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U.S. Lists Web Sites as Terrorist Organizations
mgcsinc writes "The United States for the first time has placed a web site on the list where it normally places terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, placing several conditions on Americans' interactions with the website. Certainly, few could challenge the latest addition, but how could this ability to effectively squelch internet speech be used by the government with less valid rationale in the future?"
Since when a website ever directly killed anyone?
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
Apparently now emitting an idea, is a crime. There goes protected speech, and thoughtcrime is a reality. George Orwell was just 20 years too early.
From there there is not that far to outlawing voting for the opposition. USA citizens should have brought their government to heel when they had the chance(the constitution gave them that power) but now they would have to collectively each commit a crime(a terrorist crime no less) to exert their own constitutional rights... From there, how far to outlawing a repeal of a politician? I guess Arnold's election scared all the politicians with thoughts of "he ain't one of us"...
effectively squelching internet speech? there is no restriction on accessing the website.
I see nothing wrong with Kahane websites, or Kahane organization in general. Kahane.org is critisizing Israeli government from the right, thus going against official US position in regards to Israeli government. Irregardless of the believes that Kahane offshot organizations hold, I do not recall a single attack purpotrated against Palestinians by Kahane.org or any affiliated websites, or any affiliated organizations. Is it possible that the US government is trying to influence the policies of Israeli government by banning some of their critics from the right? Does it seem as an attempt of "evenhandidness" towards the Palestinian terrorist groups? Just a note: the founder of Kahane movement was killed by the same person who purpotrated the World Trade Center attack in 1993.
It seems to me the ability to designate any web site as a terrorist organization, would potentially give the Feds the authority to tap the entire Internet. That's the gist i get from the Patriot Act, not that you can easily figure out what this law actually does...
For example...
I'd love to get my hands on whatever obfusicator our politicans ran on the USA Patriot Act. What a mess:
SEC. 201. AUTHORITY TO INTERCEPT WIRE, ORAL, AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO TERRORISM.
Section 2516(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
(1) by redesignating paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 434(2) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-132; 110 Stat. 1274), as paragraph (r); and
(2) by inserting after paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 201(3) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (division C of Public Law 104-208; 110 Stat. 3009-565), the following new paragraph:
`(q) any criminal violation of section 229 (relating to chemical weapons); or sections 2332, 2332a, 2332b, 2332d, 2339A, or 2339B of this title (relating to terrorism); or'.
Trying to figure out the new powers granted the government in the USA Patriot Act involves a ridiculous array of search-and-replace scavenger hunting.
As an American, while I do not disagree with your assertion that what America used to be (land of the free, liberty, limited government) is no more, I would like to know which countries DO respect the rights Americans used to enjoy? Europe is hardly a libertarian dream-world, the mid east certainly is not, nor Asia, Africa, Latin America, pretty much all out. This is a global trend, its simply more noticable in the US because we've fallen so far. So to you I would say, yes, we need to wake up, and so does 94% of the world that hates us, maybe if they focused that energy on hating thier own oppressive puppet governments that hold hands with the "US Fascist Regieme" the world might be a better place to live.
I think the idea is that they don't want to criticize Sharon. That doesn't mean they can't criticize other Israelis.
One of the big problems with Bush's two-tone, you-are-either-for-us-or-against-us, view of the world and terrorism is that it kind of leaves his hands tied when he winds up with someone who is for us (Ariel Sharon is, quite definitely, against terrorism, and good at fighting it) but is on the other hand perhaps not a good person and is definitely not fighting his battles in the most civilized way. Bush can't support Sharon *too* much, because then people will start asking questions about some of the nastier things Sharon has done in his crusade. But Bush also certainly can't speak against Sharon, as Sharon is "with us"; he can't speak about Sharon as if Sharon were some kind of shade of moral gray, since moral grays don't exist on Planet Reagan. And he most of all can't say "Sharon is a good person doing bad things for a good cause, he's misguided but better than the alternatives" becuase that would imply there are times that the ends do not justify the means, and admitting that would leave people open to questioning times Bush has used very nasty means for technically good ends. So he just quietly doesn't say anything, occationally emitting a few words in support of "Israel".
Just wait....
How long do you think it will be until the MPAA, RIAA, or some other "Big Business" (friend of the Bush family) convinces the honorable John Asscroft that 2600 is a terrorist organization. After all, they talk about security exploits, fun with the phone systems, etc.
If this goes unchallenged, the possibility of abuse against people "not with the team" is almost a definite.
You'd see that donating money to the website is now illegal, and banks are supposed to "freeze funds" of those operating the website... Though, they weren't sure how this would work in practice.
Even all out blocking was mentioned thusly:
But the law may not enable the United States to block access to the Web sites, if only for technical reasons.
That's funny, I don't recall the bill of rights and free speech being called "technical reasons" when I studied US history in high-school and college.
At the very least, any good slashdotter over 18 should go read every site on that list and make a determination for themself. To even consider that the US needs to "wholly block" sites from another country, seems... unfree. (Note: I'll be doing my reading from an internet cafe and I'll be paying in cash)
Call it a "war on terror" if you like, I'll continue to consider it a "war on freedom".
Ah but you miss the duplicity of it all. States get to do whatever they want in the name of fighting terrisim, rebels and sepratists including using there tactics. One persons rebel or terrorist is anothers freedom fighter. The problem with these sorts of orginizations is they have become a method to wage war without going to war as fas as there host states are concerned, welcome to the post UN world where you cant go to war unless your on the security council and can veto any reprisals.
No sir I dont like it.
No, attacking innocent people is terrorism, regardless of their ethnicity or faith, and regardless of whether the attacker operates in opposition to or on behalf of an established government.
But this word has been such a propaganda vehicle for so long that it no longer has any useful meaning.
Why hasn't the KKK been targetted in the war on terror? They've been terrorizing our nation for more than 100 years, and they're very public.
The US has not listed a website as a terrorist organization. It simply listed it as an alias for a known terrorist organization.
Kahane.com is not being banned for saying bad things. It is being banned FOR CARRYING OUT TERRORIST ATTACKS IN WHICH CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED IN AN ATTEMPT TO ACCOMPLISH POLITICAL GOALS.
Listing kahane.com as an alias for Kahane Kach just makes it clearer to US citizens that aiding any group claiming that name is a felony.
It makes as much sense to claim that kahane.com is a non-terrorist political offshoot of a terrorist group as it does to claim (as the Europeans did until recently) that Hamas is a non-terroist organization.
This notion that groups which support the killing of civilians can be split into terrorist and non-terrorist components simply does not pass the smell test.
I'm glad to see the Bush administration applying this principle uniformly.
Kahane sounds a lot like most extreme right-wing religious groups. The extremists of the Christian right, the Jewish right, and the Islamic right have far more in common with each other than they like to admit.
I'm surprised that the Bush Administration is acting in this area. Bush Jr. (unlike Bush Senior) gets considerable support from the American Jewish community in exchange for his support of Israel. There's got to be more political story behind this.
wouldn't it be a better idea to actually go out and _catch_ some terrorists instead of pissing away time and money chasing easy and irrelevant targets?
As near as I can figure, this has nothing to do with websites and everything to do with website names. Websites are collections of information, much like books.
The articles says that the U.S. government has put website names on the list of aliases for terrorist organizations, but this does not mean the websites are in any sense terrorist organizations, any more than a book can be a terrorist organization.
For example, it would make no sense at all for the government to say: "We have placed the following books on our list of terrorist organizations: MEIN KAMPF, THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION, THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY and THE FARMER's ALMANAC."
I use the OED and THE FARMER'S ALMANAC as examples because they are books that are also ongoing projects by identifiable organizations. But the books are not the organizations--they are merely a name under which the organization may be identified.
This is an important distinction because of course only someone inexcusably ignorant of history would want the goverment censoring websites. Noting that website (or book) names may be used as aliases for terrorist organizations, however, is quite a different kettle of herring.
--Tom
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
"3.) Many more 9/11 scenerios because it would create more terrorists than it would kill."
Oh, so since you haven't seen any in only 6 months, then you think its over? The US's worldwide approval ratings have hit solid bottom. Legitimate scholars are NOW saying its ok to hit the US because they are the invaders.
Things WILL get worse, believe me.
So if the 9/11 strike had only included the plane that struct the Pentagon, it hadn't been a terrorist but a military attack ?
... I would like to know which countries DO respect the rights Americans used to enjoy?
The first country that springs to mind is Canada.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Just because it's on the web, doesn't make it any more protected than a pamphlet. If you advocate violence, you're not engaging in protected speech, you're committing a crime. End of story. Get a clue. Al Qaeda sites were already covered by this. We just finally got some partial balance in it. If someone called this group a source of "Hate Speech" I'm sure the average /.er, who is usually from the lunatic left, would be all for banning it.
Zionists are at least as bad as Islamists.