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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."
..us getting all up in arms when other societies don't follow our beliefs.
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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
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.
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