to get free. What do they want? Do they want a public list of dos and donts? The rules of the land are there to protect the weak. Art should be pushing the boundaries, provoking thought and ideas not waiting for the nihil obstat from society. Sure there’s a few risks involved especially if you get misunderstood but as the Realtà case showed… it’s common sense that magically and historically prevails. More often than not.

 

“Think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a fucking sharp knife to it.” – Banksy

 

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Internet Rights Politics

Fighting the law and winning – The Imagined Evil

Saturday saw 500 or more (mostly) young people don their Anonymous masks and demonstrate their general anti-ism against ACTA and the international conspiracy of (as Edward Scicluna would have it) the monsters behind it. The interviews posted on the Times of Malta (see video on link) website simply confirmed the blindness of the protesters as interviewee after interviewee regurgitated slogans of the weakest, unfounded kind. There was the geezer who pointed out that we “already have enough regulation of the internet …. case in point the Megaupload case” (my transcription but he did say Caseinpoint).

What effin’ case in point? Kim Schmitz, or as he likes to be known Mr Dotcom the Megaupload magnate was arrested in New Zealand in a raid requested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. The laws he is alleged to have violated are US laws. This is not one individual trundling through customs with an MP3 player full of (illegally) downloaded music. More to the point the “case in point” relates to events and laws that are not even EU laws let alone Maltese. As I mentioned in the previous post ACTA is doomed for the simple reason that it was badly timed and badly marketed and not for its content.

ACTA has become a parody of itself. It is not just in Malta that ACTA has lost any of its original significance and has been hijacked to become the latest battleground in the battle of perceived injustices and evils. I am still curious about the major assumption being made about the “behind closed doors” drafting of this technical agreement : what now, shall we sit on the desk of lawyers as they draft contracts just in case someone (who?) is arcanely implanting hidden messages ? Who exactly anyway? Is it Opus Dei? The Elders of Zion? Minnie Mouse?

Sure – as in all political issues there are different lobbies with different interests. Sure, the music and entertainment industry would make a pact with the devil  to get their own way if they could. Sure, industrial lobbying always needs to be counterbalanced by pressure groups from civil society. Incidentally has someone bothered to look up the difference between “signature” and “ratification” of an international agreement or did the evil smelly monsters blot out those pages on the internet?

It’s just that this whole business of playing the man not the ball is just as dangerous as any possible fascist law controlling expression… and that is what many are failing to distinguish. The failure to tackle the content of the proposed agreement and the obvious effort to dilute available (free) information with info scaremongering of the cheapest order is just as big an assault on democracy and expression as someone finding the off-switch to the internet. Yes. To all of it.

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Politics

Fighting the law and winning? – ACTA

Labour MEP Edward Scicluna was reported to have made the following statement when addressing students at a university debate yesterday. Here, with all the caveats related to “il detto del detto” is how the Times reported him:

Edward Scicluna appealed to students not to try and understand the details of Acta but rather to see who the players behind it are.

That to me was a telling statement and I will be telling you why in a bit. J’accuse has held back from taking a position on ACTA for the simple, yet important, reason that we hate to comment on issues when we are not well informed about them. ACTA is not the only legal conundrum that is currently hitting the headlines in Malta. The Franco Debono saga for example, has provoked a number of cliché calls for “improving the law” in areas as varied as party financing and libel law. Meanwhile thanks to a combination of random acts of incivility, colourful press reporting and the political party bandwagon movement, “hate crimes” are the new in-thing when calling for legal reform. Finally the reaction to the acquittal of Mark Camilleri and Alex Vella Gera in the Li Tkisser Sewwi saga continued to confound public perception of the law and how it works.

It’s Constitutional Law 101 and Political Philosophy 101 that we are talking about here. It’s the basics of a working society with all its imperfections that keep the complex mechanics ticking. Once the curtain is lifted off the latest fad and once the clichés are removed* we might end up showing that when waging a war on the law (or as the Clash would have it – Fighting the law)  victory can be achieved only if we understand what we are up against. If there is anything to be up against. Otherwise we end up shooting ourselves in the foot.

(P)ACTA sunt servanda?

So. Let’s start with ACTA in this first of a number of posts that will  look at public perception of rules and law. Why is Edward Scicluna’s statement telling? Because it is redolent of a large part of the activist reaction on the net to ACTA. I was pleased to have Andrei Tuch as a guest poster on the matter and his line of reasoning confirmed a hunch of mine. Basically opposition to ACTA is not so much an opposition to its content or what it will do but is based on the wider, worldwide philosophy of Anti-Big Brotherism. Andrei tells us that ACTA is not evil, but we should oppose it just the same. Some go even further: don’t bother finding out what ACTA is about says Edward Scicluna, just see who is proposing it, who is behind it. Seriously?

Even the MEP rapporteur who walked out of parliament in Strasbourg had nothing more to say against the content other than the fact that the procedure leading to ACTA’s creation was veiled in secrecy without public consultation. The lack of serious objections to content except for the circulation of “fear-inducing” myths about individuals being strip searched at borders for illegal software content is worrying. ACTA of course was unfortunate enough to follow the infamous SOPA and PIPA and therefore had to face the same tsunami of generalised freedom-fighting. Whether or not you agree that rights holders are pursuing “outdated business models” and whether or not you believe that they should be embracing the economic positives of sharing files is irrelevant. If you are going to oppose a law or an agreement, the least you could do is read it and challenge it on the basis of content. Not on who wrote it.

As I said earlier, don’t get me started on the bandwagon riding by the local parties. Labour is extremely disappointing in this regard because it pounced on what it perceives to be public sentiment against ACTA – that same public sentiment that was riding the wave of misinformation. The biggest disappointment is that when it comes to representation you’d expect representatives to have an informed and reasoned opinion. When they come up with “ignore the details, we just don’t like the people”, then their populism is hanging out for those who want to see it.

ACTA is doomed because it was ill-timed and ill-marketed (ironically). In many ways its story runs parallel to improving the salaries of parliamentarians – or as we know it the increase in honoraria. You (probably) could have many positive arguments in favour of such an increase if you sat down and examined the work of each deserving member and more. You probably could debate this logically at the right time and end up with some kind of agreement. Instead what we had was a stealthy introduction of honoraria by government and worse still this was made in the middle of an economic crisis. Talk about bad timing.

It becomes irrelevant whether you have any arguments in favour of the ACTA right protection or honoraria. The irrelevance is caused by the stealthy (publicly perceived as guilty) approach and the bad timing (post-SOPA or mid-economic crisis). What these two processes teach us is that public opinion is fragile and will more often than not not bother with the nitty gritty and the fine print. Throw in press reporting, mass media scrutiny and political opportunism into the fray and public opinion turns into that bull in a china shop that has just seen red.

Next: Censors, the law and satire.

 

 

* Here’s a handful of clichés for you: all lawyers are bastards, stop talking legalese, the court is only a waste of time, courts are all corrupt, law is only a way to enslave citizens.

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Mediawatch Politics

Franco Bonaparte?

Last time that I hinted at a link between Franco Debono and a historical figure I was told off in private by one of the blog’s more finicky readers. Well, mea culpa if Franco does not quite fit the “Generalissimo” label but the Rebel MP has now taken to quoting another general for his purposes. The Times asked for Debono’s comments in the light of this mornings Leadership Debate being hosted by that same paper and Franco was happy to oblige. The crucial statement is as apocryphal as modern day PLPN politicians can get – leaving as much leeway for interpretation as Saint John’s Apocalyptic scriptures:

The crisis will only be over when the oligarchy is dismantled, the elitist rule of ‘planet clique’ comes down to earth and democracy is strengthened. Even certain quarters of the business community have been complaining for some time about this clique mentality.

Whatever happened to the four riders of the apocalypse and how exactly will “planet clique” come down to earth? Is this a new religion? More specifically has Franco been reduced to speaking in riddles in order to be able to keep us hanging on to his every word? Joseph’s Labour still pin their hopes on stability but in truth they don’t care whether Franco goes this way or that. Joseph’s reading is clear: there is stability whatever the PM says (or does). Muscat has bought himself a joker by claiming that if Franco turns back to the fold of government (what Labour are calling a U-turn even though he never actually voted against government) he will have been “bought” so his opinion does not count.

The nationalist party is in denial too. It doesn’t care whichever way about this minor hiccup in Malta’s political history. It is buying its time till the leadership “election” to fill the vacancy that does not exist. That way we get to ignore Franco at least till the resounding “Gonzi, Gonzi, Gonzi” echoes in the halls of Dar Centrali once the result is out. Then Franco will be given the choice to either follow or get the fuck out. Simples. Next we will have the Local Council elections dragging on to Sliema’s 10th March date which will give us the opportunity to mentally masturbate about figures that have absolutely no bearing on a future national election result. As a a people we are amused and easily distracted by these controversies.

Back to Franco. He makes an interesting assertion in his Times interview.

Dr Debono, a prominent criminal lawyer who has been campaigning for Constitutional reforms, said that after the French revolution one of Napoleon’s greatest conquests was not military in nature. It was the establishment of meritocracy where careers were open to talent. It was the call to dismantle privileges enjoyed by the nobility and the oligarchy. Meritocracy was even more important in a small country like Malta, he said. These are the foundation of our European culture and identity.

I wish the Times would cut the crap of the “prominent criminal lawyer” bit. Franco has been practising criminal law as long as I have been practising European Law – and I’ve spent seven of those years at the European Court of Justice. Should that make me a prominent European lawyer? The only prominence Franco gets – irrespective of his qualities as a lawyer – is the limelight currently afforded to him by circumstance, failing that he’s about as prominent a criminal lawyer as any other recent graduate from the law course (yes… barely 12 years is recent).

Emperor Napoleon the Meritocratic

As for the reference to Napoleon’s meritocratic destruction of the nobility… really Franco? Your knowledge of history borders on the criminal. It took Napoleon Bonaparte a few years to decide that the Republic was not such a good idea after all and to Crown himself Emperor  (in May 1804 before a hapless Pope Pius VII). Oh he did get the senate to vote a law to that effect… it stated in a very PLPN style:

“The government of the Republic is vested in an Emperor, who takes the title of Emperor of the French.”

There you go. Napoleon then proceed to meritocratically install his family all across Europe in the main royal households. Here’s a wikipedia refresher point about the House of Napoleon:

Throughout its history, the dynasty, as well as being Emperors of the French, held various other titles and territories including; their ancestral nation theKingdom of Italy, Kingdom of Spain, Kingdom of Westphalia, Kingdom of Holland and the Kingdom of Naples. The dynasty was in a position of power for around a decade until the Napoleonic Wars began to take their toll. Making very powerful enemies such as Austria, United Kingdom, Russia andPrussia, as well as royalist (particularly Bourbon) restorational movements in France, Spain, the Two Sicilies and Sardinia, the dynasty eventually collapsed under its own weight.

Not looking so anti-clique now are they Franco? What can we say…

THE CLIQUE SHOULD DIE, LONG LIVE THE CLIQUE

 

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The Queen of Pop and the National Subconscious

This weekend a whole nation sat glued to the TV screen watching what is arguably one of the largest crowd pullers on prime time TV. This nation loves to think it is at the centre of the known universe and was clearly aware that other nations were peeping in to steal the show. Superbowl XLVI in Indianapolis did not fail to disappoint and the New York Giants took home their fourth trophy – the Americans still kid themselves is a “world” trophy notwithstanding the fact that bar Canada no other country really bothers with the sport.

Having said that, the audience enrapturing effect of the Superbowl is such that the few hours it is on TV are also the hours that attract millions of dollars of advertisement with companies splashing out for a few seconds of “world” viewership. It has long become a ritual to compare the best ads specifically made for the Superbowl breaks and this year’s ads featured such greats as Clint Eastwood. The item that we found was worth most attention though was the half-time show – this year it was up to the Queen of Pop to entertain the general public and oh did she do so.

There she was pulled onto stage by hundreds of muscled men in full Egyptian attire and Madonna sat in the middle of it : a Liz Taylor for the fledgling teenies. Crisis? What Crisis? The Superbowl ad breaks and half time are a celebration of capitalism and its successes. Advertising mingles with pop entertainment and celebrates all its successes. Here was the survivor of Pop’s Royal Couple (thirteen days older than King Michael but boy was she alive and kicking) threatening to unleash musical extravagance as the audience reached for their Bud Lights. The spectacle was grand as it always is and bar the quasi-fall off one bit of the scenery there were no errors or wardrobe malfunctions (Janet style).

What about the music though? Well we might have had LMFAO backing Miss Ciccone for a little while but the repertoire of songs chosen by Madonna Louise (or for her to sing) was a flashback to greater days of economic growth and prosperity. Vogue with all its strutting and parading of fit bodies and flashy names coupled with Like a Prayer when love and hope almost guaranteed that we all had a right to bit of Hollywood. Let’s face it. This was not Lana del Rey’s  depressive Born to Die or Lady Gaga’s celebration of decadence and Judases. Whether consciously or subconsciously a choice to reminisce of brighter days had been made.

Those days are long buried under the reality shattering explosions of the twin towers of 9/11, under the financial disasters from Enron to Madoff and back. We might have wasted a whole decade reeling from the effects of such heavy strikes at the capitalist world. We’d love to relive the dream that began in the 80’s and ran riot in the 90’s though. For now all we have to link to that dream is the voice of the Queen of Pop. And that too… was the Superbowl.

Just like a dream, you are not what you seem
Just like a prayer, no choice,
Your voice can take me there.

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