Riot season has started with a bang in California. Actually, many bangs, hurled rocks, torched cars, and a lot a flag waving—but not the Toby Keith variety. A man on a motorcycle waves a Mexican…

Readers, Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.…

Mexico’s president and foreign ministry have intervened after immigration operations in Los Angeles led to the detention of Mexican nationals by ICE. The federal government is deploying its consular…

There has been a crescendo of states attempting to criminalize the wearing of face coverings while attending protests. Now the President has demanded, in the context of ongoing protests in Los Angeles: “ARREST THE PEOPLE IN FACE MASKS, NOW!” But the truth is: whether you are afraid of catching an airborne illness from your fellow protestors, or you are concerned about reprisals from police or others for expressing your political opinions in public, you should have the right to wear a mask. Attempts to criminalize masks at protests fly in the face of a right to privacy. Anonymity is a fundamental human right. In terms of public health, wearing a mask while in a crowd can be a valuable tool to prevent the spread of communicable illnesses. This can be essential for people with compromised immune systems who still want to exercise their First Amendment-protected right to protest. Moreover, wearing a mask is a perfectly legitimate surveillance self-defense practice during a protest. There has been a massive proliferation of surveillance camera networks, face recognition technology, and databases of personal information. There also is a long law enforcement’s history of harassing and surveilling people for publicly criticizing or opposing law enforcement practices and other government policies. What’s more, non-governmental actors may try to identify protesters in order to retaliate against them, for example, by limiting their employment opportunities. All of this may chill our willingness to speak publicly or attend a protest in a cause we believe in. Many people would be less willing to attend a rally or march if they know that a drone or helicopter, equipped with a camera, will take repeated passes over the crowd, and police later will use face recognition to scan everyone’s faces and create a list of protest attendees. This would make many people rightfully concerned about surveillance and harassment from law enforcement. Anonymity is a fundamental human right. EFF has long advocated for anonymity online. We’ve also supported low-tech methods to protect our anonymity from high-tech snooping in public places; for example, we’ve supported legislation to allow car owners to use license plate covers when their cars are parked to reduce their exposure to ALPRs. A word of caution. No surveillance self-defense technique is perfect. Technology companies are trying to develop ways to use face recognition technology to identify people wearing masks. But if somebody wants to hide their face to try to avoid government scrutiny, the government should not punish them. While members of the public have a right to wear a mask when they protest, law enforcement officials should not wear a mask when they arrest protesters and others. An elementary principle of police accountability is to require uniformed officers to identify themselves to the public; this discourages officer misconduct, and facilitates accountability if an officer violates the law. This is one reason EFF has long supported the First Amendment right to record on-duty police, including ICE officers. For these reasons, EFF believes it is wrong for state legislatures, and now federal law enforcement, to try to criminalize or punish mask wearing at protests. It is especially wrong, in moments like the present, where government it taking extreme measures to crack down on the civil liberties of protesters. 

Apple announced a slew of updates at the Worldwide Developer Conference with one notable exception. It still hasn't revealed its previously announced AI-powered Siri.

In this episode, I interview Mark Grenon’s two sons, Jordan and Jonathan, who are being held in US prisons in different locations for simply preaching the Gospel and bringing the ability for people to have healing in their bodies. They remain confident that God has them where they are to be light in the darkness …

Forest Park, GA — On April 30, in the parking lot of A Preferred Women’s Health in Forest Park, GA, eyewitnesses reported an alarming scene: a young woman who looked to be completely unconscious was rolled out of the abortion clinic and loaded into the back of an ambulance. Records obtained by Operation Rescue indicate …

Since the famous "Clapton is God" graffiti in the 1960s, Eric Clapton has reached the status of one of the most influential guitarists of all time. His work with The Yardbirds, John Mayall and Cream was extremely important for the evolution of rock and blues. Over the decades, he has spoken about many of his peers, and there is one in particular whom he believes is one of the most important of all time. The guitarist Eric Clapton called one of the most important in history The guitarist praised by Clapton is the late J.J. Cale, who was one of his favorite musicians of all time and also a very good friend. Two of Clapton's biggest hits, "After Midnight" and "Cocaine," were written and originally recorded by Cale, and later covered by Clapton, turning them into worldwide hits. One year after J.J. Cale's death, in 2014, Eric Clapton organized a tribute album featuring cover songs and special guests to honor the guitarist. In an interview to promote the album, he explained why Cale was so important to him and why he believes he was one of the greatest guitarists of all time. (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) "I just had to make this music (because) people around the world are unaware to a certain extent of how important he is in the tree of the musical history of this country and the world. The effect he's had on people in a very subtle way in the way they sing, play guitar and make records." Although he loves J.J. Cale's work, Clapton said during the same conversation that the musician's guitar playing didn't influencee him. He continued: "I thought his guitar playing in my earlier years were quirky and a little bit light, almost as if was an afterthought, it's only in becoming older or maybe just a little bit more mature about what's needed musically that I see that he was a master. A master of understatement to be sure but still the power," Eric Clapton said. J.J. Cale started his musical career in 1958 and was active until his death in 2013. But it took a long time for him to record something on his own. He worked for years as a studio engineer while playing in bars and clubs. During that time, he was already writing songs and releasing them as singles, which were later covered by other artists like Clapton. With the success of the cover of "After Midnight" in 1970, which became a top 20 hit, J.J. Cale was finally convinced to record his debut album Naturally (1971). From then on, the musician released 14 other solo albums. In 2004, he and Clapton released the collaborative album "The Road to Escondido". After all these years he is still impressed with Cale's technique https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7b16bVdLaI&pp=ygUWamogY2FsZSBhZnRlciBtaWRuaWdodA%3D%3D Although the two had met, they became close later on, when a mutual friend, Albert Lee, who later joined Clapton's solo band, spent time with both of them. "(...) I remember the day that Delaney Bramlett gave me the 45 (Record) of 'After Midnight' with 'Slow Motion' on the other side. There are radical moments (in your life), it's just like the first time that I heard 'That I'll Be The Day' by Buddy Holly, 'I Love the Woman' by Freddie King or "Standing at the Crossroads" (Elmore James). These moments... I will always be grateful to Delaney for that. When we came to the point to do my first solo album, 'After Midnight' went on the album. I kinda knew about John before his first album came out." "I went to see him play a few times but actually hang out with him (happened later) in a place where there was there's nothing else going on. (So) I went to Albert Lee's house and he said: 'JJ's is up here. Do you want to come out and have a coffee or something?' We sat there all day. I thought he would be pretty reclusive, quiet and shy. (But) he talked a blue streak about everything. About the price of oil, the US economy, politics, music, literature." Eric Clapton continued: "I was stunned and I felt really inept intellectually to be able to stay with him but I hung on. We spent all day together and a lot of the time I was just complimenting, flattering him, trying to make some kind of impression. (...) He makes this profound music, it's so subtle, strong. Yet he manages to remain detached and uninvolved with all the, forgive me expression, bullshit inside of (the music business)". "(...) What I thought was interesting by JJ's setup, was that he spent a long time... he didn't make records until he was already a grown man. Being a sound engineer, he was recording people like Bobby Bland and Freddy King. A lot of seriously R&B and Blues guys. He learned that side of the technique before he ever did anything else. So when he made his record he knew how he wanted to sound like. He knew how to do it without compromise. It didn't need promotion, it was word to mouth. Anybody that was worth their salt knew that this was the root. It was all like that, it was very kind of in a sanctum stuff," Eric Clapton said in the interview to promote the tribute album. How Eric Clapton first met J.J. Cale Although Clapton had already covered J.J. Cale, it took a while for them to finally meet. At first, Cale didn’t even know that the British guitarist had covered “After Midnight”, he found out only after hearing the song on the radio. A few years later, they finally got together, as Clapton recalled. (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) "I went to see him when we were doing this tribute for The Crickets. We were making an album to honor The Crickets. I didn't expect him to be there, in fact. Jerry Allison brought him along, convincing him to come to the sessions and there he was with Christine (His wife). He had this incredible Martin guitar, I mean, one of the most expensive looking guitars I've ever seen in my life. He always do weird things, he puts really light strings on it, so it sounds (different). I said: 'That's nice' and he said 'You paid for that' (laughs)." He continued: "He had this incredible grasp of how you make a record and no one can figure it out. I mean, when we done covers of his stuff.  Even recently I was making an album a couple of years ago. We weren't doing one of his songs. But I wanted to approach one of the songs we were doing as if he was producing. So I took 'Guitar Man', that song to the studio and I said to my engineer and my co-producer: 'Listen to this. How does he (do that?)'. They couldn't understand, they couldn't figure it out. Each one of them would attempt to analyze what he'd done but they really didn't know," Eric Clapton said in 2006 on the promotional DVD of the record "Road to Escondido". Clapton was not the only artist who recorded successful versions of Cale's songs. Lynyrd Skynyrd, for example, covered "Call Me the Breeze," which was part of J.J.'s debut album in 1970. The Southern Rock band recorded the song in 1974, turning it into one of their signature tracks.The post The guitarist Eric Clapton called one of the most important in history appeared first on Rock and Roll Garage.