Slashdot Mirror
Deutsche Bahn to Sue Google
Many readers including this Anonymous Coward have written about this case: "After the DB-Deutsche Bahn (German railway comp.) won a case against Dutch ISP xs4all to remove 2 articles that were hosted on one of their servers, the DB now is going to sue Google (Wednesday) and probably in 2 days time Yahoo! and Altavista. Infoworld has an article about it. More background information about previous attempts to censor the same site can be found here and here's list of mirrors." And Yes, "Access is Forbidden."
If they don't comply with a German request, the 1st SS Panzer Division will be rolling through the streets of Amsterdam in 24 hours.
"Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost." ~ V.I. Lenin
This doesn't necessarily mean that Germany is a less free country, though: The German constitution ("Grundgesetz") balances a lot of individual rights against each other.
Particularily for the freedom of speech this means that something can be covered by the freedom of speech, but must stand back behind more important values. Regulations of speech must be general enough (to not single out specific people or groups) and must be deemed necessary to defend such another important right.
Having said all that, everybody and their dog knows that the magazine in question is prosecuted for their political work ("leftist"), not for some obscure technical documentation. Deutsche Bahn as a former public service and now state-owned company is deeply rooted in the political system.
How does that mean it's less free? I can't have this information (not completely a deal-breaker; there's information I'm not allowed to have in the US.) But the information isn't copyrighted. Also, I can't go and convert people to Scientology (as I recall), and, unlike in the US, I don't have to defend my speech against regulations, the regulators have to defend their regulations against the inherent freedom of my speech.
I'm a big fan of the First Amendment, and when I read of other 'progressive' governments (read: Great Britain, Germany, Canada. Not Pakistan, Peru, etc.) doing away with the rights that I take for granted (and enjoy reading about and taking part in the free exercise thereof) I am quite startled. It makes me grateful that I live where I live, despite its many problems. (And I'm not a rabid USA-USA-USA sort, either.)
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't know that free speech doesn't extend to publishing facts. Damn them for publishing facts!
My opinion that you're a moron is protected, but my publishing of a 'how to' document is not?
mbbac
This is not a flame, just an observation.
It's pretty interesting to see how many people will jump up and down and scream bloody murder when someone attempts to censor a left-wing website, but those same people are strangely silent when it comes to attempts to censor conservative or right-wing sites, college newspapers, or books.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If you can express your opinion freely, but not say things that are against the constitution, does that mean that you can't have an opinion that the constitution is bad? Such an opinion is theoretically impossible or something?
Fellow Americans! We have NOTHING to learn from Euro-trash socialists and collectivists. Their century has passed, and with it the souls of hundreds of millions of individuals sacrificed on the altar of the "common good." It is a remnant of feudalism, when it was assumed that by the mere fact of your birth you owed service and duty to the benefit of someone else.
Our nation was founded in order to leave all the tribal hatreds and social castes and religious dogmatism of Europe behind. We're better than that! We're Americans! Theirs is an inferior, decaying, stagnant culture of overbearing government control and oppression. Ours is a dynamic, thriving, shining city on a hill that will only continue to improve. We will leave them on the ash heap of history: the place that invented civilization and human liberty and then pissed it all away for the mess of pottage known as the "common good."
To hell with the common good! Undermine big government, and teach your kids to hate it! Smash statism and collectivism and communitarianism in all their forms! Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.