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It has a lot to say about police brutality in the US.

I'm also sure, that The LAPD very much appreciates your view.

It has a lot to say about police brutality in the US.

I'm also sure, that The LAPD very much appreciates your view.

Their area, also known as Eastern Turkmenistan, was grabbed by China last century, and the Chinese government is using rather nasty methods to keep the locals down, as Amnesty notes here: Gross human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region

Follow the link to the AI-China torture site and then decide if you want to live there.

Because it's true. You describe lots of problems third world workers face, but what you don't mention is that Nike didn't cause those problems.

Nike is different than Fly-by-Night Chinese Clothing Corp who don't have any investment in your goodwill. Once Nike is convinced that it's cheaper to ensure that their (indirect) employees are reasonably treated by North American/ European standards, it could have a domino effect on the treatment of near-slave workers elsewhere in the third world.

If you don't care about human rights elsewhere in the world, you don't have to do anything about Nike. On the other hand, if you refuse to do anything to support somebody else's human rights, there's going to be that much less human rights karma available to help you when you (or your kids) get arrested for doing something like making their own DVD.

Just remember: The people most likely to be opressed by human right violations are generally at their weakest. If you ever have your rights violated, chances are that you're going to be needing the help of others to get out of the pickle.

That's the main reason why some people care about the human rights of others. We're setting up the principles for the defence of our own rights.
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Perhaps this is little late ... but I can't resist answering his comments.

>>Would you buy hamburgers from McDonalds if the
>>company also sold crack

>Could you stop them if they did? And would the
>other 90% of sheeple in America continue to buy
>McDonalds b/c they cant read/dont care? Would
>you let these same people set the co-ordinates
>on the Space Shuttle???? no - why should we just
>let the sheeple-mob steer us all into oblivion?

You touch upon a very interesting point. You are basically saying that you don't trust the people. If you can't trust your fellow citizens, whom are you going to trust? And at the same time you are saying that "90% of sheeple in America can't read/don't care?" you are asking for "business to come to town-hall style meetings and be accountable to the public". The same public that can't read and doesn't care?

>>Shell now has a human right commissioner and
>>most ads from that company state how nice the
>>company is to the environment and to it's worker

>Are you on drugs? So they put some asshole in a
>title and shove propaganda down your throat and
>you think all is well? You think they have
changed one fucking bit?

Well, Amnesty International does think Shell is trying to improve. From an Amnesty International report on Nigeria:
"In its approaches in recent years to Shell and other transnational companies [other oil companies] with significant investments in Nigeria, Amnesty International has appealed to them to acknowledge their responsibility to do all they can to uphold human rights under the UDHR. Only Shell has done so to date."
Shell was heavily attacked for their stance in Nigeria so it is understandable that they have responded to those concerns. When your stock price begins to fall because of your human rights record you have to do something.
And Amnesty International is not the only NGO that thinks Shell is trying to improve it's human rights record. Urmi Shah of Human Rights Watch believes Shell is moving in the right direction on the human rights front.

>Would you buy hamburgers from McDonalds
>if the company also sold crack
>>Could you stop them if they did?
Yes, I could stop them, with little help from the "sheeple-mob". The campaign against Shell was pretty effective. So was the campaign against Nike for employing children in it's factories. And so was the campaign against soccer ball producers in Pakistan.

>>A corporation is a body, formed by people, that
>> is authorized by law to act as a single person

>When thousands of people act on behalf of a
> corporation it is no one person who is acting
> 'evil or bad'. The problem lies in the motivations,
> what people are forced to do to feed themselves.
> They are compeled to act on the corporations
> behalf to further its interests. There is no debate
> what the 'interests' of the corporation are: profit.
> Always.

Correct, the objective of every corporation is profit, the more profit, the better. But do you have a better system? Do you want all the corporations to be owned by the government, or perhaps you have even better solution? Besides, every society has rules to control the behavior of both people and corporations. Perhaps you will just say that corporations will bend the rules and bribe the governments. If you really think so, then please tell that to all the corporations that have had their actions blocked for some reason by the European Union :)

>The worlds transnationals are all alike
> - what the hell are you thinking? There
>are none that I would consider moral and
> just. Literally zero. Besides, capatalism
> ends in collusive monopolistic mega-corps
> all acting to preserve there collective best
> interests. They will collectively oppose
> anything that may force them to become
> accountable and responsible.... I suppose
> youve never heard of RIAA/MPAA?

Yes, I have heard of RIAA/MPAA. In fact I've been following the copyright and fair rights issues for a quite a while.
Even though I don't agree with RIAA/MPAA I don't find them immoral and evil. I do in fact believe there are quite a few good multinational companies. What do you have against IBM, HP, Oracle, Volvo, Compaq, Lucent, Dell, Xerox, Fedex, Kodak, Cisco to name a few?
You may disagree with them on some issues and their products may be trash. But to say those companies are immoral is just not correct. Heck, even Microsoft has done a lot for humanity, even though Windows is crap and they are a monopoly.
Besides, most companies today are accountable to the public. They have to comply with laws in America and EU and they have to answer for their wrongdoings in the media and before shareholders meetings. And Ford has certainly suffered because of the Firestone incident. And so has Shell because of their Nigeria incident.

>>>The internet is being dismantled by people
>>> who want to stop paying anything to
>>> produce any content but make you pay
>>>everytime you access the same old content,
>>>over and over, because its gravy, all gravy.

> you didnt address his point: That big business
> will simply change/buy laws to extend copyright
> so they dont have to create new content...
>and force everyone who does out of business...

This comment is quite ridiculous. Media companies make the most money from new or recent content. Do you see Disney, WB, Paramount, etc. trying to sell their many excellent old movies. No, you don't; instead you see them marketing their new and terrible movies every single year. I don't even see book publishers heavily marketing their old books, and I don't expect to see this change in the coming years. This phenomena hasn't changed yet, even when at the same time copyrights has been extended from 25 to more than 90 years today. Do you really think media companies will suddenly begin to market their old warez just because the copyright will be extended even further?
Media companies don't even have that immense clout. They are being attacked heavily by Congress and many NGOs for violence in their movies and TV shows (perhaps you agree with those attacks?). And do you really think the media companies, with perhaps 100 billions in total revenues, have more influence on the government and congress than the much bigger computer industry [or any big industry for that matter]? The computer industry isn't that successful in it's campaigns for more visas for foreign workers and for less export regulations for encryption.

>Big American Corporations have WAY to much
>power and WAY too little public accountability.
>I dont want to 'vote with my dollars' - this simply
>allows them to predicate their 'money is the only
>thing that matters' system - fuck that: I want
>business to come to town-hall style meetings
>and be accountable to the public, you dont
>satisfy the public - your out of business (or
>something similar, I may not have the right
>mechanism - but you get the idea...)

Perhaps you are right, maybe corporations do have too much power. If you want to fix that, the right place to start is with campaign financing reform, just like John McCain is asking for.
But your town hall solution is pretty weak as you have yourself pointed out (90% of Americans are "sheeple-mob").
And using your logic ("you dont >satisfy the public - your out of business") media companies that produce material that the public doesn't like (Hustler, Nazi books, communist books, etc.) would go out of business. I'm pretty sure no movie company would have dared to produce a movie like Natural Born Killers or Lolita because every town hall meeting would have found those movies to be immoral.

Try to come up with a better logic next time.

Are you serious? The Communist party is the only legal party. Castro is president for life. So they held local elections...big deal. There were local elections in the Soviet Union, too. Check out the Amnesty International annual report on Cuba

For a different view, how about taking a look through the Amnesty International 2000 report?
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Remove the rocks to send email

Asia, China in particular. The majority of Africa. A good portion of Central and South America. and the Middle East.

Folks in western Europe, Great Britain, Austrialia and the USA tend to forget that the vast majority of the world is not a safe place if you have the wrong polticial beliefs, the wrong religious beliefs, or happen to have been born the wrong nationality.

Asia, China in particular. The majority of Africa. A good portion of Central and South America. and the Middle East.

Folks in western Europe, Great Britain, Austrialia and the USA tend to forget that the vast majority of the world is not a safe place if you have the wrong polticial beliefs, the wrong religious beliefs, or happen to have been born the wrong nationality.

Asia, China in particular. The majority of Africa. A good portion of Central and South America. and the Middle East.

Folks in western Europe, Great Britain, Austrialia and the USA tend to forget that the vast majority of the world is not a safe place if you have the wrong polticial beliefs, the wrong religious beliefs, or happen to have been born the wrong nationality.

Asia, China in particular. The majority of Africa. A good portion of Central and South America. and the Middle East.

Folks in western Europe, Great Britain, Austrialia and the USA tend to forget that the vast majority of the world is not a safe place if you have the wrong polticial beliefs, the wrong religious beliefs, or happen to have been born the wrong nationality.

Asia, China in particular. The majority of Africa. A good portion of Central and South America. and the Middle East.

Folks in western Europe, Great Britain, Austrialia and the USA tend to forget that the vast majority of the world is not a safe place if you have the wrong polticial beliefs, the wrong religious beliefs, or happen to have been born the wrong nationality.

According to NATO, initially aircraft were restricted to flying above 15,000 feet to protect their aircraft and pilots from the FRY air defences. This ceiling was relaxed during the second half of the air campaign, with some planes flying as low as 6,000 feet. Officials have conceded that high-altitude bombing reduced the overall effectiveness of the air campaign, but have denied that it resulted in increased civilian casualties. They said that many attacks were aborted if a target could not be positively identified so as to spare civilians.

• increase the number of civilians killed because of the lack of compassion of the algorithm?
  
  or
  
  
• diminish it because of more selective bombing (so that they can die of hunger or cold)?

Broken links to Amnesty International

Dammit, I don't know what happened (Does AI use some backasswards query system that expires, or did I just screw up the links? I don't know.) but you can find the reports at Amnesty International report 2000

Sorry for the glitch.

China:

• Amnesty International Annual Report on Human Rights, 2000
• Human Rights Watch World Report, 2000

United States of America :

• Amnesty International Annual Report on Human Rights, 2000
• Human Rights Watch World Report, 2000

My take on it: China commits some serious violations of human rights, and I'd be worried about the smart card IDs there. But I'm a U.S. citizen, and I'd also be worried about smart card IDs here. We've got our own human rights issues to work out. I'm an optimist, so I think that the U.S. won't turn into big brother, but I also think this is possible only through the constant vigilance of people like you and me.

China:

• Amnesty International Annual Report on Human Rights, 2000
• Human Rights Watch World Report, 2000

United States of America :

• Amnesty International Annual Report on Human Rights, 2000
• Human Rights Watch World Report, 2000

My take on it: China commits some serious violations of human rights, and I'd be worried about the smart card IDs there. But I'm a U.S. citizen, and I'd also be worried about smart card IDs here. We've got our own human rights issues to work out. I'm an optimist, so I think that the U.S. won't turn into big brother, but I also think this is possible only through the constant vigilance of people like you and me.

From the Amnesty International website, this pagesays:

9. Execution of the Innocent

As long as the death penalty is maintained, the risk of executing the innocent can never be eliminated.

Since 1973 more than 85 US prisoners have been released from death row after evidence emerged of their innocence of the crimes for which they were sentenced to death. Some had come close to execution after spending many years under sentence of death. Recurring features in their cases include prosecutorial or police misconduct; the use of unreliable witness testimony, physical evidence, or confessions; and inadequate defence representation. Other US prisoners have gone to their deaths despite serious doubts over their guilt.

But yeah, Amnesty Intl is just a bunch of extremists, right?

--

the imprisonment of the former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia on trumped-up charges to keep the current Prime Minister and his corrupt cronies in power for a while longer.Amnesty International's annual report on Malaysia (the direct link doesn't work, you'll have to get to it yourself) details some of the abuses. Makes banning video arcades look pretty bloody unimportant by comparison.

No need for Amnesty International in this particular situation then - I'm sure that AI is busy enough dealing with real infringments against human rights. In fact, do us all a favour and go and read their Annual Report and read about some real horrors before describing the banning of arcades as a travesty.

It's a democracy? Really? Well, let's go have a look at Amnesty International's website...
Hmmm, lesseee.... Ah! Asia, Malaysia, there:

restriction of individual rights and liberties, ... use by police of excessive force in dispersing peaceful demonstrators, ... allows detention without charge for up to two years, renewable indefinitely, of anyone considered a potential threat to national security. At least 27 prisoners of conscience were detained, ...

Read it all here.

And next time, stop pontificating about Malaysia being a democratic country without doin' your homework.

--
Americans are bred for stupidity.

No need for Amnesty International in this particular situation then - I'm sure that AI is busy enough dealing with real infringments against human rights. In fact, do us all a favour and go and read their Annual Report and read about some real horrors before describing the banning of arcades as a travesty.

It's a democracy? Really? Well, let's go have a look at Amnesty International's website...
Hmmm, lesseee.... Ah! Asia, Malaysia, there:

restriction of individual rights and liberties, ... use by police of excessive force in dispersing peaceful demonstrators, ... allows detention without charge for up to two years, renewable indefinitely, of anyone considered a potential threat to national security. At least 27 prisoners of conscience were detained, ...

Read it all here.

And next time, stop pontificating about Malaysia being a democratic country without doin' your homework.

--
Americans are bred for stupidity.

The one thing that makes me despise arguments about the preservation of people's basic human rights, is when people do not realise what is a right, and what is effectively a privilege. Being able to vote democratically is a right. Not being discriminated against due to race, creed or sexuality is a right. You have the right to not be imprisoned illegally, or to be tortured.

Being able to play video games is a privilege, not a right.

If you have the rights I've outlined above, you will be able to vote the government out of office who has banned video games, if that is your preference. A populous that is mostly in support of the banning of video games has the right to ban them (through democratic means) if they wish. Just because a minority disagree, does not mean that they are having their basic human rights taken away from them. If that were the case, the Klan would be able to argue it's their basic human right to set fire to black people, I would have the right to steal Dr. Pepper from the store whenever I couldn't afford it, and the legal system would just fall to pieces.

Perhaps something I've never really noticed about American xenophobia before, and it's only just clicked for me in the /. context. I really hate to break this to you guys, but other countries than the USA are democracies as well. In fact, if you had looked up your very own CIA's World Factobook entry for Malaysia yourself, you would notice that they do indeed have a democratically elected lower assembly, just like the UK. Marvellous. If they don't like it, they can vote them out. In fact, the legal system is based upon UK law (which is pretty hot on the old democratic rights stuff) and they have universal suffrage at the age of 21. Fancy that, they even let women vote as well! These foreigners are getting very advanced aren't they, and there you all were thinking that just because it was somewhere "foreign" it must be one of those places you see on CNN with pictures 100 foot tall of Commies everywhere. Indeed.

No need for Amnesty International in this particular situation then - I'm sure that AI is busy enough dealing with real infringments against human rights. In fact, do us all a favour and go and read their Annual Report and read about some real horrors before describing the banning of arcades as a travesty.

Morons. Get your priorities right. I can understand you wanting to bitch about the FBI snooping your data - it's your contry, your right. But to bitch about a democratic government banning video games???? Purrr-lease....

I bet this doesn't get touched by the moderators, or if it does it will be negative. :-)

Likewise, you can't put a gun to the entire countries head to tell them to produce at the level of modern day US

Who said anything about asking them to produce? I may be misinterpreting, but this sentence seriously makes me worry that you are no longer even able to distinguish between increased GNP and improved human rights.

Please do tell.

I was held in jail in DC for 5 days after crossing police lines april 17th. My own experience is a very complicated, multifaceted issue and there's not space to discuss it here. The (IMO indisputable) fact that the US has political prisoners was off-topic; my main point was that I have first-hand experience of how much of a positive difference active outside scrutiny can make to the treatment of those in custody. (Also, the jail authorities, who were under a court-order and threats of economic sanctions due to abuses in the late 80's, were much more responsive to such outside pressure than the US Marshals, who personally threatened to beat me up.)

What have your attentive eyes done for the Chinese thus far?

From amnesty: "the serious deterioration in human rights called into question the authorities' sincerity in signing key human rights conventions in the previous two years. It also represented a serious setback for the policy of dialogue on human rights pursued by some governments."

It seems to me that the level of public scrutiny in the US was higher in 97-98 than in 99, and that that's correlated with the setbacks amnesty noted. It also seems to me obvious that without the "hook" of the yearly congressional debate the US media will report on China's human rights moves even less. I do not advocate long term trade sanctions; however I think that short-term (with absolute time-limits no longer than 6 months), minor sanctions for serious human rights backsliding (as opposed to continuing situations) are a promising tool which has not been tried. PNTR makes that impossible.

If it were my choice I'd give them all green cards. However, it's not my choice. Nor is it these corporations' choice.

Poor, poor corporations: political realities force them into taking indentured servants.

C'mon, now. I might accept the argument that green cards are politically unrealistic, that H1B's are all we can ask for. But I don't think it's any slander on corporations to say that they're in it for the money. Unless citizens stand up for what's right, any corporation in existence would rather allow H1B visas (or, in some parallel universe where citizens' sense of what's right has degraded even further, outright slavery) than green cards. That's what corporations do; that's their job; and that's why it's our job to hold their feet to the fire.

Contact grassroots organisations such as your local Amnesty International chapter (http://www.amnesty.org/, Friends of the Earth (http://www.foe.org/, OneWorld.net (http://www.oneworld.net, or any of the myriad of other NGOs. Most of those organisations would welcome people that are capable of tech support, Internet service creation and maintenance, and other stuff. Some might even hire you. Just be sure to do what you promise (I know of experience that nothing pisses people off more than volunteers that dissolve when the work has actually to be done).

Eerie...like missing a belly-button.

Does it strike you strange that soon after the collapse of the Iron Curtain and Soviet Union that people seemed to ho-hum those events? I'll never forget Tianimen Square in June of 1989. Especially this photo of the man standing in front of the tanks.

These were global events that shaped the future -- still impacting today. How soon we forget.

OK, sure this is bait.

I'll start with agreeing with you - I think indeed that the "women's movement" was about equality; also that there are some truly weird-ass losers out there who do want vengeance or superiority or something.

But I don't think that womengamers.com fits into that latter category. I visit the site from time to time; they seem pretty sane.

Now, consider your own logic - I can see why a minority needs a special interest group, but
women, making up more than half of the Earth's population, are hardly a minority anywhere.

Now I won't go into the need for a continueed women's movement and that being a minority or a majority isn't everything. Check out Amnesty International's womens' human rights campaign if you ned more on that score.

Bet with regard to this site: isn't the whole point precisely that women are a minority on the net and as gamers? We have to put up with all sorts of crap from some of the guys, as you see every time someone posts something about women on slashdot. (Watch replies to this and see it grow.) I'm glad you're not one of them, but please - give us a break when we want a time out from the verbal abuse.

The human rights picture in Turkey is bleak. Torture and ill-treatment have long been routine. The 1990s have seen the emergence of "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions. Turkey's citizens do not enjoy true freedom of expression. The security forces are the most powerful group in the country and they have treated human rights with contempt. Political violence has been a serious problem for almost three decades. Recent Turkish history has seen three military coups and, since the 1980s, armed conflict between the security forces and opposition groups based in the mountains of the southeast and the cities of west Turkey. Armed opposition groups have also abused human rights. The largest armed opposition group is the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).

Successive governments have either denied that human rights violations occur, or justified them as the inevitable consequence of defending national security. The result is that no one in Turkey enjoys true personal security. Despite repeated promises of reform, Turkish citizens can still be arbitrarily detained. In custody, they will be unprotected against torture, still a standard method of interrogation. Since 1980 more than 400 people have reportedly been tortured to death in custody. "Disappearances" and political killings have claimed thousands of victims since 1991.

Even people fighting alongside the security forces are put at risk by the state's lawless methods. In January 1996 the government announced that the PKK had massacred 11 men near the remote village of Guclukonak. Seven of the victims were members of the local village guard force. Independent investigations suggested that the massacre was the work of the security forces. The international community has turned a blind eye to Turkey's human rights record. They have echoed the Turkish Government's claim that the threat to national security must be defeated at any cost to human rights. They have accepted official window-dressing as progress towards human rights protection. They have put the interests of trade and political allegiance before the security of Turkish citizens.

Even if the chinese government restricts encryption, this should be one of the less important worries for the chinese peole. Check out Amnesty International's Annual Reports on China.

Normally I don't moderate anonymous cowards down, because anything posted anonymously is suspicious to begin with. However, in this case I did so because this is not only a troll, it is a very dangerous troll. There may be some in the audience who don't know that Norway abolished the last vestiges of the death penalty in 1979 (see this page from Amnesty International). No one has been put to death in Norway for hacking or for any other reason in over two decades, possibly longer.

I don't know what this particular anonymous coward's motivation was in posting this, but I figured it was important enough to point out to the readership at large.

We have a large criminal population who will never do any good for society. This would be an excellent pay back.

i think Amnesty International might have some objections to that.

why test cosmetics in animals? why not test them on obnoxious celebrities like Pauly Shore and Britney Spears? Celebrities are the ones who wear the most make-up anyway!

*sigh*

Read Amnesty International's pages, like this one

ps. If you'd like to complain: write to your congressman/senator.

*sigh*

Read Amnesty International's pages, like this one

ps. If you'd like to complain: write to your congressman/senator.

So, you're right, a politician's immediate concern is the people who get them elected. However, this doesn't mean that they can't be influenced by voices on the other side of the world, given the right conditions.

Falsifying your city of residence or nationality is no way to advance a cause you believe in. If you think that the national policy level is a good place to promote OSS (note this is an "if" - there is bound to be a spectrum of opinions on whether this is strategically/ethically right), then go ahead, make your best arguments to whoever will listen.

--

They'll shoot you for tax evasion, and about 67 other offenses, at least.

Literally.

See Amnesty International's report on the death penalty in China.

It is most emphatically not the computer aspect.

Isn't executing juveniles a violation of human rights as well? Yes I thought so:

5.Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.


Yet, in 24 US states people can be sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were children.

And look, my favorite country, Finland, has found its way on Amnesty pages as well.

"Holier than thou" attitude gets you nowhere. We all have room for improvement, not just China.

Visit:

United Nations Agreements on Human Rights


Amnesty International


"An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder."

Isn't executing juveniles a violation of human rights as well? Yes I thought so:

5.Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.


Yet, in 24 US states people can be sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were children.

And look, my favorite country, Finland, has found its way on Amnesty pages as well.

"Holier than thou" attitude gets you nowhere. We all have room for improvement, not just China.

Visit:

United Nations Agreements on Human Rights


Amnesty International


"An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder."

Actually, a lot of different non-profit types monitor this sort of thing. On the subject of encryption, check out "Cryptography & Liberty 1999", a report published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. It's a country-by-country analysis of crypto policy. Countries are rated as "Red" for most restrictive, "Yellow" for somewhat restrected or likely to restrict in the future, and "Green" for having no restrictions on encryption technology. This is the second year they've published the report, and they discuss progress and changes in policy during the past year.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch keep an eye on the more general issues of freedom and human rights, and have hundreds of reports on this sort of thing.

No he is a criminal. Remember: cracking computers is a crime. It wasn't in most countries at the beginning of the '80s (and thus early crackers were not prosecuted), but it is now. That's more than the average idiotic cracker deserve, but the law needs a way to punish the real computer criminals. Adjust your mind in accordance to the law.

Kevin Mitnick, in short, is a political prisoner. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and has paid for it with over four years in jail without a trial. That's what makes this story significant to the community - that our government was, and still is, so ignorant of how computers and networks work, that they will imprison people for years and years without a trial because they don't understand.

No. You're just totally ignorant about how justice works. Many people are treated exactly the same way Kevin Mitnick is. He waived his right to have to a speedy trial, he was treated as many/all criminals are.

So stop the "Kevin Mitnick is the most scandalous case of the all American justice" song, because it is complete bullshit. Period. Innocents have been sentenced the death penalty or very heavy sentences, and no, no one cared about that. So no one is going to cry for an associal nerd commiting repeated crimes and further offence, with an obvious compulsive obsession.

If you're really concerned about human rights, go to amnesty international and its american action at http://www.rightsforall-usa.org/ ( Includes: Leonel Herrera was executed in Texas after the US Supreme Court denied his appeal despite newly discovered evidence that appeared to show he was innocent.)and stop the Kevin Mitnick shit.
But of course you're not. I guess you are living in your fantasy world of "underground" and so-called "hackers", largely influenced by movies and TV. So go masturbate yourself on *2600* sites and leave Slashdot alone.

tgd sez:

2) You (at least in the US) revoke your US citizenship (you can't have dual citizenship in the US past the age of 18) and you learn REAL fast what a plus it really is in the world to be a US citizen.

A wee bit of correction on two fronts:

1) It is and has been legal to have dual citizenship in the United States, as long as you were born a citizen of the US, since 1967 (when the Supreme Court ruled the law stating you couldn't be a dual citizen was unconstitutional); it has been expressly permitted by law since 1978. (Mind, the Department of State doesn't encourage it, but they CANNOT legally keep you from doing it now, and anymore unless the US is at war with the other nation you want to be a citizen of it is next to impossible to just lose your citizenship.) There's quite an informative FAQ that provides more info on dual citizenship for US citizens; the author himself is a dual US/Canadian citizen.

There are advantages to being a US citizen, but there are also some distinct disadvantages (as compared to, say, Canada)...for starters, it's next to impossible for private citizens to work on strong encryption if they want to export it outside the US (there are cases where people have literally had to renounce their US citizenship so they could continue to work on encryption-related stuff). Terrorists are considerably more likely to target US citizens than, say, Canadians (to the point the State Department has to issue advisories warning Americans not to go to certain countries; I somehow doubt Canadians have to worry so much). Countries are probably going to be less likely to respect consular agreements regarding prisoners, considering the US has flagrantly violated international law on repeated occasions regarding non-US-citizen prisoners such as required consular access and notification (more info is at Amnesty International's web pages; the only other countries that routinely violate consular access requirements are third-world countries with severe records of human rights abuses...positively shameful if you think about it, and I don't blame other countries for being pissed off at the US for it). US citizens have to be REALLY careful when shopping overseas, because most of the world trades with Cuba while US citizens are actually prohibited from buying anything (even clothes) that are MADE in Cuba on pain of imprisonment (yes, people HAVE been locked up for importing Cuban cigars bought in Canada). There are several countries (including Cuba) that US citizens are NOT allowed to visit without literally filing a request with both the State Department and the Treasury Department--in some cases, requiring a list of family members and the last time you were in the country--on pain of imprisonment, and on the off chance you DO get approved (which is almost never) you can only spend $100/day for ALL needs--food, lodging, etc.--and you cannot bring ANY souveneirs back. Some countries will actually give you a worse time if you are American (as opposed to, say, Canadians). It is hellaciously harder to get citizenship in many countries if you are American than Canadian (most folks in Commonwealth countries can get citizenship in other Commonwealth countries fairly easily; if you aren't from one, you have to take a points test to see if you can even get a visa). Last I heard, embassies of most other "First World" nations with the exception of Israel do not have to be periodically closed down due to threats of terrorism and yahoos attempting to occasionally blow up embassies (and occasionally succeeding at it).

(Yes, I do know what I am talkin' on here, btw. I read travel advisories for kicks. :) I also had a friend of my love's, who is from Belfast, come over...he couldn't believe some of the stuff US citizens routinely put up with, especially with travel restrictions and censorship [he was quite amazed that we cannot legally say "fuck" on the air, and this is why a popular British comedy which involves several priests and naughty language (which is also apparently wildly popular in most of Europe and the rest of the free world) will probably never see the light of day in the US, not even on late-night PBS :P]. And he's from a part of the world we normally associate with a bunch of gits on both sides trying very hard to blow each other up on account of a long-standing religious pissing match. And he says WE'RE fucked up. :P)

I, for one, appreciate a non-lethal alternative on both the legal and non-legal sides of the coin. Is it possible that law enforcement would be less hesitant to use these weapons than guns? Sure. But the person on the other end would also be less dead.

Like chemical weapons, it sounds like it would be fairly easy to protect against this weapon if you expected it. And like chemical weapons, its primary use would be against civilians who were not expecting it. It would work great on demonstrators.

Considering the level of police brutality in the US this weapon seems quite dangerous. Consider the cases of police applying pepper spray to handcuffed people's eyes with Q-tips (specifically the case with Earth First in Oregon, but this has been done on other occasions as well). Remember watching Rodney King lying on the ground, being hit with a taser over and over? Giving these people more tools to cause pain is very dangerous.

Being able to torture people at an increased distance isn't a positive force. And this is clearly a tool of torture.

Reading the Amnesty International 1998 Report on the US is interesting (the police stuff starts about halfway down). The AI Report on the NYPD probably also has lots of interesting thoughts, but at 260K I haven't read it.

I, for one, appreciate a non-lethal alternative on both the legal and non-legal sides of the coin. Is it possible that law enforcement would be less hesitant to use these weapons than guns? Sure. But the person on the other end would also be less dead.

Like chemical weapons, it sounds like it would be fairly easy to protect against this weapon if you expected it. And like chemical weapons, its primary use would be against civilians who were not expecting it. It would work great on demonstrators.

Considering the level of police brutality in the US this weapon seems quite dangerous. Consider the cases of police applying pepper spray to handcuffed people's eyes with Q-tips (specifically the case with Earth First in Oregon, but this has been done on other occasions as well). Remember watching Rodney King lying on the ground, being hit with a taser over and over? Giving these people more tools to cause pain is very dangerous.

Being able to torture people at an increased distance isn't a positive force. And this is clearly a tool of torture.

Reading the Amnesty International 1998 Report on the US is interesting (the police stuff starts about halfway down). The AI Report on the NYPD probably also has lots of interesting thoughts, but at 260K I haven't read it.