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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 was waiting to have more rights in the US, than in Russia. That's the ticket ;-)
I dont see how this is much different than any policies in America or W. Europe... Some of the things in there the US might not admit to doing, but if you tried hard enough Im sure you could get yourself a FBI/NSA interview...
.... the headline that Russia is poising to restrict net access popped an image in my mind of a Dilbert cartoon that took place in Elbonia. One of the Elbonians had a cardboard box over his head cut out like a monitor and his buddy was sitting in front of him pretending to type. Then the dude said "Now it's my turn to be the computer."
If that cartoon were reprinted today, I can imagine the other guy responding with "no way, you're too extreme." Heh.
"Derp de derp."
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.
From the article, it looks like this law is a stinker. Extremest speech is defined as (among other things) anything that threatens the "safety" of Russia. Penalties are not strictly limited. This thing looks lie a total mess. At least they removed the provision that required foreigners to comply with the law. (Now wouldn't *that* make you reconsider your vacation to Russia?)
to silence minority groups. They got a decade experience in silencing anything that doesn't fit the profile.
:-) but just as much as their military turned out not to be anything like the stuff we feared (read : soviets-mujhahedin in afghanistan, and now in tsetsenia) I gues sthat their computer know-how has also degraded to a point where script kiddies are making fun of them...
However, I think this time they'll have to pass : if you see the effort the chinese gov are pushing to get the falung gong movement silenced, I seriously doubt any web silencing is ever going to succeed.
As related curiousity, I wonder what the state of former-soviet intelligence is on the front of web and information technology. The east-block used to have some real geniusses in their computer staff... they practically invented cryptography (and virusses
Is there any russian experienced enough to comment on this ?
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
The wheel has turned. One can only hope it will make them Ruskie Commies[1] a little more appreciative of human rights than when they were in charge.
[1] Hey, we're in the age of George Dubya'. We're allowed to use good ol' boy nominclature again!
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
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.
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
This could, of course, be a code word for antisemitism. The problem there is not that it is hate directed at a religion, but at a group of people. Big difference. I think I even speak for most religious people when I say that there are more fundamentalist religious websites that scare me, offend me and can have far more dangerous consequences than any "anti-religious" stuff.
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
If I operated a site which went on and on about how [insert -ism here] followers are great and America is evil and all that "bin Ladin" jazz then I would either get shut down or arrested.
America right now is in such a state of panic (well, the government is...) that they would go out of their way to crush your message.
Let's look back to the Committees on Anti-American Activities. So many lives were ruined and people were forced to answer up because they believed in something that "threatened" America (note: some didn't even believe, they were just accused). Now even though people here were afraid because of the obvious reasons - the Communist party was on the ballott. They still would have to be elected to gain any power. In fact AFAIK, no one has ever been elected under the party.
So, is this a YRO story? Kinda. But only if you are in Russia. To change this you'd have to be Russian and you would have to vote out the bastards doing this. If no one objects then... oh well.
Of course "anyone who give up freedom for security deserves neither". But that is an American quote. My guess is that lots of people here would be jumping to restrict KKK or Al-Quesadilla sites fast.
It's a funny thing. Bush has used the word "terrorism" so much that he is starting to become a tumor, ah I mean terrorist himself. His speeches scare more people than a picture of bin Ladin or the falling Twin Towers.
Just wait till they sue over the LoTR Part II title claiming it's offensive.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I gues sthat their computer know-how has also degraded to a point where script kiddies are making fun of them...
Is that why St. Petersburg State won 2000 and 2001 ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest?
Just like every other country, Russia has dumb extremist politicians. After all, who else could've been Dr. Evil look-alike if we didn't have politicians?
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
The Russian government of today was founded on a system very similiar to that of France. Russia has a very strong executive branch just like France and some Duma seats are won via a system of proportional representation (like in France)while others are won via a first past the post system. In other ways the Duma resembles the German parliament, but in most ways the Russia system is like the French system though a bit cruder. The codex of laws is very French though the criminal code is harsher etc... Since France has anti hate and anti nazi legislation on its books it no wonder that Russia wants too adapt a similiar system. Remember when France sued Yahoo for linking to hate sites? Russia lost 23 million people in its fight against the Nazis and defeated something like 70% of Hitlers army, plus the Romanian, Hungarian and most of the Italian armies while we in the west had it easy. So the Russians don't like nazis. However, the French seem to love Trotskiets while the Russian have more or less had enough of Communism. Whats wrong with this law? While we in America don't have such laws our government does purposely make it hard for hate groups to grow. We have the Repo statuets and a lot of anti KKK laws on the books. As a student of Russian history and culture it amazes me how most Americans including most of our policy makers misunderstand Russia or its new system. If this law came out of France or even England (a country with no real constitution) there would be almost no response or criticism, but since its Russia it can't be good right? The Cold War is over. Get over it. Russia in now in the NATO 20 and is now a full member of the G8 I think its time we stop being so suspicous of every policy that comes out of Moscow. Don't get me wronf Russia is no Eden it has MAJOR problems, but they are being dealt with. Even the Russian economy has VERY strongly rebounded since the 1998 collapse, so they must be doing something right over there. Take from someone whose father served in the red army. Russias nuclear missiles will not be stolen. Most are kept in "closed cities" cities in which to this day travel is not easy and you cant live there for long without a special passport! Nuclear fuel and materials, however, are not as well guarded, but you can getting radioactice Cesium from any hospital in the U.S so what do you want! Putin is easily one of the best leaders Russia has had in some 400 years if not the best. Give the man some credit I think he has proven that he is no Stalin and yes I speak Russian!
I don't disagree with the conclusion, because it's a subjective view that I hold.
But the notion that it is objectively better is wrong, because the notion of an "absolute moral standard" has no foundation. To borrow an analogy: what is space without the objects in it? If you claim an absolute (objective) moral standard, what defines it, how and why?
I disagree with your notion of objective morals, as I've said. As it happens, it seems we share at least some of our morals, although we don't share our basis for arriving at them. In fact, I find your reasoning dangerous: it abdicates responsibility for your morals. Pointing to "objective", "absolute" or any other morals as the core of your beliefs leaves you free to never question those beliefs.
It's nice to finally see Russia shedding the democratic veneer it's been wearing for the past decade like so much bad makeup.
"Communist-turned-democratic" my ass. Yeltsin turned the Russian gov't into a virtual dictatorship then handed it over to a former KGB spook. An uninformed populus is fed bullshit through state-owned media outlets while Putin pays lip-service to a castrated Duma and does whatever he wants. It looks alot more like Napoleonic France than any sort of democracy to me.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
This is one of the fundamental problems with respect to ruling a country. The ideal government would be a dictatorship that always makes the right decisions, because they can impose their decisions upon all citizens with no restrictions, faster than any other kind of government can.
However, no government always makes the right decisions, so neither can a totalitarian governement. Many people in western society believe that democratic governments are Good, and non-democratic governments are Evil. But what defines ``democratic''? In an absolute democracy, the people vote on every decision a government makes. This makes the government extremely inefficient, and it leads to many bad decissions. This is caused by the fact that governments decide on many issues that many people are not knowledgeble enough to judge on.
Nowadays, governments refered to as ``democratic'' usually follow the paradigm of electing a new government every so often, which will then rule the country until the next elections. There are two forms: democracies, where the responsibilities are divided over a number of individuals, and republics, where a president can make decisions on every aspect of society. Most governments are somewhere in between, and the power of individuals or individual bodies is usually restricted, either through a strict separation of legislative organs (trias politica) or a system of checks and balances.
The problem with a system where governments are elected for a certain period of time, is that, once governments are elected, they can in fact do whatever they want. This is usually bad policy, because doing something contrary to the will of the people will lead to that party or person not getting elected next time. However, a number of factors complicate the issue. First of all, a government can do a lot to influence its people. The two main ways of doing this are censorship and propaganda. Censorship refers to the process of prohibiting material that the government considers harmful, propaganda refers to the government promoting certain practices or a certain way of thinking. Every government that I am aware of practices both censorship and propaganda to a certain extent.
Then there is the issue of influencing people before the elections. A proven technique to win votes in democratic governments is to just cry out loud that the former government made terrible mistakes, making people afraid of something, and promising to correct that through imposing strict law and order. This is a strategy most suitable for extremist parties, and has proven succesful in history, and has been practiced in recent elections in Israel and many European states. From an outsider's point of view, the feelings of insecurity raised by those parties usually seem very unreasonable. Governments try to protect their citizens from this kind of mass-hysteria by outlawing certain parties known to play on people's feelings. This is meant to protect the people against themselves (as many such parties tend to be either incompetent, or not really concerned about their citizens), but can be taken too far, leading to governments sustaining their own reign through the power they have.
Another issue is the influence of the media. Media have a very strong influence on how people think, and what they consider important. In some states, the media are entirely controlled by the government. This is a dangerous situation, because it makes it very easy for the government to manipulate people's thoughts. In other states, the media are entirely free, that is, the government does not have any direct control over them. This is also a dangerous situation, as the most popular media tend to be controlled by large corporations. Corporations have certain interests that correspond with the programmes of certain political parties better than with others. Independent media, therefore, have much to gain by influencing people to vote for certain parties rahter than others. The influence of corporations on elections becomes even stronger when one takes the cost of election campaigns into consideration. These are usually vast, and it is not unusual for parties to accept money from corporations to fund their election campaigns. Even if the corporations do not ask the party to do anything in return, by merely giving money to a party they favor that party over the others, increasing chances of that party to win the elections.
The point I have tried to make here, in a rather lengthy way, is that no government is free of issues. There's always something wrong, sometimes there simply isn't a right way. Banning out certain parties isn't necessarily bad. Being undemocratic isn't necessarily bad. Restricting freedom isn't necessarily bad. It all depends.
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Anybody that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years
organising and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office.
-- David Broder
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I'm sure glad that the USA doesn't ban books with depressing regularity.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Now you, and others, keep claiming this, but the fact remains that every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one. And every single one has said, as you say, that `what went before was not really communism. We are the true communism.
Actually the party was Communist, the government and social/economic system was Socialist. US didn't cease to be a Republic when Clinton was a President, did it?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
...is protected so well because people in power had found easy ways to make any speech that they don't approve of, inefficient. Speech can be drowned in loads of bullshit (what function in american society does National Enquirer perform? Certainly not entertainment -- it's incredibly dumb for that). In other countries this is not the case, or at least government believes population to be intelligent enough so it is not the case.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
is wishful thinking
Yours is "mob rule". Perhaps "free speech" isn't a perfect way to run the world, but it sure beats "get a majority population together in the same geographical area, and they can call themselves a 'culture' and start dictating to minorities what to do".
It is not objectively wrong to prevent free speech when the person being "oppressed" can freely leave their oppressors with no consiquence (as exists in Japan, though not in most Islamic states).
Go on, say that again. "There is no consequence for being forced out of your country." Then, assuming you've kept a straight face, let the rest of us know whether you really wouldn't make any exceptions to this rule. Would a law forcing Americans to accept Christianity (in the Bushs' version, of course; sorry Catholics, Liberals, and Mormons) or leave the country be okay, for example? Was Salem's only problem the fact that they didn't give their "witches" the option to leave the county, penniless?
Let others be free to do what they deem to be "best"
And if what they deem to be "best" is restricting the freedoms of other people still? How can you possibly think that fundamentalist Islamic states wanting to restrict the freedoms of their women is okay, but Americans wanting to restrict the "freedoms" of fundamentalist Islamic lawmakers is bad?
"The Russian Parliament is planning to place off- and online restrictions to curb pro-Nazi and anti-religious activities"
Are we talking about a bill proposed by old-school comunists in Russia, or by a bill proposed by pro-EU elements? Keep in mind that this kind of law is very common in EU member states.
Who am I more afraid of? The pro-EU folks. They're the ones that seem to have a lousy track record with writing up touchy-feel anti-speech laws on the one hand and then not imposing them evenly on the other. After all, you can't talk bad about any other religion. Unless it's Islam. Then it's OK to talk about sealing off your borders to people from Arab countries just because a small percentage of their citizens happen to be terrorists. Racial profiling? Oh, no, that's that thing that only happens over in the US. Not in the EU.
Say what you will about the Soviets, but they had at least one thing going for them: While they were brutally opressive, they were generally brutally opressive evenly across all religions and cultures. If Christians and Muslims started killing each other in one of the Soviet republics or one of their satellite regimes, Moscow got grumpy, which made the KGB grumpy, which made the Red Army officers grumpy, and you go on down the line until you have a really grumpy soldier with a Kalashnikov who didn't give a rat's ass who worshipped who. And damn if things didn't get real quiet real quick. Keep in mind that all the trouble in Yugoslavia didn't happen until after the collapse of the USSR.
It's very common for a proponents of some idea to put a lot of effort to associate it with something desirable, such as democracy, and vilify the opponents as being opposed to those desirable things.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I'd say the people proposing the law are extremists. Somehow I just don't think they're likely to catch the irony though.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Now you, and others, keep claiming this, but the fact remains that every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one. And every single one has said, as you say, that `what went before was not really communism. We are the true communism.'
So, while you may say `trust us, we'll be different this time, we mean it', you'll have to forgive us if we're not willing to take that chance.
You believe that because you've only read the history that tells you about the totalitarian ones. Read "Rogue State" by Philip Blum. When you've finished that, try "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, and "Heroes" by John Pilger.
The fact is that there have been many attempts at democratic socialist and communist states, e.g. Kerala state in India, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, and they have been mostly been stamped down hard by murderous, totalitarian right-wing regimes, usually assisted by the United States gov't. I'm talking about murderous, totalitarian right-wing regimes like Indonesia, Peru, Chile and Colombia, with murderous totalitarian dictators like Batista in Cuba, Pinochet in Chile, Stroessner in Paraguay, Somoza in El Salvador, the Shah of Iran, etc. President Reagan once described Gen. Efrain Rios-Montt, the butcher of Guatemala, as "totally dedicated to democracy", and complained that he'd had a "bum rap" on human rights.
For that matter, the US is happy enough to support China, which is about as "Communist" today as it has ever been, to the point of extending them Most Favored Nation trading status, regardless of their brutal totalitarian practices. It's not the ideology that the US objects to you, you see, it's the money. So long as the money flows, so long as there's oil, or chromium, or bauxite, or new markets for Nike and Microsoft, or whatever else the US govt is after that week, "Communist" or "Capitalist", it makes no difference.
I was raised to believe the same right-wing propaganda as you were, pal. It never occurred to me that my teachers and parents could have got it so completely wrong. Go read the history for yourself, and decide for yourself whether ideology has any connection with totalitarianism.
We'll leave aside the books you suggest -- I've read two of them, and they are standard lefty drivel, full of undocumented claims, wild conspiracy theories, and improbable anecdotes.
"Standard lefty drivel", that's rather imprecise. Kindly name some "undocumented claims" from any of the three books I suggested, and I will document them for you.
Nor does Kerala make a good example -- it may or may not call itself communist (I am not convinced that it does)
You're not? Well, what would convince you? It has on and off since 1957 been ruled by a majority of elected Communist Party members. What else would you call it?
Your other examples are equally flawed, from Guatemala, where for all your complaining the people you name did establish a democracy which is free and strong to this day,
The right-wing junta was finally wound up once it was no longer necessary to suppress the popular left-wing movement. They "went legit", like mafias eventually do everywhere. No-one has answered for the terrible mass murders commited by the right-wing government there, the over 200,000 dead and disappeared. But this is beside the point. A peacful democratic Communist movement was brutally suppressed by right-wing totalitarians, rebutting your contention that "every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one." Perhaps you would like to qualify that statement, now that you are faced with evidence to the contary?
to Pinochet, who stepped down peacably when voted out of office in elections he had called --
Repsonding to pressure from the Reagan administration, which was embarrassed by all the bad publicity, and no longer had any significant left-wing opposition remaining to worry about in Chile. Pinochet had become a liability, so the US asked him to step down. Pinochet made sure to pass a law granting himself and all his torturing, murdering pals immunity before stepping down, of course. They're still fighting that battle now in the courts. But once again, this is beside the point. The Marxist Allende govenrment was democratically elected, and the right-wing Pinochet tore the elected government down in a coup, supported by the US. Your original statement, that "every single government which has described itself as communist has been murderous and totalitarian. Every single one." is once again proven demonstrably false.
Will you be revising that earlier statement then?
So 200,000 could not possibly have been killed and disappeared in Guatemala over a period of years, because that's 2% of the present population? How does that follow? A third of East Timor's population was wiped out by the Indonesian army, againw ith US and British assistance. You think 200,000 Guatemalans is so very unbelievable?
3 22 a.htmw oam.htm l8 /gu atem.htm
http://www.converge.org.nz/lac/articles/news990
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0327/p08s01-
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/tunion/199
Likewise, you keep repeating that Allende was elected democratically, as if this made it okay that he suspended Chile's democracy and called in foreign troops to help suppress his rivals.
Pardon? What foreign troops?
You offer various theories as to why Pinochet created democracy, but you cannot deny that he did.
I never offered any theories about Pinochet "creating democracy". He was asked to leave by the White House, so he did. The Chilean people themselves created any democracy there, despite our and Pinochet's best efforts. Good luck to them: they deserve a decent life after what we put them through. Why do you continue to act as an apologist for a brutal dictator without a democratic bone in his body?
And you repeat the claim that the CIA was behind Pinochet's coup, even though you yourself posted documents earlier in this thread denying that.
You appear to be confusing me with some other person rebutting your right-wing claptrap: I did no such thing. May I see the link to documents I posted denying the CIA was behind Pinochet's coup please?
Right -- Like Russia doesn't already have laws against rioting in the streets, randomly assaulting people or setting bombs that to injure and/or kill people cleaning up graffiti.
There's no need for laws against those things, because they're already illegal.
The laws are, however really useful against anybody who is doing something you don't like -- including political parties starting to gain popularity. The nice thing about those laws is that they have very vague definitions of what's illegal and very broad descriptions of what you can do about it -- and when someone gets arrested 'for violating anti-terror laws' most people aren't going to realize that the real 'crime' was threatening to become a real alternative to the current ruling party(s).
But it's not like Canada and the US have been that much better with our so-called 'anti-terror' either! Canada's law would have classified general strikes as terrorism), and US laws seem to allow them to hold US citizens indefinitely and without trial if they are deemed 'illegal combatants' even if they've never left US soil.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
It is widely claimed by many independent organisations that as many as 200,000 were killed and "disappeared" by govt troops. You ask for evidence, I cite several sources, you don't like them, well, sorry.
The "history" you keep threatening to cite is most probably from your favorite authors, right wing, pro-US-govt sources. Mine is from left-wing sources. You rely on yours being endorsed by the US govt for them to be taken as gospel. You're clearly surprised that I don't agree. It's like arguing the case for religious pluralism with Mullah Omar.
You ask me to look at "any history of the period". I have looked at many, they all disagree with you, apart from the ones by avowed right wingers like yourself. Surprise.
As for Pinochet, to repeat, I am not defending him, but you cannot deny that he held democratic elections, and stepped down when his party lost.
Sounds an awful lot like defense of him to me. And yes, I deny it, and so do most non-govt historians. You present his actions as if he did them to be democratic. He did not. He was pressured to hold elections, and there was no longer any threat to him from holding them. Castro would do the same if he could.
This stands in sharp contrast to Mr. Allende, who suspended democracy in Chile.
No, his own army turned against him, and therefore it was the army that suspended democracy, not Allende. He then reacted in kind. This is not the act of a totalitarian, though you clearly would like to think so, if only to feel better about what Kissinger, perhaps the most evil man alive, did to that poor miserable country. Even Bush thinks it's OK to suspend certain US citizens' rights in wartime. The US also had no problem helping the Venezuelan army tearing up the Venezuelan constitution last month, and ateempting to install some oil consultant in place of the democratically elected President Chavez. But they clearly screwed up, and forgot to make sure the whole army was with them this time around. They may yet succeed on a later attempt.
I note that you also credit the US with pressuring Mr. Pinochet to do so -- so what, exactly, is your complaint about US action?
Under most circumstances, I would be glad of this kind of pressure. But since it was the US that put Pinochet in power int he first place, and since it's the US that has trained up dictators and their henchmen in the fine arts of torture and suppression of internal dissent for decades at the School Of The Americas at Fort Benning, you'll forgive me if I don't weep for joy when the US decides it's time for one of its tame dictators to take a hike. The same could be said about US support for Noriega. While it suited the US, they supported him, and winked at his drug trade. As soon as he was no longer useful, the US gave him the heave-ho. Should we applaud this? Should we be grateful? No thank you.
The USA Patriot Act violates the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee, the provision allowing the right to peaceably assemble, and the provision allowing the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, including by the following new powers:
- Minimal judicial supervision of expanded telephone wiretaps and internet surveillance. One way is through new powers of Internet Monitoring. Monitoring an individual's communications normally would require law enforcement to demonstrate probable cause of criminal activity to a judge. The counter-terrorism law, however, dramatically lowers the surveillance standard with respect to certain aspects of the Internet by requiring only that law enforcement personnel certify that the surveillance is relevant to a criminal investigation. The court must accept the certification, even if the court believes that law enforcement is on a fishing expedition. Such a provision falls far short of active judicial oversight. The counter-terrorism law states that surveillance does not apply to the "content" of Internet communications; however, the law does not define "content" and clearly does apply to such information as e-mail addresses and recipients.
Another was is through "roving wiretaps": Under prior law, a wiretap was restricted to a particular telephone device. While the law needed updating to take into account the use of multiple cell phones, the USA PATRIOT Act goes too far. Instead of including a reasonable balancing of individuals' privacy interests, the new law now establishes what amounts to a "no privacy zone" which follows a target of surveillance. If a surveillance target enters your home, your telephone comes within a "no privacy zone" and can be tapped. Under these circumstances, it will be more difficult to ensure that innocent people aren't subject to wiretaps.
- Expanded ability of the federal government to conduct secret searches
- Power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and to deport any non-citizen who belongs to those groups: The Act established a new crime of domestic terrorism, with a definition so broad as to include certain acts of political protest involving threats or dangers to human life. When political protest harms property or individuals, those particular harmful acts already are punishable under various criminal laws. Sometimes domestic political protest activity inadvertently escalates to clashes with police and other types of violence. To allow such incidents to be treated as terrorism could have a stifling effect on dissent.
- Large-scale investigations of US citizens for "intelligence purposes." Have you ever heard of COINTELPRO? It's all happened before in the US, FBI and CIA et al got slapped down for it, it's well documented. Now those powers are back, in order to "fight terrorism". Do you really think that's all they'll be used for?
- FBI monitoring of libraries and booksellers: the Act contains provisions that make it easier for the FBI to search a bookstore's business records, including the titles of the books purchased by customers. And under the new amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), booksellers may not have the chance to resist subpoenas. Depending on the wording of the order, the bookseller may be required to immediately turn over the records that are being sought
It violates the Fourth Amendment guarantee of probable cause in astonishingly major and repeated ways. It now allows the police, at any time and for any reason, to enter and search your house. Under prior law, if the primary purpose of a search was to obtain "foreign intelligence information", the FBI could obtain a secret warrant through the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA Court) to conduct a physical search or wiretap without notifying the target of the search. The counter-terrorism law lowers the standard to permit the FBI to conduct a secret search or wiretap if intelligence surveillance is a significant purpose. Thus, under the new law, surveillance for the primary purpose of investigating criminal activity, with the auxiliary significant purpose of intelligence surveillance could circumvent the 4th Amendment's probable cause requirement for obtaining a search warrant.
- Reduction of Attorny-Client privilege:
Attorney General Ashcroft announced that the Justice Department would selectively monitor conversations between selected detainees and their attorneys, including people who have been detained but not charged with any crime. This order is a profound violation of fundamental legal and constitutional principles at the very core of our justice system. Such monitoring of conversations will not meet the high constitutional standards generally in place for other government surveillance - a finding of probable cause and judicial oversight. Instead, monitoring of attorney-client communications will be based on the attorney general's unilateral mere belief "that reasonable suspicion exists" that detainees may "use communications with attorneys or their agents to facilitate acts of terrorism."
It violates the Fifth Amendment by allowing for indefinite incarceration without trial for those deemed by the Attorney General to be threats to national security. On October 29, several civil rights organizations filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking disclosure of government documents concerning more than 1,000 individuals arrested and detained in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Justice Department officials announced on November 8 that they no longer would provide a running tally of the total number of people being detained across the country in conjunction with federal anti-terrorist investigations. Instead, officials said they would release revised numbers that omit the largest group of detainees, which includes people being held on some grounds not directly related to September 11. In late November, the Justice Department released fragmentary information regarding some of the detainees, but fell far short of making a full accounting. On December 5, PFAWF and others filed suit in federal district court seeking expedited processing and immediate release by the Justice Department of the information requested under FOIA.