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U.S. Senate Ratifies Cybercrime Treaty
espo812 writes "A story from Washingtonpost.com says, 'The Senate has ratified a treaty under which the United States will join more than 40 other countries, mainly from Europe, in fighting crimes committed via the Internet.' Ars Technica says it's the 'World's Worst Internet Law.'" From the Ars story: "According to the EFF, 'The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other countries' 'cybercrime' laws--even if the act being prosecuted is not illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to obey other jurisdictions' requests to log their users' behavior without due process, or compensation.;"
That's it! I've had it with the draconian laws put onto us by the US! I'm moving to Canada! Oh, wait. Shit.
Those who anthropomorphize science and/or nature already believe in an intelligent designer.
you think the Internet, as it is now, is a good thing or a bad thing. If your intent is to make the Internet simply too risky for ordinary people to use, then this is an excellent law.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I believe that what's happening now is the result of someone reading 1984 and thinking "hmm, good idea!"
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
I for one am glad that... ah, nevermind... move to Canana... shit, sibling poster ruled that one out too.
Does this mean we can expect foreign countries to go after spammers and phishers conducting their business outside the US? Uh huh, right. Thought so.
Damn, I guess I'll never get my $ back from that...um...medication I ordered.
An international treaty is considered law here, but that does not mean it is immune from constitutional questions. This treaty must be balanced with the bill of rights, so there is obviously lots of litigation in the future if it is actually enforced ...
Sounds like this law is somewhat like Wikipedia, just without the editors or limited content control. Any nation can add their own contributions to things that people should be punished for, and have it be law everywhere.
Can treaties be considered unconstitutional? It seems to me that the whole point of the constitution was to limit what laws could be made, with anything not permitted prohibited in the light of the inherent rights of mankind. This unlimited law-by-treaty seems rather destructive to the whole point of the constitution.
Ryan Fenton
I hear Antarctica is remarkably tolerant when it comes to laws of this nature... or... any nature really...
It wasn't Ars Technica that said it's the "World's Worst Internet Law" - that's the EFF. The only time Ars Technica uses that name is in quoting the EFF's opinion. If you RTFA, Ars Technica actually has a less worried view.
Perhaps they should make it an international Internet crime to post stories without checking even the most basic facts (ie, first two paragraphs of the document you link to).
Sure, because the left hates human rights and privacy, and it wants nothing more than to spy on ordinary Americans who haven't committed a crime. Oh, wait. :)
...can not reach the bits'n'bytes of the ever growing net.
Aka - you don't stand a chance in HELL to police the internet. Anyone who think so ought to get their brain examined.
Data is like fluids, you can't filter everything - it's bound to get in everywhere at some time. And the number of data you'd have to filter is increasing with such a speed that there's no chance that ANY law system would be able to hire enough personnel or create software to control it all.
Want a real life example? Take spam - you can't control that either, and we have laws on it already almost EVERYWHERE - but does it work? Didn't work 10 years ago, not 5 years ago - doesn't work today, won't work in the future. Fluids will get in everywhere anywhere anytime.
Best way to filter is utilizing the individuals using the computers, mind filtering --> the no 1. filter in this world. The very same filter can also be used to FIND the content you really want rather than looking trough heaps of endless useless information (spam).
Even if they DID control the net (or the way we access the net) they would be unable to do so - because information always finds a way just like fluid, another net - wireless or by wire...doesn't matter. You can't stop the flow of information now, way too late! And thank goodness for that.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
A lot of people out there like to accuse the US of forcing other countries into enacting laws that are draconian, such as the DMCA and 90 year copyrights. However, the US is actually adopting these laws, such as the DMCA and the CTEA, as part of the WTO and WIPO treaties. It is actually many countries in Europe that these originate from.
The WIPO and WTO actually call for laws much more strict than what the US has. Those "super DMCA" laws that other countries have are really just falling inline with what these treaties ask for, and the US is not at all to blame for them.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
....is in decline. No this isn't some random rant. The sad fact is, multinational corporations really do wield influence that surpasses that of governments. This law is undoubtedly for their benefit, so that laws across the globe will have to defacto become harmonised to avoid all the legal toothaches this will cause.
Think about it. When companies the size of GE and Microsoft run into hassle with different laws in different jurisdictions, they just lobby for harmonisation. And that's what they've gotten. I expect to shortly have what rights I have on the internet reduced to the abysmal level of those living in the US and UK, and what the hell, Iran. All in aid of the children or rich yuppies or whatever. This is why you need proportional representation.
May the Maths Be with you!
An international treaty is considered law here, but that does not mean it is immune from constitutional questions. This treaty must be balanced with the bill of rights
Hmm. I see. You must be new here.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
This isn't lawful, is it? The American government cannot simply give up one of it's own citizens to a foreign country just because he or she committed a crime on the Net. Maybe it if matches an American law, sure, but not a foreign one.
Let me illustrate. Hacking into a website and vandalizing it, that would be illegal in both countries. Posting something on a message board that is physically located on a server in a foreign country which has freedom of speech restrictions, well, although illegal in the foreign country, it wouldn't be illegal in America, and the American government should not give someone up unless it violates a similar American law or violates common law.
If a citizen in one of the other countries is accused by the U.S.A. of committing a crime which isn't illegal in their country the same rules apply.
Even worse, in the U.K. they could be extradited without the evidence even having to be disclosed to a judge or anyone else due to a treaty (supposedly to be only for terrorist cases but recently used on a fraud charge) with the U.S.A. which the U.K. has ratified but the U.S.A. has refused to. Now, that's scary!
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
"OMGOMGOMG SOMEBODY H4X0R3D MY MYSPACE PAGE ARREST THEM!!11"
That's what I really think this will lead to.
Since when has the U.S. -- or for that matter anybody -- followed a treaty when it didn't suit them? It really doesn't suit them to help countries with limited speech... unless it's an election year.
Oh, wait; I forgot about diebold. Um, wellll...vote democrat? Oh, wait, they suck the ??AA teat too.... :-(
Ok, guys; I got nothin'...looks to me like we're fucked.
I seem to remember the servers and maintainers of a certain website in Sweden suffering this fate a few months ago now, except it was the US government (under pressure from the MPAA) that pressured the Swedish government into executing search warrants and arrests on their citizens for actions that aren't illegal in their country.. I'm sure the MPAA and the RIAA both are rolling around happier then pigs in shit about this since its going to extend the reach of their holy crusade against 14-year-old soulseekers.
A year or two ago, I wrote a Sci-Fi eBook describing things like this. I wished that it was just all fiction.
A line in the book reads similar to the Slashdot article:
You can download the entire ebook from: http://www.brendamake.com/numbers/
The validation that I feel is overwhelmed by the specter of horrific consequences of the treaty.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Indeed. The Ars Technica article put "World's Worst Internet Law" in quotes for a reason. In fact, it flat out DISAGREES with EFF, even, and says that, "Given these safeguards, fears of political persecutions seem overblown," and that "the Convention provides enough safeguards to prevent the worst kinds of abuse, and additional protocols can always be negotiated if problems become insurmountable."
Yes, I'm not new here, but people need to RTFM, including the submitter. From the Ars article, just a little further than halfway down:
I guess that means we can't talk smack about China anymore huh? I might get my IP logged on slashdot and shipped off to a firing squad.
Life is not for the lazy.
Find out who the major politiicans and business men are in those 40 countries and claim that they maybe infringing on your copyrights... and then get thier ISPs to track them. Use the information garnered to become fabulously wealthy and powerful.
The US Department of Justice has already announced that "essential interests" would allow the US to refuse any request that would violate the Constitution.
This is an hilarious PR statement, especially in light of the illegal behavior by our own citizens in currently in office. Given our recent track record, this is nothing more than some semantic sugar used to cover the foul taste of political corruption.
"According to the EFF, 'The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other countries' 'cybercrime' laws--even if the act being prosecuted is not illegal in the United States. That means that countries that have laws limiting free speech on the Net could oblige the F.B.I. to uncover the identities of anonymous U.S. critics, or monitor their communications on behalf of foreign governments. American ISPs would be obliged to obey other jurisdictions' requests to log their users' behavior without due process, or compensation.;"
So, basically, this treaty is going to do what the americans have been doing all these years - try to enforce their laws on other country's territory. Remember the script kiddie from UK that is going to be extradicted to USA? The russian guy that wrote the PDF DRM cracking software, what about the perfectly legal swedish Pirate Bay? Why didn't the americans tried to protest then? Now they are going to suffer just like everyone else.
Yes, the treaty is stupid because jurisdiction does matter, and that is because every country has their set of laws that are carefully callibrated. Soon we'll get grossly disproportioned penalties - electric chair for reporters? But if the chinese say so...
The only time jurisdiction does not matter is with crimes against humanity. And that is for a good reason, isn't it?
Treaties can be ruled unconstitutional. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. For example, a treaty could not change the Constitution since to do that the amendment process has to be used. However, after a very brief search, I cannot find any cases of a treaty being ruled unconstitutional. I imagine the courts would be reluctant to do this and would interpret them in a way to avoid constitutional questions. Also, I don't think the League of Nations is a good example. From what I remember, there were political reasons for that not being ratified. Either way, of course Congress can refuse to ratify a treaty because it believes it is unconstitutional. However, just because Congress says something is unconstitutional doesn't mean it actually is. The Supreme Court is the interpreter of the Constitution and has the final say.
But good point, thanks.
The US Department of Justice has already announced [securityfocus.com] that "essential interests" would allow the US to refuse any request that would violate the Constitution.
But the big question is: how long before "political gain" becomes "essential interest" in deciding whether or not to turn over someone who is critical of the administration? Valerie Plame makes for an illustrative point of the dangers involved in being near to someone critical of policy. Her colleague's lives were endangered for no other reason than to punish people who disagreed with the President.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
This issue hits home with me a great deal as I have been bagged, tagged, and am currently under investigation by the FBI for cybercrime. As such I've become all too familiar with the FBI's methods and cyber-crime infrastructure.
Following 9/11 the US government, as we all know, molded the Patriotic Act and the Homeland Security Act to their needs. These later kick started the Critical Infrastructure Protection Board in to high gear. In 2003 the FBI formed Computer Intrusion Squads or Computer Hacking & Intrusion Prevention Squads. The US government has cleverly nicked these as CHIP or CHIPS units (I would have prefered Eric Estrada knocking on my door!). This spread like wild-fire and prompted the FBI to form CHIPS teams in all major cities. I was investigated and arrested by the CHIPS.
This new treaty/pact now allows the FBI to become likened to an international force much like their cousins the CIA. Allowing the foreign governments with their policies to infiltrate our country is a small price to pay for extending the reach and power of the FBI and the US government in general. Ofcourse this is at the expense of not only our rights as Americans but the common person on a global scale. Hmmmm.... can anyone say 'world domination'?
Certainly all the government in all the world cannot monitor all the data in all the world. However, many people will suffer needlessly for such petty crimes as reading email without permission along with the dangerous hardcore hackers. It's almost like spending 5 years for smoking marijuana (I don't smoke).
I am certainly disgusted and our government continues to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
There shouldn't be a need to carve up countries to make new nations. They should be able to agree to a fair and democratic government which reflects all the people in a given land.
By the way, I like the idea of Jerusalem becoming it's own nation (kind of like the Vatican is it's own nation). (Not sure if my grammar is correct in the above.)
Mel Gibson quote for today...
"FREEDOOOOOOOOM"
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
actualy, the vatican isn't a nation. It acts like one though.
Those countries that torture people, throws them in jail without as much as a charge, monitor their citizen, prosecute children...
Oh wait, since torture is illegal in the US, maybe those countries can be of use after all. Better not get our agents in legal trouble. What countries are those anyways? Are they US allies in the fight against terror and for a free and democratic world, like Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and Columbia or rather evil countries like Venezuela and France?
For those of us who disagree, there is a movement called anoNet that created a seperate internet. In early 2005, a few people fed up with the way the Internet was heading, began in earnest to create a large wide area network that was secure and lived in its own space. On this new network anyone would be free to do as they saw fit - roam about, host services, or just be social without fear of being monitored or even worse censored. The first step to bring this network to fruition was to encrypt the information that normally travels across the Internet. anoNet is a full IP network with many users, an IRC network, wiki, SILC, email, web, PGP, and much much more. For more information: http://www.anonet.org/ or http://anonetnfo.brinkster.net/
It will not be long until they are doing what they were attacking google and others for doing.
Remember when google and others attacked publically by the usa for following Chinese laws?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
So, who else read the summary of this and immiediatly went to go download a Freenet client?
Was that supposed to be sarcastic? Because if not, a visit to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_City/ will help.
Do not mark in this space. For official office use only.
When you design a system, you don't usually develop every single piece inside the end result product.
Especially large complex pieces are projects in and of themselves which get folded in after they are mature.
Thus, in order for The New Rome to be built without imploding in on itself beforehand, TNR must assemble the US module outside the controlling elements.
Only once the adapted US has matured to embody the necessary functionality will it become associated with the intentions of its true developer.
//de ~ 9cimi
In the process of helping another country violate our laws, OUR law enforcement gets to violate our laws.
Obvious.
Don't know why they didn't think of this before - outside of the known use of the Echelon system by each country that is a part of it to allow other countries to spy on their citizens and share the info. The NSA doesn't spy on us (well, supposedly they didn't USED to!), they just let Britain do it and tell them about it.
They just extended the principle with this treaty.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Lookie here: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/0 8/04/055227
"From the article: '...researchers found, for instance, that "judicial nominations" have consumed steadily more Congressional attention between 1997 and 2004. "
As they say, this too, shall pass.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Can anyone provide a list?
Maybe the admistration has fired one into their own foot.
Surely there is some law that President Bush or his gang has violated in one of the 40-some countries that are apparently apart of this "Internet Treaty".
Finally we can now have the FBI investigate Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and friends.
-CF
There is already a deportation treaty between the UK and the US (well actually only the UK has ratified it so far and our moronic government did not put in a "only effective when both parties have ratified it" clause) with similar effects. Recently three UK bankers were deported to Texas for activities which took place entirely in the UK but which involved a US firm (Enron). Now as I understand it their actions (if true) were illegal under UK law but this was not important or at all relevant to the deportation case. This strikes me as the most serious case of loss of sovreignty that I've ever heard of: UK citizens being taken to a foreign court and being prosecuted for alleged crimes committed entirely in the UK. It seems that this treaty will only increase such cases.
For some reason your link lead me a a page saying start an article. It apears to be the same as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_citybut took me to this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_City/... Ahh i see now, it was the trailing /slash.
Any ways, it wasn't sarcasm, it was pure ignorance. Maybe because the CIA factbook i usualy reference doesn't list it as a country. This is fascinating.
I always though the vatican was just some religous camp who played too much into politics and peoples lives.
Not for long, I think. In fact, the whole post-9/11 draconian government thing is rapidly dying in the UK, Tony Blair just doesn't realise it yet (or at least doesn't admit to realising it in public).
Yes, there was the recent case of three banking executives who were transferred to the US under dubious circumstances. However, that caused a huge political storm, because the "anti-terror" legislation was clearly being used for something that had nothing to do with safeguarding the land from terrorists. In this case, I suspect that either the US will ratify the treaty and agree the reverse as well very soon, or the UK government will be forced to pull out.
It's the same story elsewhere. Just this week, Walter Wolfgang, the long-standing Labour party member removed by heavies from last year's party conference for daring to heckle Jack Straw over the war on Iraq and then denied re-entry under anti-terror laws(!), was elected by the party membership to their national governing body. Not only does he get to speak at the next conference as a result, it seems he's guaranteed the chance to do so from the same platform as Blair et al.
ID cards and the National Identity Register... Ah, yes, New Labour's greatest threat. Except, of course, that even those people who would like to be involved with it as a lucrative business opportunity are openly questioning whether the government's scheme can even be implemented, never mind bring the claimed benefits. Both the significant opposition parties in England oppose the scheme. The Information Commissioner (our quasi-independent guardian of data protection and freedom of information issues) has issued some of his most damning comments ever on the subject, and ruled against the government several times on information disclosure issues. The timetables are obviously slipping badly, but no-one will admit how badly. The costs are huge, but no-one will disclose how huge. Sooner or later, the whole illusory stack of cards is going to collapse, and all Tony Blair's big "it's be a centrepiece in our next election manifesto" rhetoric is doing is digging his successor's grave early.
Likewise, a bill described as "Blair's (latest) enabling act" because of its attempt to reduce Parliament to pretty much a rubber stamp was quietly all but dropped a few weeks ago.
The government has been ruled against yet again in the past few days over the whole restraining order/detention without trial thing. This is one of those awkward issues: it's a good bet that a high proportion of the people subject to restraining orders really are nasty bits of work, but I think the principle of freedom from arbitrary detention transcends the importance of removing some liberties from a small number of individuals who may or may not pose some level of threat. It would be far better, if the government really has enough good intelligence to believe these people pose a current threat to our security, that the government should bring charges against them in a suitable court of law and make its case properly. In any case, one of the most senior judges in our land has now said outright that if the Home Secretary wants to impose this sort of thing, he's had ample time to consult Parliament since some of these suspects came to light, and therefore he can't just award himself new powers without scrutiny to do as he sees fit. (This on top of one of the most damning judgements in recent legal history from the High Court during the previous round of the case, which pulled few punches as far as telling the government it was way out of line.)
Personally, I increasingly think this is Gordon Brown setting Tony Blair up to take the fall for al
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I live in Singapore
...), I see more people hacking loogies out onto the footpath on any day than any other place I've *ever* lived. You'll be walking along and some dude right in front of you just goes, "haaaaawwwk! ptuh!" (sucking back and firing sounds)
:)
Although there are apparently stiff penalties for spitting (and littering, and
Ticks me off, I wish they would enforce that one
Not many know it that Vatican City is a country.s /vt.html
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
They even have their own country code.
http://www.va/
Also, I'm a bit surprised no one has tried bringing up the Indian nations in America. America, the swiss cheese country, as I could call it.
To get back on topic, like I said, make Jerusalem it's own country. Let the people physically residing in it make it's own laws. Freedom of religion, of which acts do no harm, would be very important.
so defeat their efforts to track you posting anonymously from wireless access points using this mac address changer. Remember kids, when privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have complete privacy.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
I live in michigan and my city still has a no spitting law on the books.. up to 100$ or 30 days. When the law was written in the early 1900's there were huge problems with TB... most cities then were still dealing with raw sewage in the streets as a "bad thing" and TB can really be caught THAT easily, by wiping the spit off your shoe. It's sometimes hard to believe all the little "civilities" that we "just don't do" we take for granted in the USA.
'The treaty requires that the U.S. government help enforce other countries' 'cybercrime' laws--even if the act being prosecuted is not illegal in the United States.
No shit, Sherlock! The treaty may be evil. It may suck ass. But that's what a treaty is. When two states sign a treaty they give up a bit of their sovereignty. Read up on what a treaty is at Wikipedia. Or better yet read the US Constitution. You'll be a leg up on the Bush administration who'd rather wipe their collective asses with it.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I think Anomymizer.com is an American company. Any chance that they could get in trouble for this? http://www.anonymizer.com/consumer/media/press_rel eases/03312006.html
Please read that article involving what they are doing in China.
It's already being done with terrorism (shipping people around the world to be tortured), this looks like an "excellent" way to do virtually the same thing a bit more discreetly, and for a whole new category of people.
Oh wait, this law was written by corporations? Nevermind.
Politicus
In other words you retain your right to free speech as long as the executive wants you to have it.
So, now the Pirate Bay can be locked up for breaking U.S. copyright law, but we can claim Swedish law as a defense? Time to start sending my own hillarious kiss-off letters to Time-Warner Music.
One might ask the same about birds. What ARE birds? We just don't know.
So one by one, we're losing those freedoms. Eventually, 'they' won't hate us any more! Brilliant!
You must think in Russian.
Well, IANAL, but I imagine that as long as the treaty allows for exceptions (and note that the treaty also explicitly allows for exceptions in the case of political offenses), we could argue before the courts that the Constitution should take precendence over the treaty.
Not quite, the constitution, as far as I understand, still supersedes all treaties. Thus, "may refuse" turns into "must refuse", since otherwise the actions of th executive are still unlawful.
...
...
Right?
My new blog
Phfft.
Too bad there are few places you can go to to escape this 'melding' of the worlds governments to the least common denominator.
Between things like this and the WTO, a independent country will no longer h ave any sovereign rights at all.
And before you say anything about being hypocritical, i don't care who's law 'wins', Its wrong. just wrong, even if its mine.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You forget, that most ( if not all ) of the continent has been claimed by other countries around the world
Sure enforcement is sort of hard, but the law itself is still there.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Now that "you have nothing to hide, so why do you care that Bush is tapping your phone" argument is looking pretty masochistic. Do you have nothing to hide from some some foreign government shipping your overseas relatives to concentration camps? Or just a foreign government whose leader's brother is searching for bank accounts to crack?
Does anyone believe that your personal rights have any value to the US government when it invokes "essential interests" to protect some US jurisdiction from this treaty? Or just the "essential interests" in keeping Enron's and Halliburton's books closed from foreign auditors?
--
make install -not war
"Questions raised by Internet crime and international speech [...] already vex the developed world, and they're currently being handled without any comprehensive international framework in place to deal with them.
The Convention at least gives us a place to start."
So we haven't even figured out basic answers to the first problems of international Internet "crimes" at the local level, so we're enforcing those broken laws in a global framework on billions of people. France and Germany are part of the EU, relatively small and consistent in their culture (compared to "Europe + America"), and even share an open border. Their approach apparently works for their local billing lawyers, even if not for their people. Based on that basic failure, we're adopting the same framework for everyone.
That's not "a place to start". That's "a bad place to end up".
--
make install -not war
INAL, but treaties are authroized in the constitution, but most of our rights are secured in the amendments. Legally, the core constitution takes more votes to change than the bill of rights, and trumps it.
That means that if a foriegn country wishes to screw over our free speech rights, and the US government agrees with them - then the constitution becomes irrelavent.
So other countries actually want us to do this and we're not acting of Manifest Destiny?
That's utterly ludicrous, given that at least a quarter of the U.S. prison population is there for political crimes.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
The problem is that the people there don't seem to want peace. They want power and grandstanding and "fighting back" and such.
It's pathetic, really.
http://outcampaign.org/
Viva La Revolution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (dam lameness filter...)
It isn't that they want to grandstand and display power, It is that they have to. The problem in this area isn't a matter of land or who controls the land, it is about religion and the intertwining of them.
in order for one to exist, it has to acknowledge the other was there but it evolved into what they see today(read Muslim). For the other, in order to exist, it has to acknowledge that the others are misguided people worshiping a false profit (read Jews). Now, in faith, the idea of letting another group spout inaccuracies about your religion is a western idea. The idea of letting people be in their relation ship with a deity is a relatively new one that still has problems.
The live and let live ideas came from leaps that are generations ahead of the mental capacity the typical person in that area has developed. It stems from the branching of major religions into sects that are differing on smaller levels. Baptist vs Methodist vs Lutheran, vs catholic vs whatever has given the western worlds the ability to dismiss minor issues which makes dismissing the major one easier. Just look at how they fight amongst differing groups in Islam. Even if we removed any and all non believers from that area, isolated it and stopped all contact with them, they will still have a problem because the existence of people who doesn't live up to their beliefs discredits their beliefs.
Something to think about. All the three Judeo-Christian religions acknowledge the others but place some kind of flaw in thier thinking. First there were the Jews, then a Jew named Jesus (his common modern name) fulfilled some prophecies and was thought of by some as the son of god or the manifestation of god in living form who was killed and came back to life (the trinity). Then several hundred (600 i think) years later, Mohamed came around teaching the Christian principles and telling the stories of the Jews and Jesus. But with Mohammed, the story continued because he didn't have any scrolls or bible for lack of a better term so they started writing the stuff down. Now during this writing down, it was determined to be a good idea to include fundamental rules or laws of life that if followed, made an ideal living situation (for the time) and protected the villages. This isn't something new to Islam, it was just used differently then with other religions.
So, you see. You can equate the Middle East Muslims with the way the Christians hated the Jews for a period of time. The difference is the amount of exposure and the types of interactions. The Muslims, Christians and Jewish people have a long history of fighting and war over religious territory, religious items and their meanings according to their religions. But the most problematic issue is when giving concessions to one religion, it is basically weakening the others. The more you say one is right, unless it is something they already agree on, the more you're saying something else is wrong.
So, you see. You can equate the middle east muslims with the way the christians hated the jews for a period of time. The difference is the amoumt of exposure and the types of interactions. The muslims, christians and jewish people have a long history of fighting and war over religious territory, religious items and thier meanings acording to thier religions. But the most problematic issue is when giving concesions to one religion, it is basicly weakening the others. The more you say one is right, unless it is something they already agree on, the more your saying something else is wrong.
And yes, It is pathetic, really.
Yes, it will get you labeled! We wore many labels in the 60's and 70's but we stood up, shouted from every venue we could.
/. Women no longer die from back alley abortions, We ended segregation. We marched, we even laid down our lives. We were called traitors, but we recognized wrong and fought for right.
We stopped a war. oh! hell! I've posted this a dozen times on
We did not have the tools you have now. We did not have access to the Freedom of Information Act. We did not have access to instant communications world wide.
You 'write' the programs (code),the software these governments use. They don't create it..you do! Most of them have no clue until you give them the tools to subvert the principles they take away from 'the people',via the stealth methods that the general public is totally unaware of.
Remember T. Square and the ingenuity the common people and students used (old fashioned fax machines) to get the TRUTH out to the world.
The power to replace the checks and balances lays in your hands. Open Source isn't under govt. control. Look how the US govt. fought PGP but they didn't kill it.
I've confesssed in this forum before, to being a 'real' old hippy, (and again, I reiterate: we DID support OUR troops..just not an ilegal war) and I can't do what you all can do. I can only keep believing that you all hold the future of this planet and it's survival (politically and ecologically)in your hands now. I shudder with fear that apathy and greed have over powered 'rightous indignation, and outrage'!
O.K., I'll go back to lurking and keep on hopeing Right is Might and some of you are, indeed, out-thinking and taking back the rights of the people with the same slealth they have used to strip us of our ability to utilize those check and balances we have already lost.
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It simply wastes your time and truely annoys the pig"
Sorry citizen, but you've forced me to report you. Please put your hands in the yellow circles and await an enforcement action.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.