Slashdot Mirror
Russia Poised to Restrict Net Activities
DigitalHammer writes: "The Russian Parliament is planning to place off- and online restrictions to curb pro-Nazi and anti-religious activities. Former Reds are afraid they will be labeled as extremists, while envirnomentalists and human rights groups complain that the proposed restrictions will halt free speech in communist-turned-democratic Russia. Deja vu, I see? News.com has the story."
I understand the slippery slope argument, but it just as easily tilts the other way doesn't it? People have been known to get inflamed over certain types of speech. We need to maintain a healthy balance between a free society and a peaceful society: truly, that's what democracy is about at its heart.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Well, we'll see how much longer our internet rights here in the US last... With the increasingly vague wording of "anti-terrorism" laws and statutes, the same thing could happen here in the forseeable future.
Moderation totals that amuse me for one of my posts: Flamebait=1, Insightful=2, Funny=2, Overrated=1, Underrated=1
There are such a lot of difficulties involved with the censorship of the internet. Letting the government find all sorts of nitty-gritty details about my life inflames my sense of paranoia, and receiving hundreds of spam letters a day makes me lose patience with my slow download speeds.
I'd just as soon get rid of all the porn sites, but that would be censorship, now wouldn't it?
What's the difference between censorship and online rights? What standards do you employ in determining how data online can be used?
I don't want anyone out there spying on me, not even with one of those little wireless "x-cams."
How can we prevent our rights from being trampled without trampling the rights of others? It's a hard line to find.
..us getting all up in arms when other societies don't follow our beliefs.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Actually, at the heart of the democracy is the tyranny of majority. That is why, as an American, I am happy that I live in a country that has a Representative Republic form of Government. Where constitutional rights trump the momentary whims of the majority in power.
An no, we do not need to maintain a healthy balance between free speech and a peaceful society. What we need to do is protect the ability to speak freely and punish those that use civil unrest or the threat of it to prevent that free speech -- the tyranny of the majoity which democracy fosters.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Are you kidding me? Have you been living under a rock? The Patriot Act (and others of its ilk) are knee-jerk reactions to a towel-headed boogeyman that the U.S. Government is threatening it's sheep^H^H^H^H^Hcitizens with. In the wake of the "suprise" bombings, people are cheerfully handing over freedoms left and right in order to gain "safety". I find it ironic that the real threats to the U.S. are elected...
Murphy was an optimist.
I also want to point out that the lack of a sunset clause in the Patriot Act shows its true intentions, since it does nothing to deter the threat at hand.
Murphy was an optimist.
It seems to me that broad, and vague terms, such as "anything that threatens the 'safety' of Russia" is pretty typical of how things are world-wide in this sort of matter, not to mention how they've really always been in the days of the USSR. While Russia strives to move forward from it's past, it cannot leave behind, in a matter of years, all the feelings, thoughts and ways of thinking that it has built up in its history.
Besides, perhaps we should take a close look at our own Patriot Act. This too grants broad, and vague powers, we just went there first. Russia is following.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Cites/sites? Sure. Enjoy.
_ militias/20011031_eff_usa_patriot_analysis.html
d =12250
d =12489
d =12246
American Civil Liberties Union:
http://www.aclu.org/congress/patriot_chart.html
Electronic Frontier Foundation:
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism
Center for Democracy and Technology:
http://www.cdt.org/security/010911response.shtml
http://www.cdt.org/wiretap/020530guidelines.shtml
Molly Ivans (political columnist):
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemi
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemi
Robert Scheer (political columnist):
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemi
Need more? I've got 'em.
Moderation totals that amuse me for one of my posts: Flamebait=1, Insightful=2, Funny=2, Overrated=1, Underrated=1
Restricting extreme views and activities is one of the big challenges for any society attempting to mitigate freedom and security. While we may decry it when a government restricts our God-given rights, we also appreciate when a government keeps us safe from fools who want to screw up our way of life.
Ideally, governments allow greater freedoms while encouraging good citizenship and common decency through education. This is the only mitigation between freedom and security. The United States has generally followed this path, more so than most other countries (although I think that this is being massively undermined by lower standards in grade-school education).
However, the U.S. is lucky in that its population is generally happy, free, educated, and less vulnerable to extremeties such as fascism, whether American, Russian, German, Islamic, or whatever.
A potential drawback to greater freedom is that de facto censorship becomes far more common (i.e. censorship based on the personal views of the owners of information distribution). Censorship happens - it just depends on who is doing it. Instead of the government ordering sites to be shut down, ISPs (and traditional media such as newspapers and tv for that matter) would refuse to "do business" with purveyors of extreme views.
Let the extreme fools talk. Good people will generally refuse to sell them any soap boxes.
- James
There is no such thing as "balance" when it comes to freedom of expression.
Either you have it or you don't.
"Slippery slope" arguments are not always valid. However, in this case, the slope isn't just slippery; it's vertical.
Expression is one huge gray area; for any two given pieces of expression which you give me, i can give you a solid chain of "Well, but that's really identical to this, isn't it? Which is really identical to this, isn't it?" and even if no one would say that the endpoints are similar, each two links in that chain woul dbe philosophically identical.
The only things clearly defined enough to be valid exceptions to free speech are copyright protection, for specific phrasings and expressings of an idea, and slander, for presenting an idea as true when it is not. And note that both of these two things deal only with the dressings of the idea being expressed, and not with the desired expression itself. Laws which suppress "dangerous" speech, on the other hand, repress ideas at the core level, however they are expressed.
Beyond the two caveats above, you cannot balance, negotiate, make exceptions to, or in any way abrogate free speech rights and have them still be there. This isn't extremism. This is just saying, basic human rights are an all or nothing committment.
(While i'm on the subject, while this isn't quite relevant to net censorship in russia, i might as well note that most human rights act in exactly the same way-- that they are gray areas so huge that you have to look at them in terms of black and white while legislating. For example, Due process of law. Due process of law is merely a convention that the government, as the group of people with guns, agrees to follow. The people agree "okay, we will let you all have guns instead of taking the law into our own hands if you use this privilidge responsibly." If the government does not treat this convention as sacred, the people's rights evaporate. If you are in a situation where the government is not guaranteed to behave in a manner consistent with its constitutional basis, the freedoms that constitutional basis guarantees are meaningless.)
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
What rights? The right to privacy. The right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. The right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty. The right to free speech without fear of imprisonment.
... the DOJ has proven its determination since September 11 to arrest people based on the kinds of innocent coincidences that data mining may flag and hold them in jail even after concluding that they were unrelated to any terrorism and in some cases (the material witnesses) had committed no legal violation at all.
...Under the new guidelines, even before opening a preliminary inquiry, the FBI can go to mosques and political meetings. How will it decide which ones to go to -- we fear it will be on the basis of politics.
...The types of inquiry that the FBI will now have almost unbridled power to maintain include broad fishing expeditions into any and all associations and according to any and all criteria that the FBI chooses as long as it is for the permitted purpose. License plates of all people attending a place of worship may be noted down. So may the presence of people at political, intellectual, academic or theological discussions. The FBI may tape the sermons or other proceedings during worship services. It may use commercial databases and data-mining services and software to collect information about movements, habits and tastes to generate patterns and lists of individuals, according to the broadest criteria.
From the CDT analysis:
While the stated intention of the new guidelines is to identify terrorist activity, they contain no protection against misuse against persons who hold disfavored political or religious opinions. That these concerns are not far-fetched is borne out by the exactly analogous FBI abuses, the "COINTELPRO" program among others, which led to adoption of the guidelines in the first instance. Under that program civil rights, labor and peace groups were systematically spied upon by the FBI, in collaboration with local police and private groups.
Moderation totals that amuse me for one of my posts: Flamebait=1, Insightful=2, Funny=2, Overrated=1, Underrated=1