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Defamation, Free Speech, Jurisdiction and the Net?
An anonymous reader asks: "I'm writing a legal article on jurisdiction and defamation via the web. There seems to be a trend in various national courts (eg the UK, Australia, Malaysia) to treat the place where a web-page is *read* (ie browsed) as the place of publication of its contents, regardless of where the page or the server serving it are located. This has far-reaching ramifications, as it opens up anyone publishing anything on a web-site (and also Usenet)
in America to the more restrictive domestic laws of other countries -- not just for slander/libel/defamation, but also treason, lese-majestie, hate speech and general censorship laws (think Yahoo and France). Does anyone have personal, practical experience of being threatened by foreign governments or government bodies for material put up on the Net? Or is it just an inevitable consequence, to be overcome by geographical tagging of a browser's location (think icravetv.com) or similar measures?"
"Many people assert that informed Netizens see this as a way of fragmenting the Net, of imposing geographic boundaries and destroying part of the fundamental location-agnostic nature of the web and the Net -- ie, that it's a Bad Thing. Is this really so? Does anyone see this as a good, or at least a neutral, thing?"
Just try to make web sites that please all foriegn governments.
If they can't do anything about broadcast radio propaganda etc, why should they be able to claim jurisdiction over web traffic? The parallels are pretty close.
If I put a BillBoard up on Canadian Soil bashing an American company can they sue me in America , (where as on the web it can be seen from) NO !
Its crap, If I shout slanders from France to Germany say can I be sued in Germany NO,
If I dance Naked in ??? and you can see me from ??? (Alright bad example as you would most certainly be blind at that point) and its legal to dance naked where I am , can I be sued for indecent exposure where you are ?
I tell you this I some worthless Aussie tried to sue me here I go over there and show the boy what "Down Under" really means.........
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
If you use the (admittedly stretched) analogy of the internet as a broadcast medium, then you should be able to look at how current laws governing radio and television broadcasts are handled.
What are the laws like covering broadcasts and how are they enforced? With the right medium (satellite, etc.) you should be able to reach many parts of the world where various broadcasts are deemed illegal. For example, pornography and some countries in the Middle East. How are these handled? I would have thought political broadcasts by one country might be deemed illegal in other countries with differing views.
With WIPO and others creating interlocking treaties to enforce "intellectual property rights" across national borders, our own 1st Amendment rights may be increasingly threatened.
Things that we'd regard as valid speech may offend other governments or piss off multinational corporations -- I just hope they won't gain the leverage to suppress them across borders. Certainly in areas connected to copyrighted, trademarked and patented material, the big corporations are trying to gain global power to suppress speech they don't like.
just remember, if someone violates the laws of another country from their country, the offended country must extradite them in order to prosecute. a lot of times there is too much red tape to make this worthwhile. especially for something as trivial as a web page.
I would be more afraid of the opposite, like encryption developers from, say, Norway, Australia, Russia or Finland, being applied doses of whoop-ass called DMCA (or perhaps even the far-reaching 'terrorism' laws mr. Asscrotch created)
Absolutely. If I hear a broadcast from Iran, or any one of the countries that have told the ITF (I think that's the acronym, can't remember right now) that their citizens are not allowed to talk on my ham radio, I'm legally required to not listen to it. I guess I'm supposed to plug my ears, or pull the radio plug out of the wall as soon as I hear a callsign from one of the blacklisted countries. Pretty silly, no?
I see this as a potentially positive development. In my view, it will end up like the patent system (not that I'm making any value judgements about the patent office, don't jump on that). Countries will each balance their individual values against others. Just as IBM and HP have numerous conflicting patents, and as long as they're balanced in their infringements nobody has to sue, different countries will balance their regional restrictions (ie, China will allow political discussions, the US will allow communist or anti-US sentiment) and all that will be cut out is the truly universally damaging content. (Child pornography, primarily).
That's just a hope though, realistically it'll probably just be the US throwing it's weight around trying to impose it's views on the world.
It is highly questionable if it is only a one page site, but if you have it on every page and the other party goes to more than one page, you could argue that they contracted to have it in your chosen jurisdiction.
But even so, if the jurisdiction is improper, you may still have to answer in the improper jurisdiction and file a motion to dismiss there.
Fight Spammers!
this is slightly off-topic (mod away), but i note the assumption that non-US laws are inherently more restrictive than US laws. this is increasingly not the case. note DMCA and USA-Patriot, among others, and recent high-profile cases of foreign nationals being arested in the U.S. for breaking such laws.
mind you, i think your assumption was true a decade ago, and i'd like to see it be true again...
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Statement about World Military Terroristic intents
Ever hear of preventitive health care? How about preventitive warfare?
Any foriegn service provider that allows access to american networks should be responsible.
This should read "as it opens up anyone publishing anything on a web-site (and also Usenet) to the more restrictive domestic laws of America". See DMCA for example (USA only).
Sigh. Why do so many Americans just blindly assume everyone else is behind. Yes, there are countries for which this is true. But there are also many for which the reverse is true.
So, to be more specific you could kill the "in America" in the sentence above and would even be more true: Also web pages on other countries could be subjected to more restrictive laws in again other countries.
Right? Yeah, I'll stop nitpicking now.
Home Page
So what will happen? Most likely it will continue as it has for years; corporations and well financed individuals will shop for a juridiction that fits their needs and will prey upon those without similar resources. But more excessive legal claims are obviously impossible; for example, a Chinese government monopistic company claiming that Fortune magazine is slandered them or Iran claiming that FOX must stop broadcasting "impure" TV. However, don't expect the individual website to get such consideration, and don't expect the US not to try to bully it around the other way from time to time...
Sig under construction since 1998.
No. It's not. The simple truth is that if a person in England tries to sue someone in the US of A for slander, (because there the burden of proof is on the defendant) they'd be laughed out of court. people cannot be forced to briung the site offline if they are not in the country that the lawsuit is in, and so the laws are mostly worthless.
I suppose it will take a trial case pursued by the EFF or somebody similar to actually show that the jurisdiction cannot work in this fashion. This will be especially obvious as soon as someone tries to extradite a US citizen to some muslim country where people cannot view "indecently clad" women in pictures, or say things "against Islam." Imagine someone in Afghanistan 6 months ago sueing the Baptist or Catholic or whatever church because their site contained information about Christianity.
I'm a concientious
I'm writing a legal article on jurisdiction and defamation via the web
Bernie again?????
that's the general implication. IIRC there are several countries in europe and northern africa where it is illegal to criticise the ruling party/royal family/family-of-the-royal-bed-warmer... wouldn't you love to see every two-bit dictator with an ego-issue sueing cnn.com for 'defamination', 'libel' or here's the clincher... treason.
draw your own conclusions
"If I wanted your input on my pet project, I'd stick my hand up your ass and use you like a sock-puppet." - Muse
Check out the following article from the Oregon State bar bulletin. Although it addresses jurisdiction mostly from an intellectual property perspective, many of of the cited cases touch upon the more amorphous concepts involved.
Personal Jurisdiction in the Silicon Forest
In using my website, you agree to be bound by the laws of the United States and that you agree to accept any responsibility for any violations of local laws or treaties that using my website may cause. Further, you agree that you will hold the grantor of this license free from any responsibility should you find the material licensed to you to be libelous or in any other way offensive.
This EULA is not transferable.
Blah, blah, blah....
Oh and by the way, IANAL.
If this were easy, they wouldn't need us to do it!
I realize this may seem extreme/rude/harsh to some... however, nobody can forecast the laws that another country may decide to introduce. The web is open and free, and to be of any use it must continue to remain so. Like radio or telivision... if you don't like it, change the channel.
Mmmmmmm. Floor pie!
Say I were to use it to differentiate prices: people buying books who are coming from one state pay price $X, people coming from another state pay price $Y. Not because of different shipping costs (which may be equal), but because market research has told me that people from state X are willing to pay me more money for the the product.
Or it can be used to block access to material (iCraveTV) - only people from state X are allowed to see this.
Or it can be used in a good way. Think caching servers. If there is a cache server for a major website in every high usage area so that server response times are faster and overall network traffic is lower. However, a lot of sites do this already (fist page: choose your location server).
What is important is that geolocation is used in a good way, improving the lives of citizens, and not restricting what they can and cannot see/hear/know about when that information may be important to them.
So it can behave like many tools. With this hammer, I can build you a house (good) or hit you on the head (bad). With this international treaty, we can (re)build nations in peace, or we can use it to restrict and isolate a nation that does not see things from the true (read: MY) point of view.
So does anyone have any ideas about a good international treaty that can be used to help citizens of all countries? Maybe an extension to the UN Charter of Human Rights.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Einstein
So long as the sentencing against MS anti-trust is the curve we would be being sentenced on,.....
Nothing to be at all concerned about!
where a web-page is *read* (ie browsed) as the place of publication of its contents, regardless of where the page or the server serving it are located.
It seems to me that it is an action carried out by the person doing the surfing. Much like an American going to Canada and trying to come back across with Cuban cigars. Is it the fault of the guy trying to smuggle in the goods, or of the Candadian government for allowing its own citizens and and visitors to buy the cigars?
Not that I favor net censorship. Yes, there is some nasty stuff out there. But you don't have to surf to it. You don't have to expose yourself to it. If you do so and get offended, who's responsiblity is it? Yours. Not the governments, not the person who put up the website. It's not like a billboard, where you will see it if you look in a general direction.
Yes, searches sometimes turn up (possibly) objectionable results, but that just means the searcher needs to learn how to refine searches.
Education, not restrictions.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Well, this certainly takes a different spin on things, eh?
;-)
This interpretation of "country of publication" should, then, also effect the copyright laws of printed matter as well. So, I open a book in Singapore and it that makes Singapore the country of publication? I don't think so.
This sounds like any number of "We Own The Net" attitudes spawned by a lack of understanding.
The cure for this is to simply beginning access block for the offending countries. In this case, blocking Australia from wholesale chunks of the net would certainly force a new new view of the situation.
After all, that's what those Allow/Deny's are for, right? If you don't want trouble with neighbor's kids, don't let them in your yard
U.S. courts claim jurisdiction over many things that occur outside the states, and many US federal laws cover things that occur outside US boundaries - eg illegal to bribe overseas officials, even if you do it from outside U.S. territory.
Here's something to think about. In many western countries, the age of consent is 16. In the Australian territory of Northern Territory, it is (or was) 12. (!!??!) By US definition, this is child pornography.
Also, remember that under the WIPO treaties, large (and not-so-large) US companies have lots of power over companies in other countries regarding trademarks and copyrights, and I would say that these powers are often abused. Of course, this happens for non-US companies too, it's just that there are so many more large US ones. As patents are covered by these treaties, the US seems to be of the opinion "it is good for the US economy if US companies hold many patents that would otherwise go to non-US companies".
I'm not saying what is right or wrong, and I don't want this post to look anti-US, just add a bit of balance. Eg the N.Z. government, under some pressure from U.S. government, is reviewing it's copyright laws to move them into line regarding copyright of digital materials.
So I guess my point is that U.S. laws are being effected in other countries as well. I don't think U.S. yahoo should be subject to French laws, but if they had a French office then a French magistrate could argue that they were operating in France. U.S. judges do this stuff too.
--
I think that two things need to happen over the reasonably near future, if the Internet is to avoid falling into disrespect and neglect.
Firstly, there needs to be some sort of mechanism for content to be tailored to particular audiences in different regions. This might be enforced by forming barriers between different telecoms networks, but it would probably make more sense for it to be a guideline. If you choose to download something in a region that isn't indicated, you are now responsible for the content; you were given fair warning. This seems a reasonable compromise on the issue of what is politically acceptable in different regions.
Secondly, the Internet needs proper tracability. As I've said here before, with freedom comes responsibility. If you want to keep your rights to free speech, you're going to have to accept that you can't do it truly anonymously. Otherwise, spamming will be the least of your problems; undefended defamation, damaging legal, financial or medical advice, free information on how to make bombs, etc. could become the norm. At that point, the Internet loses all credibility as a serious medium. The big names go away, it falls into disuse, and it dies.
On the other hand, one of the great advantages to the Internet is the fact that you can, currently, say things anonymously. In cases where what you say is true, but would get you in trouble if you were identified, this is useful; it's only a problem when it's abused (and as we all know, it is regularly abused). So, in the same way as the world has worked for years outside of the Internet, we need a system where you can opt not to give your name initially, but where suitable authorities (e.g., the police acting on a court order in many western countries) can identify you if you are found to have done something wrong, so you are still accountable.
This allows for an investigation to be carried out into whether or not something that's been said is against the rules, and only when it's been found to be wrong do the authorities identify the poster and take action against them. Sure, it's not perfect, but at least now it's the same as the rest of the world, and guys can't go around claiming to be doctors and getting people killed or slagging me off behind my back. And hey, you get to annihilate most of the world's spammers in the process. Now you can have the free speech you value so highly, but you can still get screwed if you abuse the privilege. That sounds like a pretty fair compromise to me.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The broadcasts persisted, and some might say that they had an important role in the fall of communism.
We must ensure that we do not build up walls of our own that blind us from what is going on outside.
But don't take my word for it. Read up on this topic and figure it out for yourself.
The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -Einstein
If you think those in power are going to cater to your desires without force or bribery, you are sorely mistaken.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest/aabbs/aabbs.html
Twoflower
--
Twoflower
I hope they recognize the location of the server as the place of publication.... Locate your server in a public restroom where there's lots of graffiti. Then use a "community standards" argument to defend your content.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
One of the noblest moments in human history was when settlers in the new America rose up to assert and defend their independence from the religious oppression that was endemic throughout Europe.
We now face a similar threat to freedom, with governments around the world asserting power to stifle free speech originating from other countries.
However, this time, guns simply won't work.
The call to arms that I espouse is for all internet users to adopt the weapons of anonymity and encryption.
For the sake of basic online human rights, I call on all netizens to familiarise themselves with all anonymising technologies, and for all people with development skills to create and improve such technologies.
One basic weapon is the anonymising proxy server. This allows people to use the web to publish opinions that cannot be traced to them personally (assuming of course the operator of the proxy server don't keep logs and make them available to various authorities worldwide).
But an even more potent weapon is the Free Network project at www.freenetproject.org. Freenet provides technology that allows freesites (similar to websites) to be published. The advantage of freesites is that they can't be traced to their author, since they are distributed at several points around the network. In fact, any attempt to locate the source of the information, or delete it, results in such information proliferating further around the net.
However, Freenet is just a taste of things to come. There's a whole new generation of stealth technologies emerging which will wrest the power of the internet out of the hands of governments and restore it to the common citizen. One such technology is the Invisible Internet Project (formerly called Invisible IRC Proxy), which will provide secure IP-level tunnelling, anonymising and encryption features.
People, please don't take these threats to your freedom lying down. If enough of us start using these new liberating technologies, we'll be too large a market for ISPs and governments to block us.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Suppose a kid, let's call him Jon, is sitting in a country, let's say Norway, and writes software that does something that pisses off somebody else, let's say the Motion Picture Association of America, because it does something like, oh, decrypts the content scrambling system on DVDs.
Now let's say this is perfectly legal in Norway but not in the MPAA's country, let's call it America.
Does this enable the MPAA to sue poor Jon for breaking a law that does not apply where he lives?
Of course, maybe this has no point because of course it is purely hypothetical, as I said...
Anyone who solicits advice on legal issues from slashdot is a fool. Do your own research, you'll get better results too.
I do acknowledge that multi-national corporations have other additional problems, especially if they have offices/assets in those contries whose laws prohibit the content posted, but some protection is better than none. I predict that US courts will continue to follow the precedent set by the Yahoo! case.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Yes, this seems to be a big problem which is currently underestimated.
The international criminal law of most countries tends to be mostly concerned about how to catch "criminals" that act from abroad. So usually every offense that has the slightest relation to a country can be brought in action at courts of this country. The same problem exists with international private law: In the case of torts or IP infringment one can go to the courts of the own country and the applicable law is the law of that country.
This of course is very unfortunate: If you want to publish something on the WWW, Usenet, etc. you would have to check the laws of every country you plan to visit (or have extradition or long-arm treaties with such countries). In my opinion, we need international treaty that establish a principle of country of origin for all material posted on international networks (even personal email). So one would only have to check the laws of the country one is in, maybe the country of the ISP/webspace provider/... (if different).
Claus
I put up some controversial material and I soon got a message stating that my website was a little to similar to another (that I had never been to). Someone threatened to file suit and such, but I am fairly sure (almost positive) it was because they disapproved of the content (as I would if I saw it now) rather than because of any website similarities. I wouldn't be surprised if their website was not made to look like mine (they were just a little too similar).
When you receive an unsolicited call you can set the standard for decency and if they didn't like that standard, they either shouldn't have called or they should have hung up as soon as they got from where you were coming.
Likewise there is a big difference between emailing someone an unsolicited message and someone hitting your website. If you send someone an unsolicited email and it arrives in a foreign country, you have committed an act in that foreign country. However, if your website receives a request for information from a foreign country and you respond -- its a different story: The foreign national committed the act of sending a request for information outside his country and you responded, outside his country, to that act (which he committed both inside and outside his country). Subscribing to a mailing list is a solicitation for email so you can't claim that email received from such an email list to which you have subscribed is "unsolicited". This stuff isn't really controversial except to the brain-dead and/or brain-washed -- it is simply the rational approach to these trans-national communications technologies.
Countries that allow their nationals to be arrested by foreign countries for acts committed outside those foreign countries are not true "countries" in the sense of sovereign states and their passports should not be relied upon.
Since very few countries are willing to act appropriately in most of these situations, their passports are not, for those purposes, truly those of sovereign states.
The response to this situation by the de facto sovereign individual is to limit travel:
Countries that arrest foreign tourists for acts committed outside their countries should be avoided by all tourists.
Seastead this.
hmmm, enough speculation, let's do some real-world tests...
King Fahad bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud is a stinky fat old man who likes to molest little boys.
George W. Bush is a homosexual rapist who wears women's underwear. (I say homosexual because I figure GW is probably a homophobe, not 'cause I consider it an insult generally)
President Chirac is a murderer! he killed my entire family!
ok, I'm gonna go hide for awhile now while we wait to see the results...
The area of internet jurisdiction is very complex and often confused. When it comes to defamation, look at a case called Calder v. Jones, 465 US 783. Basically, the court found that California had the jurisdiction to hale Floridians into Cal because their defamation against Shirley Jones was an intentional act, that was aimed at California and they knew their comments were likely to cause harm in California. Several courts have applied Calder to the Internet, where the "effects" of the defamation is where the jurisdiction can also be found.
America may well have the DMCA and the USA-Patriot Act, but it also has the ACLU, Alan Dershowitz, Johnny Cochrane, etc., etc.
In other words, we may have restrictive laws, but we also have a bunch of chiselers out to finess them.
Contract this with countries that
- like the former USSR, have great Constitutions in the abstract, and secret police to liquidate you if you attempt to exercise any "right" you may have.
- don't have Constitutions at all, just the will of the assorted ruling gerontocracies.
- have Constitutions, and strict laws derived therefrom, but with noting like the counter-balancing provided by, say, the ACLU
Things are strange right now in the U.S. There's change happening based on technology and terrorism and at such times over-reactions will occur. I have no doubt that things will free up in the next decade.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
The Hauge Convention is not the WIPO Copyright Treaty.
The WIPO Copyright Treaty is the next step in a series of international IP treatys, besides a lot of sane stuff it also includes the no circumvention devices clause. I'm not sure whether the DMCA implements the WIPO CT in the US or the WIPO CT was influenced by the DMCA (or drafts thereof).
The Hague Conventions makes cross-border litigation easier. That is, for example, if someone sends you a mail bomb from abroad, you can sue him in your country, which is actually a good idea. The only problem is with broadcast mediums such as Internet: Here it means that you can be sued everywhere where your posted stuff can be received. (Please note that many countries already have bilateral treaties like the HC, including the US and most of Europe. It's only that the majority people don't make use of it even if it was possible.)
Claus
If the copy of the NYTimes that you would buy in London has been edited to the laws of England?
I'm not talking about the European version, but one which has been imported.
If you can get the American version of the NYTimes in England, I'd say that the laws are highly questionable with regard to web browsers, and I would clearly make that point.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
I'm sorry, but you and most of the rest of the Slashdot crowd don't seem to quite *get* the Sklyarov thing.
l d=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=2748291#2748372
Elcomsoft's servers were located *in* the US, so they are under US law. Software was purchased & downloaded from servers located in the US, even though Elcomsoft is located in Russia. By doing business in the US they are bound by US laws, if they would have just kept their servers in Russia there wouldn't be an issue at all (other than Adobe trying to get Russia to do something). He would not have been arrested when he came to the US, because he as trademark (or copyright I can't remember which) would have been doing all transactions outside of the US. So it's more of an issue that you should know the laws of the country you are hosting your website physically at.
Check out my post in the last Sklyarov thread http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=25273&thresho
I am not American, therefore I have different worries: "foreign" laws do not harrass me, but nowadays I never know when or if Americans, like Gestapo in the olden days, fetch me to a court that is not responsive or responsible to anyone, leaving my loved ones wondering where I am. Mind you, I'm not a terrorist, but if an American somehow gets the idea, there is no way I'll be saved from this lawless court. Perhaps I'm doomed after this post? This man can't be anything but a terrorist? What is he hiding? Let's take him in for torture for a couple of months and see what he's been up to!
Again your example is flawed, arrest them if Thailand software pirates are selling their goods from running servers located in the US, when they come to the US.
As to your other point, that's why I gave a link to my previous post, so I didn't have to re-explain everything for the fifth time.
A MiniHowTo on Pleasing Malaysia Court -
1. Get A Lot Of Money.
2. Donate The Money To The Prime Minister Of Malaysia, or, Give A Sizeable Chunk Of Your Company (in terms of shares / ownership) to One Or More Sons Of The Prime Minister. In Other Words, Bribe The Guy, Or Bribe His Family.
3. Get To Know The Judges - who are appointed by the Prime Minister - through the Prime Minister himeself.
4. Before You File A Defamation Suit, Tell The Prime Minister About It. Make Sure That The Judges *Are* Informed Of Your Up And Coming Suit.
5. From Then Onwards, Everything Is Arranged For You. You Can Ask For Whatever Amount. You Victory Is Guaranteed Even If YOur Evidence Is Extra-Ordinarily Flimsy.
6. If You Can't Collect The Judgement - If The Losing Side Don't Have The Money - You Can Sue Again, And Make Those Bastards Pay For "Defaming You". The Court System Of Malaysia Will Throw Your Enemies Into Jail, Because No Justice In Malaysia Will Dare To Make The "Friends Of Prime Minister" Look Bad.
End Of MiniHowTo
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
You must not have recognized it, but this is basically the Libertarian political philosophy. You'd best think about what you're saying before you go criticising the most principled, consistent, and well-respected political philosophy in the world.
Some pervert persuades your 9 year old daughter into having sex with him.
Children are not adults, and can't make most decisions for themselves. It is the job of parents to be responsible for their children until they're of an appropriate age to arbitrate their own lives. Until your daughter is an adult, she's effectively your property, within certain limits (maybe a fourth article should be added, like the one the Libertarian platform has, to address which rights over the children are given to the parents and which are reserved for the children themselves; for example, parents should be able to restrict the child's right to have sex, but the child should retain control of her right to use the restroom when she wishes), and thus if someone has sex with her without your consent, that's force against your property, and you're justified to retaliate.
The wierdo with the apartment directly beneath you likes to brew his own personal batches of nitro glycerine. Understandably, you're nervous.
Complain to the owner of the apartment, who has no obligation to rent the apartment to that person. Given the choice between losing you as a renter and losing the crazy guy with the bomb fetish, I'd say the situation will probably be dealt with to your satisfaction.
If the landlord creates a rule against having explosives on the property, and that person violates the rule by having explosives on the property, then that person has initiated force against the landlord and the landlord is free to retaliate.
If not, it's not your property, so leave.
An unscrupulous business person changes his mind and backs out of a contract.
That's fraud, which is a form of force. If someone says to you, "I will give you $500 in exchange for oral sex," and you provide the oral sex, and he doesn't provide the $500, he's initiated force against you and you're free to defend yourself.
A 17 year old teenager with a Trans Am drives through your residential neighborhood at over 100 miles an hour.
If the teenager incurs any damage to you or anyone else, he/she will be responsible for the damage. Beyond that, complain to the owner of the street, and convince the owner of the street to enforce a speed limit. You're only free to do what you want on your OWN property, on someone else's property, you have to follow their rules, otherwise you're using force against their property and they're free to defend themselves.
A slovenly neighbor leaves all manner of junk in his yard, bringing down local property values.
Convince everyone whose property borders on this man's property to build a wall on their property that obstructs view of his property. Or ask him nicely to remove his junk, or volunteer to remove it for him.
No, this doesn't work. Good idea, but it's not quite right.
Yes, it does work. Good idea, and it is quite right.
It just takes a little bit of common sense.
BZZT! Wrong.
You are required not to TALK to that station. You can listen all you want.
So, if you hear
CQ CQ CQ de EPA0X3
You can listen to your heart's content without it ITU (International Telecommunication Union) having a problem with it (now, your local government may, but that's a different story).
However, if you reply, then you are in trouble.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Libertarianism is centered around the "will of the people" concept, but it takes it one step further -- it's about the will of each invididual person, and not just the will of the majority. The United States Constitution is a generally Libertarian document, and the United States was founded on generally Libertarian ideas. It's not quite true Libertarianism (which has never been implemented on a large scale except on the Internet), but it's close. The foundation of the United States government isn't just "majority rule", it's a combination of "majority rule" and "minority rights." The majority can do as it chooses, but not at the expense of the rights of the minority. True Libertarianism takes the combination of "majority rule" and "minority rights" just one step further by eliminating "majority" and "minority", and just having individuals -- individuals who are free to carve out their own path in life without being told how they have to live.
Under your idea of how government should work, solely based on "majority rule" without "minority rights," if 51% of the population believed it was okay to shoot homosexuals on sight, then it would be perfectly okay to shoot homosexuals on sight.
In fact, in your world, if 51% of the population believed it was okay to shoot homosexuals on sight, then you would consider it immoral to oppose shooting homosexual on sight, or to try to convince people that they shouldn't support shooting homosexuals on sight, because opposing the murder of homosexuals or trying to convince people that the legal murder of homosexuals is wrong would be classified as "defying the will of the majority."
Well, here's a shocking newsflash for you: speaking out against the morality of the majority viewpoint is not the same as being opposed to the concept of majority rule. You can still believe in majority rule but fight to change what the majority believe.
Since you believe so strongly in majority rule and that the "will of the people" should never be questioned, what will you do on the day when 51% of the population is Libertarian? Will you suddenly turn Libertarian yourself, and admit you were wrong, or will you oppose the majority Libertarian ideals and prove yourself wrong when you claimed to support "the will of the people"?
Those who claim it's wrong to question "the will of the majority" are probably only of that opinion because they're currently in the majority themselves. You're most likely a straight white middle- or upper-class male Christian/athesist/agnostic, and since you are the majority, that's why you believe "the majority must never be challenged."
So, just answer this one question. If "the majority" (50.0001% of the population, let's say) believe it's perfectly okay to murder homosexuals because homosexuality is morally wrong, and it becomes national law that it's okay to murder homosexuals, what do you do?
WHAT DO YOU DO???
Do you act proud that "the will of the people" is being done and homosexuals are being murdered legally, or do you protest the murder of homosexuals and renounce your blind worship of "the will of the people"?
The will of the people must be counterbalanced by the rights of all individuals within a society, not just the spoiled rich whiteboys driving their fat white asses around in their giant SUVs. How much gas mileage do you get on that thing, anyway?
Your question is similar to one that I have been researching for some time, in my role as an adjunct professor of E-Commerce. What is the impact of the Internet on governments?
There is a rich history of how governments have confronted new technologies in the past. It's the sort of history that I wish high schools would teach: some of the laws passed in response to new technologies are extremely funny. The introduction of steam engines, canals, railroads, the telegraph, repeating arms, the automobile--even the safety razor--emboldened legions of pompous politicians eager to satiate their constituents' desire to Put A Stop To This. And Put A Stop To This they did--until they realized that the next town over was benefiting from all the jobs building the railroad line, or manufacturers were locating plants across the state line to avoid their jurisdiction, or (the worst possible fate for a pol) people were just laughing at them and ignoring the law. (Through 1976, at least, it was illegal for a man in the State of Illinois to shave himself unless he was a licensed barber.)
There typically has been a pattern to how governments (the bureaucrats, the politicians, and the judiciary) come to grips with a new technology. The initial response typically is "Put A Stop To This". The next response is "Regulate It!"--generally meaning "slow it down," as the original cast of pompous pols is replaced by wannabe-graybeards urging "caution" and "restraint." As bureaucrats and politicians see wider acceptance of the technology the next step is natural: "How Can We Tax It?" The rules and requirements tend to get relaxed as the bureaucrats, etc., become comfortable with the technology, in a phase I call "Hey! This Could Be Useful." Ultimately, for extremely disruptive technologies, there is a phase we might call "We'd Better Get On The Bandwagon."
Railroads are a perfect example: in the 1830s and 1840s every politician was in the Put A Stop To This camp; by the later 1840s and early 1850s there was grudging acceptance, but still "restraint" and "caution". (There were, for instance, repeated debates about whether it was safe for the Post Office should use trains to move mail.) By the 1850s railroads were confronting a bevy of tax proposals: taxes on rights-of-way, taxes on locomotives, taxes on rail cars, and taxes on revenue. When the U.S. Army used railroads to bring fresh troops to Gettysburg--and won the battle--the utility of railroads was made manifest. Suddenly every politician was a closet railfan, and the pols fell over one another in their rush to champion, sponsor, or even subsidize the building of Yet Another Railway Line. By the late 1860s, up until the economic collapse of 1873, and then again in the later 1870s, the We'd Better Get On The Bandwagon phase was at its peak: rather than regulating or taxing railroads, politicians were working fiendishly to ensure that the railroad didn't pass them by. Towns with railroads lived, towns without railroads died.
The technology has changed--politicians have not. What has also changed--and what makes this process seem so much more contentious--is that the Internet has appeared in the public consciousness, and in your living room, at an extremely rapid pace. And the pace of change is only increasing. Meanwhile, the pace at which politicians (and bureaucrats and judges) move through the Put A Stop To This/Regulate It To Death/How Can We Tax It/Hey This Could Be Useful framework hasn't changed much.
Which phase are we in?
I think we're definitely in the Put A Stop To This phase, and we're going to stay there for a long time--partly because the pace of change means that there is always something new to put a stop to, but also because the growing reach of the Internet means that there is always a fresh crop of less-than-clueful politicians just a router hop away. When the Internet finally got to Afghanistan, the Taliban...Put A Stop To It.
The Next Phases
As some officials begin to comprehend the impact of the Internet, we begin to see the phase of "caution" and "restraint." In the U.S., for instance, we have federal programs to wire every school and public library for Internet access--but politicians still fuss and fume about "Net Nanny" programs and how to write laws that meticulously prevent librarians from just using a little common sense. State tax officials are hard at work trying to harmonize state sales tax laws in order to implement sales taxes on e-commerce purchases. In some places--a very few places--politicians and bureaucrats are even talking (NB: talking, not acting) about using community development funds to wire downtowns with fiber optic. These few--these very few--understand that this is the railroad question all over again: if you have cheap bandwidth, you will prosper; if you have little or no bandwidth, your town will die.
That Said, Let's Make Some Distinctions
Several people posting on this topic have brought up the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as an example of draconian law similar to the examples you mentioned. There are certainly aspects of the DMCA that fall into the Put A Stop To This phase--particularly issues like rules on defeating encryption, whereby "decrypting" something protected by ROT13 becomes a federal crime. (The best response to that, as with safety razors in Illinois, is publicity and ridicule.) But one of the major challenges facing governments--the bureaus, the courts, and the representatives--is the development of intangible property. Note that I'm explicitly not using the term "intellectual property"--the issue is broader, and different, than intellectual property laws. The Internet enables the instantaneous transfer of valuable merchandise across borders--municipal borders, state borders, and national borders. If I buy a copy of Opera 6.0 for example, I am "importing" software from Norway. Except--I actually import nothing. If I go to a website and pay $16 for MP3 files of eight of my favorite songs, I get something valuable (Econ 1A--it's valuable because I'm willing to pay for it). But I do not have even one more molecule than I owned before I started that download. That presents all kinds of problems: a huge portion of tax receipts depend upon various forms of excise taxes, and excise taxes depending upon physical property crossing physical boundaries. (Quiz: if I buy $34,000 worth of map data from a provider in Europe and retrieve the data by FTP, does the transaction get included in balance of payment statistics reported by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce? Nope.) As more and more commerce consists of file transfers and other forms of distributing intangible property, oodles of legal, financial, and tax issues appear. The DMCA has some dumb aspects--but it is at least a first attempt to come to grips with some of this issues.
Moving forward
As the world and the Internet community forge ahead, there will be ample opportunities to learn from other people's mistakes. When a judge in, say, Ohio prepares to issue a decision banning "hate speech" there may be an assistant who will point out that the speech in question is a fatwa issued in Iran, and the ruling might make the judge look as silly as that bozo judge in France.
There is another dimension
Regardless of whether, when, or how politicians around the world finally come to grips with the Internet, there will always be someone, somewhere, who wants to prevent it. With good reason: there are lots of cultures around the world that feel threatened by American movies, American music, American literature, and American attitudes about all sorts of things. And they--rightly--see the Internet as a conduit for all things American, and fear the consequences for their cultures. And that's an entirely legitimate fear--even with millions of users from other countries, the Internet culture is a mirror image of the American "frontier experience" in its wildest and wooliest. I think that's a good thing--but I'm an American. The Saudis, the Chinese, the Taliban, and a fool of a judge in Paris all disagree. There's an irony in the fact that a tool developed by the U.S. Defense Department will become the ultimate weapon of American cultural hegemony. And eventually the bureaucrats, courts, and politicians will have to come to grips with that.
In sum...
When pundits or pols in Austria, Australia, or Austin are fussing and fulminating about this Internet-based Crisis! or that, remember: this is just a phase. Pat them on the head, and tell that someday they will grow out of it.
What you spout is the same neo-facist.
No, it is you who is doing this in your attempt to ram an extremist political system down the throats of your fellow citizens. We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail. Get over yourself, you narcissist.
C//
Nice diatribe, but you're greatly confused. There is a great degree of difference between assuring the rights of the minority and arguing that it ought to be legal to speed down residential streets at 100 mph, mix explosives in your apartment at the risk to all of your neighbors, and so on. It's not classical liberalism I have an objection to, it's modern fanatical LP-style ridiculous libertarian zealotry.
C//
You don't have the "right to feel safe".
But you do have a right to be free of an unreasonable risk of your own injury, demise, or ruination due to the negligent behavior of other human beings. This is why we have speeding laws, amongst other things.
Virtually no one wants people speeding on residential streets. This is only one example of the ridiculous extremes LP nutzos are willing to go. Nobody wants that, we'll never have that, get over it.
C//
"We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail."
~Courageous, Slashdot, 2002.
"We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail."
~Adolf Hitler, German, 1940.
"We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail."
~Joseph Stalin, Russia, 1941.
"We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail."
~Fidel Castro, Cuba, every bloody day for the past century.
"We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail."
~Pol Pot, Cambodia, whenever it was.
"We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail."
~Apartheid Guy, South Africa, until recently.
"We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail."
~Taliban spokesman, Afghanistan, 2001.
"We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail."
~Bill Clinton, America, 1993-2001.
"We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail."
~John Ashcroft, America, 2001-2009.
"We have a healthy and well-regulated society which the vast majority of us actually approve of on the whole if often not in the detail."
~U.N. Secretary-General Bill Gates, Earth, 2010.
You claim that "the will of the majority" should be unquestionable. So if 50.001% of the population belives it's okay to lynch African Americans or execute homosexuals, that's okay, right? Not only would you support the law, but you'd condemn the 49.999% of the population who opposes the murder of minorities, because they're "disrespecting the will of the majority"?
There's a name for people like you: it's "Nazi," or "bigot," or "hatemonger," or even more simply: "monster."
Street owner says that it's his son, he's allowed to do it and you can fuck off and you're not allowed to walk or drive down the street any more.
So leave. It's his street. I personally am not 100% Libertarian, so I believe it's okay for government to own a few things like streets where the rules are set by a vote of the majority, but I don't think that it's anybody's (including the majority's) business what happens inside private homes. Do you really want someone else telling you what you can and can't do inside your own private home, assuming you keep the shades closed and you aren't putting anyone else at risk?
Libertarianism is the only political philosophy that allows people to be individuals. I'm a Libertarian (okay, only 97% Libertarian because I think it's okay for the government to own roads and streets in some cases) because I want to be an individual and not a slave to society, and I want to live my own life, not the life somebody else tells me I have to live, as long as I'm not hurting anyone else or putting anyone else at risk.
That's a bit of a pisser if your house fronts onto the street isn't it? You've just been jailed because breaking out of your jail would involve your instigating a threat of force against the street owner for which you can be shot.
You're talking about hypothetical extremes. Yes, if you take Libertarianism to absurd hypothetical extremes, you can come up with a silly scenario that nobody could survive in. Guess what? If you take Liberalism to an absurd hyptothetical extreme, you wind up with a silly scenario that nobody could survive in. If you take Conservativism to a silly hypothetical extreme, you wind up with a silly scenario that nobody could survive in. If you take Socialism to a silly hypothetical extreme, you wind up with a silly scenario that nobody could survive in. If you take Democracy to a silly hypothetical extreme, you wind up with a silly scenario that nobody could survive in.
You've proven nothing. Guess what? If you take any political philosophy to a silly hypothetical extreme, you wind up with a silly scenario that nobody could survive in.
What you ignore is the "common sense" factor. People are, at least to an extent, reasonable. Your absurd hypothetical scenarios are not. And something tells me, neither are you.
Me: "You must consume Oxygen in order to survive."
You: "But what if I consume so much Oxygen that my lungs burst? What if a poisonous snake crawls into my mouth when I open it to breathe? What if what I think is Oxygen turns out to actually be Carbon Monoxide? What if a witch places a Voodoo curse on me that'll cause me to melt into purple goo if I take a single breath?"
Me: "What are you saying?"
You: "I refuse to consume Oxygen!"
You: *dies*
Me: "Moron."
My understanding would be: Your ISP is in the US, the servers and your content reside in the US, therefore jurisdiction is in the US. Australia may also claim jurisdiction. The US would have to extradite you if they wanted to prosecute you, this is no different than extraditing organized crime figures who control US activities from abroad. The moral of this story: Host your website in your own country.
Now, since there are very few people who want to drive 100mph through a residential area, there will probably wind up being very few street owners who are members of that group, and hence very few streets that allow driving 100mph.
Ah, but this is the snake-eating the tail of typical LP whackiness. If people organizing rules collectively is so evil, why is it that you've just proposed a system where people get together and organize rules? LP whackos constantly refer to government as if it is some sort of incarnate, thinking, evil thing.
I can practically see you frothing at the mouth. Please do continue.
C//
I refer to there as being fanaticism and whacky zealotry throughout the LP, and you come up with a rebuttal like this? I suppose it was only a matter of time before you demonstrated a genuine Prozac moment. Please. Do continue. LOL.
C//
If you ever decide to stop ranting like a moron and...
The one with the page-long diatribes is you and not me. The one who is acting like a child because you can't get what you want is you and not me. Contrary to what you say, you have not presented any "logic" (sic). What you've done is espoused a view point loudly. There have been no premises followed by observations of fact followed by deductive steps. Using the word "logic" as if it would allow you to win an argumentative point without actually understanding what logic means isn't going to win you any points.
By all means, continue with your ranting.
C//
In your fascist world, if you don't like what the government is doing, you have zero recourse, because...
This isn't true. We can vote. Furthermore, we have a voice, and can convey our beliefs to our fellow men. Through this system of consensus and education, we can do our best to stumble along towards our greater good. As I see it, that beats the alternatives, which all inevitably involve some asshole bleating about how everything is going to go his way. This rather sounds like you, actually.
Our modern society isn't like that. Grow up.
C//
I'm only going to reply to this one post of yours, because you're basically saying the same thing like a broken record in every one of your posts recently.
Why do you refuse to answer my questions?
You know that you've been proven wrong, because you refuse to answer this question:
If 50.001% of society believed it should be legal to murder racial minorities and homosexuals, would you support the murder of racial minorities and homosexuals? Would you openly condemn those who speak out against the murder of racial minorities and homosexuals, because those who speak out against the murder of racial minorities and homosexuals are defying "the will of the people"?
You seem unable to provide a "yes" or "no" answer to this question, because you know that either answer will prove you wrong. So you act like a coward and hide behind your veil of "neener neener I can't hear you."
Either you WOULD support the murder of racial minorities and homosexuals because it's "the will of the people," in which case you're a monster, or you would oppose the murder of racial minorities and homosexuals, in which case you've proven you don't believe your own absurd "majority opinion over-rules human rights" philosophy.
Nazi Germany was a Democracy. More than 50% of the population of this Democracy supported the murder of racial minorities and homosexuals.
Are you supporting the actions of the Nazi Party, because they had "the mandate of the people," or will you condemn them and retract your statement that "the mandate of the people" always supersedes human rights?
As long as you refuse to answer the question, everyone will know that you're just a coward who doesn't know himself and doesn't know what he believes. You may disagree with what I say, but at least I know who I am. You don't even have the courage you provide an e-mail to Slashdot -- you're just an Anonymous Coward who somehow managed to find the "Register Account" button.
Finally, Mr. Wiseguy, exactly what logic have YOU presented? Exactly which arguments have YOU made? All I've seen is childish ranting about how much better you think you are than other people. Am I ranting? Maybe. Am I being illogical? I considered the possibility. I called up some guys at my state Libertarian party and asked them if I was being illogical, and they said no.
Maybe you should try reading some Libertarian documents. Anything written by Thomas Jefferson, for example.
Or pick up a copy of the LP newsletter. You might learn something.
No political philosophy with a fucking newsletter could be all bad.
Furthermore, we have a voice, and can convey our beliefs to our fellow men.
That's what I've been doing. Most people get it. You don't. There will always be people in the world who just don't understand the most basic concepts you try to convey to them. I don't know why I'm wasting my time with one of them.
Why are you allowed to convey your beliefs to your fellow man, but I'm not allowed to convey my beliefs to my fellow man?
Surveys show that roughly 41% of Americans have Libertarian ideals. It's been rising by about 1% per year. 9% more, about ten years, and we will be in charge.
And when we ARE in charge, when we ARE the majority, are you still going to say "I support the majority", or will our roles be fully reversed?
If you choose to reply to this (and I don't know why either of us are wasting our time), please answer my bloody question that you've refused to answer ten times now, and address specific points from this post, rather than saying "You're wrong, and that's it, neeeener neeeener," because that just makes you look like an idiot.