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China Orders E-Mail Screening
Greyfox writes: "According to this CNN article, China has ordered Internet providers to screen users' E-mails for subversive statements. See how fascist governments control the flow of information? Aren't you glad our government doesn't do this? Oh... Wait..."
When you mean what China means by "communist" it's the same thing.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Well, at worst it is only consistent with their general policy of internet filtering/censorship. If they have their "Great firewall of China" this is a logical extension of that firewall.
Considering the number of relays in orbz and ordb that are out of the 210 and 211 sub-class A blocks i would think that perhaps this might be a good thing, in so far as the mail relays getting closed up
;)
Since a majority of that "subversive" text being bounced off of them are for "american get rich way of life" propaganda
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
` The new rules include a long list of banned content prohibiting
writings that reveal state secrets, hurt China's reputation or
advocate the overthrow of communism, ethnic separatism or "evil
cults."'
Surely, the government wouldn't want anyone to overthrow ethnic separatism or evil cults...
Oh, wait.
Here, we get things like Carnivore and promises that they'll only be used with warrants. Or to catch mobsters. Or terrorists. Honest.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Now thanks to Red Flag Linux, filtering the thoughts of your citizens is cheaper and more reliable than ever!
Back in the day, you'd have to pay Microsoft big bucks to squelch dissenting opinions and always had to worry that radicals spreading Western ideals would be able to exploit OS vulnerabilities and cause trouble. Not any more!
I wonder if China will GPL their filtering software?
(By the way, I'm not being down on Linux. I'm just dismayed at the irony of a government using one of the most free [as in liberty] operating systems to actually reduce freedom.)
China is a *communist* country, not fascist. Please, try to get it right. The left you love and adore is equally capable of crushing human rights. Numerous examples abound - look at the media's darling Castro - Cubans die of old age and malnutrition in jail for having dared to speak against the socialist regime in place there. Political extremes, right or left, are indistinguishable to the man in the street, both crush all liberty.
I happen to live in China, and I'll eat my hat if they haven't scanned every email that I've sent which didn't go through this IP tunnel, ever since I moved here years ago.... Maybe the real news is that they are making the ISP's do the work for them? Or is it that they aren't pretending not to invade privacy anymore?
Do any readers here actually believe that snail mail to and from China is any less scrutinized than email will be? My sister lived and taught in China for a couple of years (we are Americans). Letters and packages I sent to her were routinely opened and inspected before they were delivered to her. I can safely assume that if she and I had access to email at the time, those correspondences would have been equally intercepted and reviewed as well.
...that goes if you say JFK or some sort of keyword a tape recorder in Langley comes on. That was pure bullshit, and someone about a month ago tried to convince me that it was true. Don't people realize the computing power that is needed to do such a thing! This hoax at least goes back to the 80's. Like everyone in the telco industry would need to be in on it, and someone would have leaked it all.
But this, is likely not a hoax. I'm sure they are doing it. But I won't read the CNN article because they are so [left/right] wing. They can't pick which side they want to distort, almost like they depend on which demographic is watching.
I guess for the gov't this becomes a great tool for watching the citizens. If they act on the information is one thing. But we just watch people who we suspect [MLK Jr], the Chinese have got a one up since they can watch everyone at once.
Attached [in a reply] is an e-mail I like to send to myself every now and then. Then I watch for that white van that parks in front of my house.
Get your Unix fortune now!
All govt. is evil. Not having govt. is evil. You make a compromise between one evil and another, and you decide which evil you prefer. (Using a traditional Western definition of "evil.") That's the way most people see it.
BTW, all governments fall eventually. Maybe not in your lifetime, but they have all fallen in the past and there is no reason to believe that trend will not continue into the future. Heck, some govts fall so often that we don't bother to count.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
No, there's a BIG difference between what the USA and China does, and you would know that if you would have read the article. What you just said states your massive liberal bias that is found on the majority of this site. Such things that are not allowed in China's emails include violence or pornography. By the way, here's a more informative article: http://www.ananova.com/yournews/story/sm_498876.ht ml
Such things that are outlawed include "Outlawed writings include any that reveal state secrets, feature pornography and violence or advocate cults."
See the difference there? Thank you.
Or maybe troll... I know I wouldn't have posted if the submitter hadn't added that last comment.
No one legitimately gripes about China because they have jails, searches, etc.
They do it because it can be done without due process. For all your bitching, the fact that you can even complain about the Federal government aloud without fear of being investigated shows how meaningless the statement was.
Of course our system isn't perfect - but nothing is. But saying if you get pushed and if you get shot in the head is the same thing won't get anywhere.
********************
I object to Intellect without Discipline.
In Fact, many governments since WWII and before have incorporated features of fascist and communist government into their structure, although this has been done on a much slower time table than a war or revolution. There is much in both of the philosophiea to attract the petty autocract, the aspiring master of men. And over the years, these have been incorporated into laws.
heck, for decades, you had nazis, for example, acting as advisor to many governments. The most benign of these was a character like Von Braun in the Space Program, former scientist of the V-2 program.
There were many from many fields who lived and breathed and believed the original fascist philosophy, and who continued on in their fields. Some areas would be more problematic than others. Jobs like farmers and dentisits would be one thing, probably benign. Business managers would be another. Law enforcement, lawyers, doctors, and mental health specialists yet another, because of the influence on society. The vast majority were never arrested or put on trial.
The end result is that elements of these philosophies have been incorporated into laws around the world, through the influence of these, their sympathisers, and the children they raised, who probably did not know what the philosophy really meant, and absorbed the ideas under the guise of parental instruction.
and so the monitoring of private communications like email, while at the same time passing laws that make the majority of citizens criminals is commonplace.
As a Side Note: Heck you worry about Napster. Did you know that there is a whole online community of older women trading sewing patterns, sewing geeks who trade their files (sewing and knitting patterns) just like any other geeks do? and they are running into the same issues of trading that Napster did, but with the pattern publishers? a much smaller scale issue, of course. But involves people like the fabled Aunt Minnie. Go ahead, piss off grandma. see what happens ;-)
yet another example of an industry trying to achieve too much control over their customers, with all of the usual arguments in both directions.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I get loads of spam from China, or advertising Chinese websites.
Looks like sending the postmaster a note congratulating him on joining the Falun Gong might work well.
The article says: Foreign software makers must now guarantee in writing that their products do not contain hidden programs that would allow spying or hacking into Chinese computers.
This spec would be useful for everyone's networks. Vendors who are accepted for use in China could advertise they met "the Chinese standard" for security.
Your extremist views pretty much negate any thoughful comment you had in that post, and that's a shame. There is a big difference that I pointed out in my original post. Email sent here in the USA does not have limitations on pornography (look at all the porn email now, although a lot of it constitutes spam), violence (unless it's a threat toward someone specific), or any idealogical/religous/cult thoughts. That isn't so in China. Sending a lot of emails we send here in the states would be illegal in China. Putting China's screening techniques on the same level as the USA's once again shows your liberal bias. Remember, it's easy coming up with complex conspiracy theories. Backing them up isn't so easy when they aren't true. That's the easy way out.
Other than the basic ideals that we all know [economy and control] of there is another difference between the right and left extremes we are speaking of.
Fascists [in doctrine] are to war with everyone in the world until only them, the supreme race/society is left, leaving a 'virtual' utopia for that superior state. The communists believe that the only war needed would be destroy the ones who oppose communism. Take WWII. If Hitler, the fascist, would have continued the war wouldn't have ever ended.
Communism though, is fascist in effect if you don't want to be a communist. In Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx says a communist state would only be needed to protect the communists... after this control wouldn't be needed anymore. The state would dissolve. So I guess we are the ones in the way of true communism.
Considering if they are all true communists, they wouldn't complain because all e-mail belongs to the state.
IMHO, our country [US] will be communism down the road. It's when you try to hurry it is when you cause problems. You need to let it evolve on its own.
Get your Unix fortune now!
You know what, I'm really getting sick of the bigotry that I see here on Slashdot. Anytime a story is posted based on our rights, department of justice, business, etc... there always has to be a flame aimed towards the United States of America. I'm assuming most of the readers here have mostly a leftist view on most political issues, and that's absolutely fine.
But what about the conservatives who read Slashdot? What about us? How do the people who read Slashdot with a right winged attitude feel about biased comments that contain negativity, and to some of us, a fallacy (sp?) towards our government, economy, policies, etc...
Comments as well (I'm posting this anonymously for a reason). Whenever I post a comment that will go against something I read in an article that will have a conservative view to it, maybe 75-80% of time time it will get modded down to -1 (52 posts, no flames, Karma 2, you do the math). Whatever happened to getting 2, 3, 4, everyone's side of the story?
The moderation system on slashdot is awful and wrong. Using an analogy of a hostile government. If I say anything remotely conservative, I will get modded down. Hmm... seems fair enough.
I know the editors will not read this comment, nor will anyone who read this care, but I hope that anyone who does read this post will maybe understand that sometimes you should take into consideration other people's ideas and thoughts and not just have a one track mind and think that whatever Slashdot rights is legitimacy
--Anon
No search warrant needed. In the US or in the UK.
Visions of grannies saying "the patterns want to be free" come to mind. ;-)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
When laws are passed that practically allow the FBI to print their own warrants, the protection that requiring a warrant offers sort of evaporates. The reason that requiring a warrant has (previously) been thought of as sufficient protection is because the cops need quite a bit of evidence to convince a judge to grant them a warrant. If they can get a warrant anytime they want, how is this any better than them legally surveilling you anytime they want or all the time, anyway?
Liberty in your lifetime
All governments are Evil, get over it. Without governments who would be able to put a little "evil" in this life, who???
What? Them telling people about it has nothing to do with the actual point they are trying to make. They want to prosecute people based on pornograpgy, violence, or cult/religous thoughts. How you make a parallel between China and the USA in that regard is beyond me.
The parallel isn't in the specific actions they're taking--it's that they're taking them overtly. Whether they'd put someone in prison or shoot them for emailing a goatse.cx link or not is irrelevant to that point.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
It's completely revalent becuase that's the basis of them filtering the email.
A High Ranking Navy Officer was scandalized here in Canada when it was found that he had used a Navy laptop to access porn. It wasn't quite email filtering, but they were monitoring the usage of the computer. I just want to point out that the people of China cannot choose their policies and laws. That we all know. So really, taking the two courses of action upon implementing email filtering, being upfront or not telling people, I think being upfront is cool.
You are merely complaining about what constitutes subversive material (our countries are notorious for turning away erotic lesbian and gay material if its high profile enough in the market, like an artsy book or whatnot) and the more restrictive morals set by the state. Like, sure, we all knew that! but between then government being upfront vs. the government letting 'subversives' get jailed with no warning, I think they did the right thing.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Like it or not, privacy is not a fundamental provision of the Consititution. If you place your messages in the public domain (which is what you do whenever you send an E-mail over the Internet), don't be surprised when it is screened, read, etc., by either the government or anyone who happens to own the router that your message passes through.
If you wish to have privacy, then you must send your communications over a private, secure channel, which the Internet is not. For example, the U.S. Postal Service is an entity that sends information securely; you can rest assured that your letters will never pass through the hands of a third party. But if you transmit information by posting a postcard on a bulletic board, it is free to be read by anyone who passes by, including government law enforcement officials.
You can attempt to make your messages sent through the public Internet "private" by encrypting the messages (which is perfectly legal and will continue to remain legal as long as our government is a free government). But that does not GUARANTEE privacy.
There is a general mistrust of government in general in this forum, which is sad. While I agree that the size and scope of government should be kept to a minimum, we should be able to trust the elected officials in a republican system, since we choose who our representatives will be. And we should certainly trust the executive branch (the ones actually screening the public E-mails) to do what they need to enforce the laws our elected representatives pass. If they aren't, then the people should vote accordingly for representatives that will fix the problem.
And despite what most people think, law enforcement officials are WAY to busy to concern themselves with the details of your private life. They are only concerned for the information that will help them protect the public from criminals.
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
As opposed to a basis consisting of, say, communications to Al Qa'ida, which would be interpreted as just as much of a threat to our state as China considers porn and violent matter to theirs?
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Becuase that terrorist organization killed 3000 people in 30 minutes. It's a national threat becuase of that. I don't believe that porn has caused death on such a massive scale no matter how you look at it. You are trying to rationalize your original thought with insane analogies that really do not add up.
And calling the analogy "insane" really doesn't make your argument credible. Are you going to call me a Communist next?
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
By the way, there is a big difference between protecting your citizens from death and protecting them from dissenting thought like China is doing. See the difference? Of course, I dont expect you to see it becuase you are blinded by your bias and radical thought/rationalization.
You see the difference. I see the difference. Does the Chinese government see the difference? Of course not. I don't expect you to see it because you are blinded by your bias and fascist thought/rationalization.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Ooh. I should leave the country now because I don't agree with you. Can you point out where I said that I agree with the Chinese government's way of thinking? Remember, this is all about the fact that China told their citizens that they're being monitored, and our government has yet to do so.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
They argue that the left-right is very simplistic, so they introduce "totalitarian" vs. "libertarian" as well. Of course it is better, but it still doesn't go a long way.
It's a test on the web site to help classify yourself. If I remember correctly, I got the score (-6, -6) which means rather leftist and rather libertarian.
Wonder what it would look like if you plotted all /.ers in there...
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Anyway, I know I've repeated you a bit, because much of what you say is correct. But calling someone "fascist" is not "leftist name-calling" because fascism has NOTHING to do with leftism nor rightism. You say "China is a communist country, not fascist", which as fallacious. China is communist AND fascist. Perhaps you are the one who should try to get it right.
I can't believe the comment about our opressive government! Obviously you people have not studied oppression in history!
Clearly we must be vigilant in our maintenance of our freedoms, but to compare China with the US in terms of controlling information is simply demonstrating a lack of education.
Have you looked into what China did to US reporters during the Tiananmen square uprising? Contrast that with the US media in President Clinton's face demanding to know what exactly he had or had not done with "That woman, Miss Lewinsky."
The government having the capacity to screen emails at ISPs may be unpleasant to you. If so, encrypt your email. Carnivore _may_ be something that we need to stop, but it is NOTHING like the opression suffered by the people of the PRC.
Get off your self-righteous horse, and live under martial law at the hands of a despotic dictator for a while. Then come whining to me about "oppression" in the US.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Or Tienemen Square? This just doesn't seem like such a big deal for that government to do something like that, being that they've done much worse. Let me give it some clarification. Millions of chinese practice tai-chi, and it is one of the government sanctioned religions (not actually a religion, more of an excercise program designed to increase spirituality). There are only a few sanctioned religions, and any other religion is outlawed. Falun Gong is the same type of thing as tai-chi, it is based around movements promoting spiritualism, but since it is not a government sanctioned religion, people that practice it get beaten, killed, put in prison with no trial, women have been raped by police, and followers have been put into mental hospitals, until they denounce the religion. So if you ask me, screening e-mail, what a joke of a post when talking about how evil china's government is. Oh yeah, and also what a joke comparing America's government to China, America's government may do some bad things, but they are no where near on par with China's.
This is a common misconception, often reinforced by conservatives themselves. Conservatives are "pro small government" if you, bizarrely, redefine government not to include law enforcement or national defense. Those two areas are considered perfectly legitimate and, indeed, generally expand considerably under conservative administrations.
It's disingenuous to say that conservatives are "freedom lovers" and liberals advocate state control. As far as I can see, the issue is where a person calls for state intervention. Liberals tend to believe that the economy should be regulated by the government and steered toward (what they see as) public goods. Conservatives of course feel that the government should stay out of the economy as far as possible and thus maximize the individual's economic liberty.
On the other hand, convservatives also tend to call for government oversight of behavior -- morally, sexually, legally, culturally -- and rely on the state to make sure people stay in line with "the norm". Liberals, in counterpoint, want to keep government out of the personal lives of its citizens and evidence a much lower drive to regulate the private actions of the people. In that sense, liberals are trying to maximize personal (or civil) liberty.
Of course both of these characterizations is overbroad. Virtually no one fits perfectly either label, and in recent years there's been a lot of diffusion back and forth across that divide. But I think it's a useful categorization scheme.
Also, in a typically American manner, the true way probably lies somewhere in between. The fount of personal liberty is economic liberty -- too much of our lives revolve around earning a living to disentangle choices made in business from choices made at home. Yet economic liberty without a corresponding freedom of conscience is empty and meaningless... such a system is pointless in the extreme. Further, as the Chinese are learning to their dismay -- following in the footsteps of the Soviet Union, which learned this lesson the hard way in the late 1980s -- you cannot have economic liberty (or its attendant efficiency) without creating overwhelming pressure for personal liberty.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I really believe that states cannot be reasonably or usefully characterized as "rightist" or "leftist". At a minimum, two axes -- regulation of economic life and of personal life -- is needed.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Because if I sent an email saying "I think President Bush is doing a bad job." to someone, the secret police are going to bust in and put me in a labor camp.
USA Busted Trying to Bug China's Presidential 767
China Orders E-Mail Screening
The USA tries to snoop China. China snoops its own people. What's the difference?
(At least China tells its own people that it's going to be snooping their e-mails. The USA just does it without warning.)
Zodiac Survey
Such things that are outlawed include "Outlawed writings include any that reveal state secrets, feature pornography and violence or advocate cults."
Well there goes 90% of the SPAM coming into my mailbox. It's nice that China is finally making a national SPAM filter for its people.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Threre is a HUGE difference between censoring people's emails (what china will do) and simply reading people's emails. In my opinion, anything sent in plain text over the internet should be considered public anyway!
I can't believe you got a +5 for say reading email and censoring an entire population are the same thing. My God!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I haven't herd anyone point out that this is one reason why our intellectual property policy to China is so very dangerous.
Both the US and China are going to be pulled toward an Orwellian facisim as companies and powers desperate to force old-world ways of doing things will want to reach into every home to protect things like their "intellectual property" rights. However the US has a democracy and a partially working constitution that will make it much more difficult to take it to it's logical extreme - an Orwellian facisim. China does not, and by trying to break their cultural values about intellectual property rights, we are helping promote a very dangerous political situation for both them and us.
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Kind thoughts do not change the world
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Thus far it's true that for the most part the government doesn't kill its citizens. Well, unless they're black and pulled over by a jumpy cop doing racial profiling or something. Or they live a lifestyle the government doesn't like. But apart from that, the government doesn't kill its own citizens! Truly!
And it's true that the media will keep them honest! Nevermind that the media is mostly owned by the same corporations which have been steadily lobbying for the removal of your rights for the past several decades.
But true, we're nothing like the Chinese and we don't really have anything to worry about!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
regime that exalts nation and race
The Chinese regime ruthlessly suppresses criticism of their regime, plays nationalistic propoganda exalting the government's actions, and displays xenophobia against non-Chinese peoples. They haven't started killing Jews yet, but I'd say they certainly fit this part.
centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader
It's a one-party dictatorship headed by Jiang Zemin and the Communist party. I see no difference with Hitler and the Nazi party.
severe economic and social regimentation
They've loosened economic controls somewhat in recent years, but it's still damn regimented. Much of the economy is state-owned, and the rest is expected to toe the government line. They're getting better on this score, but they still seem to fit this part.
forcible suppression of opposition
Can you say Tienamen Square? Jailing of dissidents? Oppression of Tibet? They fit this one in spades.
So I'd say "fascist" is a pretty good description of the Communist regime. In practice, most "communist" and "fascist" regimes end up looking pretty similar. The only substantive difference between Hitler and Stalin was that Stalin killed a lot more people than Hitler did. Both used a thin veneer of ideology to mask the fact that they were both just bloodthirsty tyrants.
Note that it wasn't a personal computer that they monitored in this case. It was a portable military computer. Odds are they discovered the porn during a regular security audit. Since it goes against military regs to use military computers for porn, the officer was disciplined.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
It is important to work to maintain our civil liberties in the U.S. in the digital age, but I find all these smartass comments about the U.S. being the same as China abhorrent; the DCMA is wrong, Carnivore is wrong, but you infinitely cheapen the suffering of the oppressed in China by even beginning to compare these to being jailed and tortured for practicing your religious beliefs. Why not buy yourself a clue before you go out and post trash like this?
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
No, the difference is that our government doesn't throw you in jail if you express "treasonous" opinions, and doesn't try to censor the spread of opinions deemed harmful to the regime. All manner of anti-government propoganda flows accross the 'net and the US government doesn't do a thing to stop it.
Look, I think Carnivore is a despicable invasion of my privacy, and I want it shut down now. But let's have a sense of persepctive. The US government thus far uses its surveilance powers relatively benign ways-- to catch drug dealers and terrorists for the most part. Yes, they probably stretch the bounds of the Constitution on occasion, but most of us, most of the time, have our civil liberties fully protected.
The Chinese regime, on the other hand, uses their surveilance power to brutally crush any dissent. There's simply no comparing the two. To even *suggest* that Carnivore is even close to this gives the Chinese regime a respectability they don't deserve.
See how fascist governments control the flow of information?
I'll admit to not being up to date on what's going on in China right now, but am I the only one surprised to hear China now labelled as "fascist"? Sure, they've had some serious Communist totalitarianism going on a while back, but when did it shift over to the extreme right-wing?
Whether or not America is fascist is left as an excercise to the paranoid.
(communism|socialism) doesn't start with concentration camps, that's where it ends.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
No, it shows a certain level of ignorance, but ignorance isn't confined to liberals. Plenty of your fellow-traveller right-wingers accuse the US of being a "police state". Gordon Liddy comes to mind. The Posse Comitatus don't think of themselves as being "liberal", nor do those in the "county movement" so prevelant in places like rural Nevada.
Yep, I'd say your posts are pretty fair evidence that those on the right are as frequently ignorant as those on the left...
Very accurate and insightful summary of US political parties - leaving aside that most of what they do doesn't have much of an ideological bias at all, and is mostly aimed at courting voters ("pork-barrel" programs) or investors (er, I mean "campaign contributions"). But that's really neither here-nor-there.
One thing I've been thinking, lately though, is that the Republicans are more the party of "Freedom" than the Democrats are. Not because of ideology, as you noted in your post. But because of practical effects. See, the Democrats long ago got most of the economic powers they wish to weild legitimized by constitutional scholars. Either by interpretation in court decisions stretching the commerce regulation clause beyond any rational interpretation, or by passing ammendments (like the 16th ammendment). So, the primary check on the Democrat's excercise of their ideology in a place where I disagree with it (I'm a libertarian) is themselves. Usually their laws stand up to constitutional challenge: income tax raises; social programs; environmental programs, whatever. They generally don't get challenged to begin with, and, if they do get challenged, the Democrats win a lot of em.
On the other hand, the Republicans have been totally unable to win constitutional support for their most extreme positions. Thus, the vast majority of ludicrous Republican laws get struck down.
So, the final calculation is that, while ideologically I disagree with about half of what Democrats want to do, and I disagree with about half of what Republicans want to do, in the actuall effect of their governing, the Republicans piss me off a lot less.
Also, one last thing - has anyone else noticed that "bipartisan" means "you vote for my pork-barrel programs and I'll vote for yours?" Man I hold on to my wallet when I hear that one...
PS: I know this is redundant, but this is the only post I'm gonna make on this thread, and I've got to get it out of my system. Is that original new poster an idiot, or an asshole? What kind of moron can't see the difference between mandatory drag-net filtering for "subversive" ideas and Carnivore's (comparatively) targeted use against specified individuals? I realize that Carnivore has some problems, and we should be complaining loudly about those, but to try to even imply that throwing little old ladies in prison for putting up web pages about their religion is somehow morally equivilant to a system which is designed to go after specific people who have warrants and are suspected of engaging in criminal activity is myopic in the extreme. In China, you could've gone to JAIL for making that news post with that wise-ass remark. Here, you just get flamed for being an idiot.
Their citizens are certainly poor compared to those in the West. However they're much less poor than they were before the Communists took over. And they're no longer starving.
Of course, the Communists in China didn't overthrow a democratic state. They replaced an ineffective authoratarian government with an authoritarian government that is at least effective enough to see that its people have enough food to eat.
If you want to see abject poverty, take a trip to India, a democracy. Should we condemn democracy because of India's poverty?
I think not.
Moderators have modded the on-topic parent post as "Troll" because they disagree with the opinion presented therein.
Thanks. I'm now down to 48 karma points so the moderators can only do so much. I note that another moderator modded it up as "interesting".
Of course, the concentration camp was invented by the British (in the Boer War). Women, children, and old men. Tens of thousands died. Trust me, Lord Kitchner was neither socialist or communist ...
And of course we shoved plenty of our own citizens into concentration camps during WWII, those who happened to be of Japanese descent.
No, these concentration camps weren't anything at all like Nazi extermination camps. Nor as bad as the British camps in the Boer War. People weren't dying of starvation.
But they were concentration camps, nonetheless.
It is easy to be liberal and compassionate, especially when compassion is being financed with other people money.
Statistically speaking, it is very unlikely that you pay as much in taxes as I do. Unlike so many, I did not conveniently convert to being a conservative Republican the minute that I got into the high tax brackets. I was not out there asking the government to cut my taxes, taking money away from the schools about which you feign such concern.
What's easy is being a conservative when it means that you get paid in the form of a tax cut. Unlike you, I didn't sell my vote to the highest bidder.
Want to stop grade inflation? Then fund the teachers and schools with taxes instead of whining about how you need a "tax break." Give them the resources to teach children. Don't have kids stacked up in mobile homes (AKA "temporary classrooms") just so that you can get a share of G.W. Bush's ill-conceived tax cut.
Of course there are countries when these whackos did get to run things and now these places are licking their wounds.
I suppose you prefer places run by conservatives -- like China, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.
Yeah, BTW, check out the Political Compass
LP.org has a much shorter (10 questions) version of the quiz that has the same left/right and libertarian/totalitarian axes but uses a different scale.
Will I retire or break 10K?
he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
So what's the difference between our guarantee and theirs now that we have let "terrorism" be an excuse to search without warrant? You see, when you get outside the strict limitations of the fourth ammendment for any reason you are left with nothing but an empty prommise. With Carnivore and other wiretaping, I am NOT secure in my papers and personal effects. With the Patriot Act giving the govenment access to any electronic database, I am NOT secure in papers and personal effects. With the new wire tapping devices approved for use, I am NOT secure in my house.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
sadly, as you have noted, socialists don't have a patent on cruelty
and you are very correct that the British have given the world plenty of lessons in oppression.
Malthus didn't note that it wasn't starvation that provided the real evolutionary pressure in post industrial revolutuion England. Class Cleansing I suppose you could call it. The camps are an extension of the workhouse. It's true that it was "convicts" that were shipped to Australia but you have to remember how people were criminalised. In my home city (Nottingham) the price of a loaf of bread was the cut-off point between capital punishment and transportation.
The colonisation of Australia was a "solution" to inner city over population. Again 10,000+ died on the boats on the way.
I suppose my trite phrase should really be:
"Government doesn't start with the concentration camps but that's where it ends"
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The difference between a free state and one that is oppresive is that the evil thing happened at all. There should not have had to be an outcry because the bad law should not have been passed to begin with. When laws become inconsistent, there has been a failure on the part of the government. The ultimate law of the United States is the constitution. When laws are passed that violate it, such as DMCA, Patriot Act, etc, without a constitutional ammendment, the rule of law has broken down. While we in the US believe that the consent of the governed is a primary building block of laws that are just, beware that unjust laws can be made and ignored by mobs as well ask kings.
So the first event created an outcry, will the second? Who is going to save you from jail and why should you suffer so to begin with? The law is still on the books. Those of us who recognize the inconsistency must continue to fight untill it is removed.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
No, you get it right.
China and other so-called communist countries (the Eastern Bloc, Marxist Africa, Vietnam, etc) are not true communism, as envisioned by Marx. They are state-capitalist countries economically, and facist politically. For a quick primer on what communism is supposed to look like, I suggest the works of Emma Goldman, although she would term it Anarchism. Basically China is going about its communism much the same way as its gone about liberating the suffering people of Tibet. And I hope you see the sarcasm in that statement.
PS: I don't believe in Communism personally, but I felt the need to correct your, ahem, facts.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Bravo!! A most excellent rebuttal.
You totally decimated dj28's ridiculous drivel.
I bask in your eloquent glory.
Fair enough. But "liberal" is no more valid as a monolithic moniker than "conservative". Indeed, my point is this: the labels of "conservative" and "liberal" have outlived their usefulness, if in fact they ever had any. The fiscal and moral conservatives are linked primarily through, well, through the fact that people apply "conservative" to them. They are, at best, allies of convenience.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
It indicates to me the opposite.
The "Great Firewall" only filters information between China and the outside world. It is powerless against domestic network use and easy to skirt for those capable of using foreign proxies.
The new regulations imply to me that the Chinese government is relatively powerless. They're trying to push the network to regulate itself at the local level. Instead of strengthening the capabilities of the center to regulate user behavior, they're decentralizing network administration. Exactly the opposite of the Echelon strategy, actually.
I think it's more interesting to see that we're getting this kind of policy out of the MII at all. Last I heard, the agency was set to be radically overhauled and Wu Jichuan's aggressive control policies were losing out. Does this indicate a return to strict control over user behavior, or does the obvious weaknesses of the policy suggest that the CPP *is* slowly liberalizing its policy on network use, and that this is a bone for the hardcore element of the MII?
Now, when you're hit with the flood of SPAM coming from an APNIC IP address, you can just respond to the system administrator of the open relay, like this:
"Greetings fellow Falun Gong brother. Your idea to encrypt message as commercial email is brilliant! I definitely agree that we need to move our geurilla forces into Tibet immediately, so that we may work against the tyranical Chinese regime."
Now *that* would likely get those open relays closed!
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
You know what, I'm really getting sick of the bigotry that I see here on Slashdot. Anytime a story is posted based on our rights, department of justice, business, etc... there always has to be a flame aimed towards the United States of America. I'm assuming most of the readers here have mostly a leftist view on most political issues, and that's absolutely fine.
/. share your opinions on things, it might reflect on us Slashdotters as a whole, but it's statistically more likely to just reflect on you personally. Either find a forum with people who agree with your opinions already or stop whining in this one.
/. is very democratic. Moderators are chosen at random from people that visit the site.
:)
But what about the conservatives who read Slashdot? What about us? How do the people who read Slashdot with a right winged attitude feel about biased comments that contain negativity, and to some of us, a fallacy (sp?) towards our government, economy, policies, etc...
Am I the only one who finds the irony in this post? The story is about how the Chinese government doesn't allow dissent and is telling ISPs to police emails for subversive statements. You then complain that Americans shouldn't dissent so much and should stop criticizing the American government so you don't get offended by people disagreeing with you. It would therefore seem that you would be in favor of the Great Firewall of China, right? I doubt you are, of course, but that's only because your thinking is confused and logically inconsistent.
Criticism of the country in general (as opposed to the government) is certainly different. Your post draws no distinction. I don't see why you think conservatives should be more offended by that than anyone else- unless you somehow think that conservatism and patriotism are the same thing.
As far as criticism of the government is concerned- democracy only works when citizens constantly criticize and question those in power. Perhaps you'd rather live in a country where there is no criticism of the government.
Comments as well (I'm posting this anonymously for a reason). Whenever I post a comment that will go against something I read in an article that will have a conservative view to it, maybe 75-80% of time time it will get modded down to -1 (52 posts, no flames, Karma 2, you do the math). Whatever happened to getting 2, 3, 4, everyone's side of the story?
Oh please. You sound like the people who write in to talkorigins.org complaining that the creationist side of the issue isn't getting equal treatment on the site. Nobody is obligated to rate your posts up merely so that both sides of every story are presented. Sometimes it's obvious which side is wrong. If fewer than half of the participants in a public forum like
The moderation system on slashdot is awful and wrong. Using an analogy of a hostile government. If I say anything remotely conservative, I will get modded down. Hmm... seems fair enough.
A "hostile government" is modding your posts down?!? I know you're just making a bad analogy, but seems like another case of politically correct whining. You couldn't ask for fairer treatment than you're getting.
What would you replace the current system with? One where YOU or "remotely conservative" minded people like you are the sole moderators? Your definition of "remotely conservative" might be reasonable, but it might very well fit my or other people's definition of "kookily conservative". How are we supposed to know? You posted as an AC so we can only guess.
As long as we're making questionable analogies between websites and governments, there are many online forums where the people in charge simply delete posts they don't like. Any dissent on those boards is quickly met by people saying creepy things like "soon you and your posts will go away, heh heh." Wouldn't that make a better analogy with a "hostile government"?
Sucks that you posted anonymously and lost all that karma. Bet you wish you weren't such an anonymous coward now, eh?
...is a pretty standard technique for intellectual lightweights trying to make themselves sound "enlightened" and "free thinking". It's right up there with instant disparagement of anything made or done by "Micro$oft", with praise for the nobility of any theft of intellectual property, with labeling anyone who objects to having his intellectual property stolen a "fascist", and so on.
The poster wasn't proposing a ban on all criticism of America, just objecting to the sophomoric Slashdot editorial practice of inserting a jab at the US when introducing any story about any other country so they'll appear "balanced".
And he got called a "fascist" in return. How predictable....
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
There are too many people in the UK saying just that (some of them civil servants) to spy on all of them.
(it happened in Australia in the 70's)
That was a generation ago; thing are different now. The monarcy is too weak to try that again.
A democracy has a written constitution
Why?
In a democracy, law must be constitutional.
Why?
You could argue that america has currently reverted to a monarchy because the president is the son of a former president.
You could argue that its a dictatorship since Bush did not win the election and seized power with the help of his family.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
So who is the Queen of England? is she not also the Queen of Australia and New Zealand?
She's also the Queen of Canada.
The UK, NZ & Australia merely have an appearance of democracy with a monarchy that can do what it wants.
They merely have an appearance of monarchy with a democracy which really runs things. If the Queen ever attempted to do something that wasn't popular, that would be the end of the monarchy.
For all the talk of democracy, the US is really more 0wn3d by corporations than by the people. Corporations would seem to be more autocratic than a figurehead monarchy.