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Google to Give Data To Brazilian Court
Edu writes to mention a Washington Post article about Google's olive branch to the Brazilian courts. Despite previously refusing to reveal search information to the U.S. government, the company has announced they'll be releasing information on hate groups to the Brazilian courts. The move is intended to allow the Brazilian government to identify users associated with homophobic and racist groups. From the article: "Orkut pulls objectionable words and pictures from user sites, but Google stores content it feels could be useful in a lawsuit. Orkut is especially popular in Brazil, which accounts for 75 percent of its 17 million users. Legal and privacy experts said that Google had no choice but to comply with the court order. 'From the law enforcement perspective, if the records are in the possession of the business, the business can be compelled to produce them,' said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center."
...note that this is about Orkut, not search results.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Show the world that Big Brother, Fascism and Censorship know no Left/Right wing ideology!
This is completly different than what the US gov't did. In this case it was a court order that Google was compelled to fulfil. What happened in the U.S. was the government asked google to hand over records, without mentioning the purpose.
Google's habit of logging EVERYTHING is starting to get a bit scary. EVERYTHING that a person has EVER done with ANY of Google's services has been warehoused and is subject to subpoena.
That may be true of a typical business, but Google is not a typical business. Google can ignore the edicts of any government except America and China. What is Brazil going to do, block all national traffic to Google's websites? I'd love to see them get re-elected after pulling that little stunt.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Of course they are, they're a business. If we don't like it, and I don't, vote with your dollar and don't use googles services.
By "compelled to produce," the article is talking about Google obeying a court order. If a court has jurisdiction over a company, it doesn't matter where the information is -- the company has to obey that order or face the consequences (or try to convince the court the order is invalid somehow).
The article summary is horribly misleading (even more so than normal): this is nothing like Google refusing to give the US government access to search info. There was no court order to do so (think subpoena), and so Google told them to take a hike. IIRC, even at that time Google specifically stated that if there had been a lawful court order, it would have complied.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
"Don't be Evil" was supposed to be the motto of the company. When they stood up to the Bush administration in court and defended it's user searches, I applauded them. Not because they were defending the search data, not because they were defending the people that made the searches, but rather because they were defending the end users *right* to make the search in the first place. Yet, in past months, my view of Google has started to change. Headlines like the one in which their CEO defended their policy of storing search terms (presumably for data mining operations and targeted marketing), and then this event in which they are going to turn over the data to a foreign government. I'm not defending the bad guys in any way here, but what I am saying is that there is going to come a day in the not so distant future in which the searches that you did ten years ago can be brought into question. Who knows? Maybe at somepoint some whacked law maker will make a twinkie illegal, and those searches that you made so that you could distill your own will be akin to taking a walk on the Dark Side. Philip Zimmermann said it best: "If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy."
However, Google was in the wrong for collecting identifying information in the first place. That is where my gripe is. They should be using technical measures to filter out identifying information before it reaches their database. That might include hashing IP addresses for instance so that equality comparisons can be made - but the original IP address rendered unobtainable.
I don't think there's a court in the world that would say "oh, your business shut down? Guess we can't get that info then!"
In all likelyhood, that act would serve to further expedite the siezure of their assets and possibly charges of obstruction of justice against workers. After all, they wouldn't refuse to help the nice policemen unless they had something to hide, right?
I'd love to see them get re-elected after pulling that little stunt.
Yes, let us remember that it's a presidential election year in Brazil, and anything goes, especially for companies interested in little advantages. Plus, Google was being scalded alive by the local media. And, like I heard once: "a polemical headline exists as a bargain for a even more polemical request".
I was thinking about this general issue last night and realized the great irony that Brazil and "enlightened" Europe would have to outlaw a lot of South Park episodes because they would offend the sensibilities of some group, typically homosexuals. I'm entirely unimpressed with these countries and their "progressiveness" that says that throwing around human sexuality is ok, but saying offensive things is not.
Oh don't even start that bullshit about majorities versus minorities. The minorities are just as bad as the majorities. I've met just as many gays that instantly assume I'm going to want to stone them to death because I'm technically a fundamentalist, as I have met pseudo-Christians who would probably join a mob to stone them. I'm an asshole, they're an asshole. EVERYONE'S AN ASSHOLE on these issues at some point!
You know what breeds hate and resentment? Empowering people to turn subjective feelings into a legal weapon. You instantly empower a hate group the moment you ban it. I bet the KKK would grow 50-100% every year if it were outlawed. It's just a way for societies to brush their issues under the national carpet and pretend that all is well.
Well guess what?! It isn't! All manner of bigotry is rampant around the world and the force of law is not going to change hearts. Law has been used to smooth these things over time and again in the past and it **always** fails. The only thing that changes bigotry into love is a spiritual rebirth and that is something that cannot be legislated.
"That way the people of Brazil would clearly know what the government is doing"
People of Brazil (including me) know exactly what the government is doing. It is going after people that are going beyond the "free speech" concept and getting into the "conspiracy to commit crime" realm. And it is not only about hate speech (that, in a certain extent, along with racism, is a crime in Brazil) but also members of criminal organizations ("traficantes") gloating about real world crimes like drug trafficking, weapon smuggling, etc.
This is not the government subpoena'ing for data of all users or random users, but users that broke the law in one way or another. There is probable cause, judicial oversight and a clear description of what is being searched.
(btw, as it is evident by some previous silly mistakes, english is not my first language)
Jurisdiction isn't based on the quality of the legal system.
Unfortunately, though, you are right about the legal system in under-developed countries having a negative impact on investment: a company would rather operate somewhere there is danger of physical violence but can count on the legal system to be fair and consistent (enforce contracts, protect property rights, etc. - think Iraq at the moment) than to operate in a country that might be peaceful but where the legal system is arbitrary and can change at the whim of the ruler (such as most African nations).
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
You hate coins?
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
Actually, the United States is not a member to any international, multilateral, or bilateral treaties on the recognition of foreign judgments (it is on recognition of arbitral awards - the Geneva Convention). That isn't to say you can't enforce foreign awards, but it will be based upon domestic law and not treaty law. See http://travel.state.gov/law/info/judicial/judicial _691.html/. What the domestic law is, I am not sure and don't have time to research.
At least according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil#Government_and _Politics, Brazil is a democracy. This is a choice the people of Brazil made about how they choose to run their society, so not quite the same as the situation in China where the political system raises questions--at least in my mind--about how more than a small set of the population feels about it.
I wouldn't be the least surprised to find out that, if a data cable crosses through a country's territory, that country can follow its own laws on whether or not it can tap the cable, unless its signed a treaty to the contrary. By analogy, it should also be able to follow its own laws on whether to tap the contents of disks located within its jurisdiction. If true, Europeans, for example, may wish to compare U.S. to European privacy laws and think about where the companies they use store their data.
There is de facto legitimization of hacking in some countries, just as there's de facto legitimization of other activities that neighboring countries might consider crimes or civilly punishable activities. For example, a U.S. company that exceeds the Kyoto protocol's emission caps is not liable, nor can the U.S. apply its laws regarding nuclear proliferation to A. Q. Kahn, despite the fact that both activities affect neighboring countries. Whether the activity is punishable in the neighbor country depends on whether there are extradition treaties, "special rendition"-type activities, and the vagaries of international law.
As for the issue some other posters have raised of Google logging all this stuff, one answer is to use one of Google's competitors, avoid Gmail (or any other web-based mail, for that matter), and use anonymizer services when running searches.
Yes, I refuse to treat them all as equal. Some clearly have more value than others. Especially those pennies. You know how they are.
But google is not it. Seriously, why would anybody put any corporation up on a pedestal?
Google will do what's best for google. End of story. If that means digging in their heels because a legal request is over reaching and would comprimise some aspect of their operations, so be it. If, in another case, it means they hand over the data, that's fair too.
You want a hero? Go hug a firefighter, or a police officer. Or a doctor, or a vet. Not a corporation.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
http://www.coderoshi.com/
Despite previously refusing to reveal search information to the U.S. government, the company has announced they'll be releasing information on hate groups to the Brazilian courts.
This is nothing like the situation in the United States. Just looking at the first paragraph of TFA, we get "Google Inc. ... said yesterday that it was complying with a Brazilian court's orders to turn over data ..." In the US, the data was asked for, and Google said no. In Brazil, the court is forcing them. Yes, Google's going along with a court order, but if there hadn't been such an order, they wouldn't have given the data, just like they didn't hand it over in the US.
Of course, a lot of people will say, "Well, they shouldn't be collecting it!" To me, if you're using the service, you agree to the ToS, and those records are part of how Google operates. If you don't like it, either ensure your anonymity by taking the appropiate measures or use a different service... like MSN. Because we all know that they don't record the same data.
How can any of you seriously expect Google to take a stand and not turn over information about a guy trading child porn on Orkut?
This is not some questionable case where the person is a political dissident, or something. They have records of this person's account, trading child porn. They want to know who he is.
Do you honestly think there is any sane way to take a stand on this issue and not look like a complete monster?
If they don't turn over the information, people will say they are protecting child molesters.
If they do turn over the information, people will say they are violating people's privacy.
I maintain it'd have been much easier to get this information by having someone actually add the suspect as a friend on orkut and then communicating with them to get their personal information - after a court order so its not entrapment. So the logs that Brazilian law enforcement wants are very limited but the point was this could have been avoided all together.
Google needs to take a good long look at what information it collects and how it matches up your google account information to your google searches and how long it retains copies of your gmail. Don't be Evil is nice and all but the potential for massive damage because of a privacy breach is too great. Since they collect the information and you supply it I feel you have a right to see exactly what they collect at least. That will probably change the usage patterns of concerned users but most people don't care so their data would still have value.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
This is just another reason to behave on the web as if everyone knows who you are and what you are doing. As long as companies like Google, your ISP, and thousands of other players, are logging your login ids and search habits via cookies, or your IP address, governments have few barriers to finding out who you are. So while there are techniques that the technically knowledgeable can use to cover some of their tracks, unless you have a price on your head, it's ultimately not worth the effort. Sometimes the best way to hide something is to place it in plain sight. The real solution to problems like this is not technical, but socio-political.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
This reminds me of the content of Orkut and why I stopped using it ages ago.
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
As a fellow Brazilian, the parent post sums up precisely what's going on here.
This is not about Google's search logged information. This is about information posted by users at Orkut, which are meant to be visible to all Orkut's users. The summary is terribly misleading.
And what, may I ask, constitutes a inferior legal system. Sure there are lots of things that I consider inferior in the US legal system, and I am sure that some of those points are what you would consider superior. People think diferent, even if you consider a single country people will disagree on what is fair and what is not.
People in diferent coutries have different morals, some people believe that the laws should reflect their religions, other takes pride in making their government non-religious. The core of this question is that your morals are different from mine, they may even be similar in some aspects but they are different so you can't judge how good is a legal system for me based on your morals.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
So your example is easy to deal with. While a Brazilian court may or may not under Brazilian law have subject matter jurisdiction over the specific records on your hard drive, if you go to Brazil with that laptop then all bets are off and jurisdiction is established.
Want to hear the real rub? If you are in an airplane flying over a particular country (or even state in the USA) then they have personal jurisdiction over you.
You're right - shouldn't have assumed it was treaty based. In fact, it appears to be strictly common law, based on the principle of comity. See, e.g., Hilton v. Guyot, 159 US 113, 40 L ed 95, 16 S Ct 139 (1895) (enforcing on the basis of comity, but only where there is reciprocity).
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
By not using Google's services you affect their income. Whatever mechanism it is Google uses to make money (I don't actually know), they have to have people using their services. Unless they've found some incredible business model which requires they only provide services and don't have anyone partaking, in which case I want in now.
This is what happens when Political Correctness becomes a matter of law.
Political Correctness is nothing more than totalitarianism in the world of ideas. What's worse is that it is almost transparently so, making its presence in a supposedly free society all the more puzzling and maddening. Those who promote it are quite simply intellectually bankrupt.
The best discription of political correctness I know of comes from Theodore Dalyrimple:
"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
This is where salt comes in and makes hash tables worthless.
-- dbg
According to Google's Press Release:
So they are activelly building an R&D center in Brazil, which will be Google's HQ in Latin America. Businesswise, they have a lot to loose by not complying with a cuort order...
Just my R$0,02.
Uncopyrightable: The longest word you can write without repeating a letter.
You are a misanthrope.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
1) Swap "Brazil" to "China" or "United States" and check if what you just said still makes sense. I mean, is the "unplug and f*** you all" policy still valid? Does Google unplugged the chinese search engine when the government asked them to censor "some" pages? I don't think so...
2) They *are* protecting the users. At least, the inoccent ones. What do you prefer: Google giving info about criminals to the government, or Google giving the pedophiles the chance to hide in the "privacy" shield?
ilex paraguariensis for all
Even with a salt.. the search is just over a space of 2^32 .. and thats fairly small.. a matter of few minutes on a fast computer. This could be drastically reduced
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
People in diferent coutries have different morals, some people believe that the laws should reflect their religions, other takes pride in making their government non-religious. The core of this question is that your morals are different from mine, they may even be similar in some aspects but they are different so you can't judge how good is a legal system for me based on your morals.
That's all well and good, and foreigners setting up shop in another country certainly must "do as the Romans do."
However, the nature of electronic communication means the data needs to be copied physically to the other country to be viewable. The idea of making it suddenly subject to any law in any country is ludicrous.
I believe we are entering the end of the "Age of Anonymity".
/were/ anonymous on the 'net - anyone with sufficient interest and motiviation can eventually track someone down.
It has always been known, at least among the geeks, that we never really
But for the last 10 or more years it really hasn't been an issue. Online users have been largely "under the radar" in terms of society, commerce, and justice, unless you really went out of your way to draw attention to yourself.
But now that the Internet has become "mainstream", it has attracted the eye of government, businesses, everyone. The Internet, long a tool to "find out information about "stuff", has now become an excellent tool to "find out stuff about _people_".
I think we are on the cusp of a global realization that just taking out a "handle" to use on the internet does not constitute anonymity. It doesn't matter anymore how "careful" you are about what you choose to reveal about yourself online anymore - the very act of being online is going to become like a billion-watt beam of light shooting out of the roof of your house, or wherever you happen to be when you are connected.
Oh, there will continue to be lots of attempts to obscure where you are connecting from, Tor, etc., but ultimately, you have to have an address on the 'net. That address is where you are. And that address can be found, otherwise you couldn't receive any data there.
But here's why all those attempts will fail: All the people who control the data don't care about you. The people who's web sites you visit, the people who own the pipes that the data flows over, they don't care about you. And they will give up the information about you just as fast as they think their's a buck in it for them to do so, or penalties if they do not.
These few early cases of Google, Yahoo, etc. handing over data being used to try people in court are just the first few drops of rain in what is going to become a downpour. Soon it will be obvious to all that anything and everything you do on a computer will, though accident or intent, be visible to anyone.
The age of anonymity is over.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Most hate speech laws in europe no longer require any incitement to violence or similar act to constitute a criminal act - merely expressing derision towards whatever group the left has given protected status for the moment.(In the case of Sweden, the threshold is the infinitely elastic "disrespect" (religious, sexual, ethnic, racial, whatever).
My personal view of freedom of speech is based on the dual value of non-violent politics and reciprocity. Hence, I see no real principle-based problem in denying speech rights to groups who are themselves opposed to free speech. (I.e. why allow them to speak out when they would throw you in jail if they were in power?)
However, in practice, giving politicians the power to ban those who annoy them at will has a tendency of ending badly, with the politicians giving in to temptation. In practice, this means nazis get banned but communists get a pass, despite both being quite ready to seize power by force and silencing all opposition.
Finally - Free speech is valuable and a major civilizational achievement because it is at its core a cease-fire treaty between political actors not to use the power of the state (when in power) to silence minority opinions using force. In return, political minorites pledge not to use force if they grow into a majority, and to refrain from insurrection and subversion.
Sadly, this is often forgotten, especially by fanatical moralists.
Google WILL BE North Central Positronics
Choice 1: Stop keeping data on Brazilians
Choice 2: Change their unofficial slogan to
"Do no evil*
*except where required by law."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
US Government demanded information from Google, government had no legal right/autority to such information
Here the brazilian courts demanded the information, they have the legal right and powers to demand such information in persuit of information in regards to a ongoing case. Google had no choice but to hand over the information or close up shop in Brazil and warn all it's employee's never to go there again(or to any country that might extridite them there), even for a vacation
If the US courts had demanded that information from google it would have had no choice but to hand it over (once they had used up all other legal alternatives, aka appeals/supreme court) if they had not they would have faced doing the same they would have faced in Brazil for non compliance
Refusing to comply with the demands of a countrys bureaucracy is one thing, refusing to comply with the demands of a countrys judiciary is something else altogether, first can cause you some difficulties (lost contracts, audits from hell so forth) latter lands you in jail.
This is undeniably off-topic, but I love your use of "Google" and "mainframe" in the same sentence :-)
Any sufficiently self-referential snowcloned
Just got back from a week of vacation. Still chargin' mah lazer :)
I'm sure it's much too late for Google to do this, but there's a huge vacuum in the market for a new company to offer similar services but with strong privacy protections. To be worth a flip, such services would need to use technological means to secure users' privacy; strong policy alone is insufficient.
Data warehousing has obvious benefits to me as a user. I like having my mail archive on a server where it's accessible from anywhere. I like having personalized search results, and having personalized plugins on my homepage. I don't like neo-Nazis, but to me, the threat of the loss of speech and privacy rights is far more dangerous than the harm that can be caused by those taking advantage of same for nefarious ends.
I'd like to see EFF (or some similar organization) sponsor a coding contest for creating strong privacy systems within a personalized data warehousing environment. I could see building blocks in such a system consisting of encrypted data, client-side only keys, and encrypted keys or hashes maintaining the links between user accounts and their data.
The problem that needs solving is that any company which maintains and can access user data on its servers may at some time be compelled to divulge such data at the request of a government. By storing the data in the clear, the company may well have sacrificed its prerogative to differentiate between "good" and "evil" government requests. On the other hand, a company cannot divulge data that it cannot access. It could forward a subpoena or similar instrument to an anonymous user on behalf of a government, but a truly secure system would not allow it to inspect, cross-reference or mine the data without the user's knowlege and consent.
Who might be up to such a challenge?
Pi Ran Out
One way is "Google extends olive branch". Another way would be "after some arm-twisting, Google finally gave up".
It is aaall spinning, dudes and dudettes, it is aaaall about spinning.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Of course, this is ignoring the fact that "promoting hate" should not be a crime in the country Google hails from.
While Google is a US company they still operate in Brazil and as such they need to obey Brazilian law, just as they, MS, and Yahoo do in China. I may not like it but if they don't want to follow the rules then they don't need to be there. Or they can work to change the laws. As for "promoting hate", it depends on how it is being promoted as to whether it should be legal or not. Simply speaking out or nonviolently demontrating shouldn't be illegal, and if it were then that law is unconstitutional. Inciting violence, yes should be illegal. I recall years ago, in the 1980s 0r '90s, groups of neonazis, skinheads, and/or other hate groups were being barred from having a march in I believe it was Skokie, IL and the ACLU defended their right, I do myself. I may disagree with what someone says but I'll defend their right to say it nonviolently. You don't counter hatred with laws you counter it with reason, or making hate speech illegal but with more speech.
FalconShould there be a Law?
This is a choice the people of Brazil made about how they choose to run their society
Democracy does not equal freedom. Freedom is when a society recognizes that some things are none of its business. Democracy is about what to do with everything else.
While I do suppose I know what the current gov. is doing and where it is heading to, I seriously doubt if the mainstream media does know and it dares to announce it in the case it knows about. Ah, yes it sounds like conspiracy theory, but then, the theory is a thousand times brighter than our future. I foresse dark times ahead. Those silly fools complaining about the American Imperialism and cheerfully branding their PC words. Maybe Vader was not so evil after all.
Iraq has a functional legal system?
Just search Google News for 'Iraqi Judges'
The first article:
"These judges drive to work every day knowing there is a strong possibility they will not get to court without an assassination attempt. In the past three years, 47 judges have been killed. Their families are not safe when they leave their homes to shop, their children are not safe when they leave home to go to school, and they do not leave their homes after 6 p.m. because of roaming death squads."
That article was written Sept, 04, 2006 and doesn't even begin to discuss the legal chaos that Iraq was and still is in as a result of the United States invasion. Who do you think was busy protecting property rights and enforcing contracts while people were looting the country? Was it the police? Saddam's former Judiciary? It sure as hell wasn't the U.S. Army.
You basically have things backwards. It is much better to work in a (semi)peaceful country with an arbitrary legal system than to work in a country with roving death squads. Politicians can be bribed, roving death squads... not so much.
This could be one of the reasons Brazil is a top economy in South America.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
without permission. You may get sued for assault.
Freedom is when a society recognizes that some things are none of its business
Who gets to decide which things are none of society's business, and what makes that decision legitimate?
Who gets to decide which things are none of society's business, and what makes that decision legitimate?
Well, in the US there is a process for doing that.
But really it is the individual who gets to decide what is their right, which is what sometimes leads to conflict. The two thirds majority requirement is an implicit understanding that some things are important enough that even if just a third of the population disagrees strongly enough, then they can cause an awful lot of trouble if they are well motivated.
Individuals can be oppressed, so too can minorities, but if at least a third of the population believes in something very strongly then it is very hard for the remaining 2/3s to impose their will without some level of ongoing violence.
So who gets to decide? I do.
Maybe after this post I should consider applying for political asylum in the US or maybe Switzerland...
Do you live in Brazil now? In a few years I'm hoping to go to Brazil, as part of a study abroad program for a year. Before I can go though I need to take two years of Portugese and I don't know when I'll be able to start taking it, hopefully next year but I'm not sure. Switzerland? My brother-in-law was talking about buying an inn and starting a Bed and Breakfast there. Myself, I'd rather go to either, Corsica, Italy, or Portugal.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Actually, the United States is not a member to any international, multilateral, or bilateral treaties on the recognition of foreign judgments (it is on recognition of arbitral awards - the Geneva Convention). That isn't to say you can't enforce foreign awards, but it will be based upon domestic law and not treaty law. See http://travel.state.gov/law/info/judicial/judicial _691.html/ [state.gov]. What the domestic law is, I am not sure and don't have time to research.
It may not be the law you're thinking of but foreign entities can use the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 to sue US companies in US courts for actions taken in other countries. There are now or were recently lawsuits filed in the US based on the act against Chevron, Coca Cola, and Exxon amoung others.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Just to clarify, I am not stating that. I believe that if google had not a branch in Brazil it could simply raise his middle finger to the brazilian govern, since it is not his business, in the same way that I believe that the american government should not be exporting his "let's make the big corporations happy" laws to other countries.
But this is not the case, google has an office in Brazil and by doing that he, or at least this branch, has to apply to brazilian law. The same happens to China censorship.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
And if original texts do turn up at a later date, translations are often not corrected out of fear of shocking the readership with a more accurate (but unexpected) rendering. And that's even without counting deliberate forgeries.
Ah but even if "original texts" are found the church can turn around and call them blasphemous as the Vatican did with the Nag Hammadi texts. If anything threatens their grasp they will call it blasphemous.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Your first example, amending the Constitution, is an example of a democratic process: the Bill of Rights gains its legitimacy from a majority, or supermajority, of the electorate.
I have trouble buying the assertion that an individual can make the decision for situations where "a society recognizes that some things are none of its business" (emphasis added). I believe a society requires at least two individuals. Under the process as you've expressed it, those two individuals can radically disagree, yet you've said "society" recognizes that some things are none of its business.
I suggest that the recognition you want requires some enforcement mechanism to make it apply to society as a whole. Otherwise, you as an individual might decide one way, but the individuals in the Secret Police might decide the other, leaving you with very little freedom in reality. So the question becomes how much of society you want to involve in that decision. A democratic process, such as the one you mentioned, involves enough of the population to give it some legitimacy. It's tough to come up with a non-democratic process that does the same. So maybe democracy and freedom are not the same, but they're intimately related.
An inferior legal system is one that among other things doesn't respect freedom of speech, religion and private property. And people that agree with this lack of respect in their basics rights have indeed lower morals compared to people that do.
I'm brazilian, and I'm ashamed of the stupid laws, congressmen, and judges we have. The racism law in Brazil is a blatant proof that the legal system is contradictory, and therefore inferior than the American, for example.
Cheers
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
I have trouble buying the assertion that an individual can make the decision for situations where "a society recognizes that some things are none of its business" (emphasis added). I believe a society requires at least two individuals. Under the process as you've expressed it, those two individuals can radically disagree, yet you've said "society" recognizes that some things are none of its business.
You asked who decides what is society's business... not who decides for society. But either way, it all starts with the individual.
I suggest that the recognition you want requires some enforcement mechanism to make it apply to society as a whole. Otherwise, you as an individual might decide one way, but the individuals in the Secret Police might decide the other, leaving you with very little freedom in reality. So the question becomes how much of society you want to involve in that decision. A democratic process, such as the one you mentioned, involves enough of the population to give it some legitimacy. It's tough to come up with a non-democratic process that does the same. So maybe democracy and freedom are not the same, but they're intimately related.
I didn't say they weren't intimately related, but you can have a free society that is a dictatorship or monarchy or a totalitarian system that is voted into being by the people. Unbridled democracy was one of the great fears of the founders of the American Republic.
Yes, the legitamacy of laws are derived from the people, but legitimacy of legal or civil rights and freedoms is derived from inalienable or natural rights. This is the foundation of our understanding of legal rights, which work best when they coincide with the nature of our being. This is the foundation of our government, that there are certain inalienable rights inherent to our being.
Right, so let's put this in context. Here we're talking about whether or not Brazil's law allowing it to grab Google's logs is or is not consistent with freedom.
If you're going to say it's not because it violates an inalienable or natural right, I'd like to know how you arrive at that conclusion. Remember, in 1789 the "inalienable" right to liberty didn't apply to you if you happened to be a slave, and it kept not applying until 1865 or so, at which time we amended the Constitution (i.e. applied a democratic process) to make it explicit. The same situation happened with sufferage (see Amendments XV and XIX ). That suggests to me that whether or not a right is alienable or natural is up to the society that acts to enforce, or not enforce, the right. Maybe inalienable and natural rights exist somewhere as a Platonic ideal, but on the ground it's not going to do you a lot of good when the plantation master says "get to work."
Another problem with hanging your hat on inalienable or natural rights in this case is you may wind up having to justify an inalienable right to privacy. While one might exist, it doesn't seem to be in the list that, for instance, the founders of the American Republic used when they wrote the Constitution or Bill of Rights.
Yes, it is possible for a democracy to terminate itself by voting in an autocracy. Democracy isn't perfect. It's just hard to come up with good alternatives because the alternative systems tend to drift out of touch with the people over time, and then you start getting tea dumped in Boston Harbor because the people don't feel like they have a voice--remember "no taxation without representation"?
In this particular case, we have what, as far as I know, is a functioning representative democracy that has made a policy choice for itself. I tend to give that policy choice a lot of weight, at least to the extent they really are a functioning democracy. I might have chosen differently, but I don't live there and I don't know the other tradeoffs they've made.
But your history is stored forever, making sure that evenutally you will become a criminal and have the man come visit you.
Great precident we have here. Grrr
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Recently, there was an article here about a website that was trying to incite people to attack researchers using animal models. The general consensus here (if I may summarise) was that they shared responsibility for vigilante attacks, although they disclaimed it. This is a summary I agree with.
I reckon this is a very difficult issue.. should people be allowed to incite violence and hatred (be it religious or homophobic, racist, etc) under the guise of 'free-speech'? Personally I think free speech is very important in a free society, but I think there comes a point when one person exercising their right to free speech impinges on the freedoms of lots of other people.
I guess I'm saying that there are rights that are more important than freedom of speech (such as life, liberty and happiness) and that they should have precedence.
Right, so let's put this in context. Here we're talking about whether or not Brazil's law allowing it to grab Google's logs is or is not consistent with freedom.
I thought the issue presented was more related to the law that the people are accused of violating, not the law that allows the government to subpeona records. Of course governments can compel the production of evidence related to a crime by court order.
In this particular case, we have what, as far as I know, is a functioning representative democracy that has made a policy choice for itself. I tend to give that policy choice a lot of weight, at least to the extent they really are a functioning democracy.
So, you judge a law based on who wrote it rather than its substance? I haven't read the law, I don't know if it is well written or if it really infringes on freedom of speech, but I am not going to assume that it is either a good or bad law merely based on the form of government it was derived from.
Please, keep in mind that in this Brazil vs Orkut case they have chosen the most evil path. They don't want to risk losing the $$$ they get from adwords in Brazil, even if that's just a very small percentage of their total sales.
You shouldn't think in terms of the US Constitution, because the Brazilian "constitution" doesn't have any teeth. Even if there is a nominal protection for "freedom of expression" in the Brazilian constitution, it's so weak and there are so many exceptions that the only freedom of expression we, the Brazilian citizens have, is to agree with those who are more powerful than us. Some specific examples:
1) The catholic church:
They consider anything related to Jesus Christ their own trademark. They actively fight by any available means anything that could be considered derogatory to them. For instance:
-They are very active in the carnival celebrations, no costumes or decorations containing anything related to religion is allowed. There was a carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro once when one of the samba schools floats were censored by black plastic, under an injunction obtained by the church, because the theme for that parade mentioned religion.
-A televangelist preacher was prosecuted once because he touched a statue of the Virgin Mary in his TV show, to demonstrate that it was only a material image. The act of touching that statue and saying, "look, this is just a clay statue" fell under the Brazilian law that prohibits "promoting religious hatred".
-A TV ad showing soccer player Ronaldo was removed from Brazilian airwaves because he was shown with stretched arms, and the church claimed it was an image that resembled the pose that Jesus had in the cross.
2) "Apology of crime":
Anything that may be considered as a defense of criminal acts is prohibited by Brazilian law. This is specially prosecuted when artists mention drugs.
-Members of a rock band called "Planet Hemp" were arrested a couple of times, just because of the band's name.
-Any music whose lyrics could be considered an implicit mention of drug use is prohibited. Songs like Peter, Paul, and Mary's "Puff the Magic Dragon" or Bob Dylan's "Tambourine Man" would be illegal in Brazil, if the words were in the Portuguese language.
3) Homosexualism:
Homosexual groups are very active in censoring anything they consider "homophobia". A comedy show was recently removed from the airwaves under a court order because they showed some "candid camera" clips where actors pretending to be gays accosted men in the street.
4) Racism:
There are two actions that are crimes related to racism under Brazilian law. One is "racial discrimination" and the other is "offense caused by racial prejudice". You can go to jail in Brazil, either for denying a job to someone because of his race, or for using the Brazilian equivalent of the "N" word, which is "crioulo". None of the cases being prosecuted against Orkut fall under the true "racism" issue, they are all "N word" cases. Amazingly, reverse discrimination is totally legal in Brazil. There are popular music bands called, for instance, "Mama Africa" and "Cidade Negra"(Black City), but calling your band "Mama Europe" or "White City" will put you in jail, with no bail allowed.
5) Other manifestations:
You cannot say anything that pisses anybody off in Brazil, no matter what, under a general "defamation" law. One rather funny example: a book on soccer star Garrincha was removed from the bookstores under a court order granted by request of his daughters. The reason: the author, mentioning Garrincha's sexual exploits, wrote that his penis was about 25cm long. The book was allowed to be sold, because a hgher court judge considered that saying
Brasilian government: "We need this data. Here's a subpoena."
Google Brasil: "We don't have it. It's on our parent company's servers in the U.S.A. Go ask them."
Slashdot: "Your Rights Online: Google says No to Brasilian government datamining! Good old Google!"
(Later...)
Brasilian government: "We need this data. Here's a subpoena."
Google USA: "Okay, here."
Slashdot: "Your Rights Online: Google sells out to foreign gummints again! Google == teh asshats!"
I saw this coming days ago.
So, you think that the mere fact that a court orders something makes it automagically right?
Have you tried to look at the facts behind the news? Brazilian laws are so ridiculous that people in more civilized countries have no idea of what happens in this case.
I'm a Brazilian user of Orkut, but I have nothing at all to do with those prosecuted people. I am neither a law enforcement officer or involved in any way with those alleged "crimes". But let me tell you this: Brazilian law is *extremely* biased against freedom of speech. Most if not all of those people which the Brazilian government is trying to catch are teenagers who are trying to shock their elders. They are saying things like "yes, I smoked pot once, and I liked it", "I'm straight and I hate gays", "I'm white and I don't like niggers", or "I'm a Baptist and I think Catholics are stupid".
Saying any of those sentences is a *felony* according to Brazilian law. What do you think is worse, trying to do a fishing expedition in search records or imprisoning people for speaking out their minds?
Given that in the United States, your property can be seized and sold on the mere suspicion it might have been the proceeds of (or even partially paid for) drugs money, does that make the US system inferior?
"And what, may I ask, constitutes a inferior legal system."
Its a system where the people who decide what the rules are for society are, are the exact same people who decide in a case by case basis what those rules mean when applied to a particular set of facts, and are the exact same people who enforce those rules upon the people. In otherwords, the same person is lawmaker, enforcer, judge and executioner all at the same time.
Such a society has an inferior legal system.
Alternatively a society where any one of those classes of people is suspectible to bribes or corruption of any kind is an inferior legal system.
A system where people write laws for someone else but dont need to follow the same rules. such a system is inferior.
"People in diferent coutries have different morals, some people believe that the laws should reflect their religions, other takes pride in making their government non-religious. The core of this question is that your morals are different from mine, they may even be similar in some aspects but they are different so you can't judge how good is a legal system for me based on your morals."
You can't judge it based on "your" morals, because your morals are arbitrary.
That doesn't mean you can't judge something based on objective study of its outcomes, and make an objective determination as to what is better or worse.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Yes
I really don't know about this US law where suspicion is enough proof to seize private property. If you have a link to where I can read more, I'd be grateful. Regardless... The US is probably the country where its people is more conscious about their basic rights, and the government's intromission in people's life is not a rule, but an exception (for example, fingeprints are mandatory to everyone in Brazil, not just suspected criminals. We have no privacy at all). If this law really exists, this is bad thing, but it is not enough to make the US legal system inferior then the Brazilian, because this is an exception to the rule... although I agree it is a very dangerous precedent. Plus, the United States is much ahead of other countries concerning freedom of speech and religion, even with this politically correctness plague around (PC is not really a government thing, but something from the organized "minorities") So, no... even with this, I don't think US system is inferior than the Brazilian. Cheers
And you wont get bit by this crap. Its free as in beer. http://www.blackboxsearch.com/
When Yahoo gives in to a government notice to give up information on a user, the Slashdot community gets its panties in a twist.
Why the double standard?
So Paul knows what the "arsenokoite" term means. But does he also know what hypokrytos means? (sorry for the Greek spelling, this is not my first language).
And how does Ephesians 5:29 rhyme with 2 Corinthians 12:7 ? Even if we disagree about what that mysterious "thorn" actually is, there seems to be some contradiction between both verses, unless Paul considers himself to be nobody.
It is a little chilling we google starts keeping stuff about people because they think it might be useful in a law suit or for what ever other reason they might consider economically advantageous.
Google should start to consider, deleting more data that they are not currently required to keep by law, or at the very minimum anonymising everything they can, if their end users have not clearly and categorically given permission to keep that data and at regular reasonable intervals have renewed that permission.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Oh please... Our legal system is OK, on paper at least, and it does respect freedom of speech, religion and private property. But freedom of speech is not the same of being able to speak what you want without consequence. Hate speech, the one that incites hatred among people and humiliates a whole group for what they are is wrong and our law reflect that.
Our legal system is one of the most progressives of the world, the only problem is that it is not followed to letter. The main problem is that we 'import' too much, because almost everyone has this "our XXXX is inferior then the American or European". We import laws, we import customs and even costumes, why do you think people has to wear full suits during a 40C summer in Rio de Janeiro? And what is good to Americans or Europeans is not always good to us, so most of the people simply do as they think is right and simply manage to bypass the laws (o jeitinho Brasileiro). Well of course many bad people take advantage of this chaos and do some pretty bad stuff.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
But that does make a lot more people happy, isn't it? You cannot just bump into somebody and fear that they may be some one who hate you or vice versa, which is very unlike US where there is a prevalent distrust throughout the country, a general attitude of 'i don't care about them, they don't care about me'; while in Europe the society plays has 'some' role!
Nope... Relations between different ethnic groups are a lot better in the United States. Every day it seems like someone is bombing a synagoge in Europe... In the U.K. they are banning visiting students and facilty from Israel. There are no racist football chants in the U.S... 40% believe Mulsims should not vote according to the latest opinion polls in Sweden... the former president of France can say "Europe is Christian and should never be Muslim" and it doesn't even make headlines (could you imagine the outrage of Dubya saing that?)... After Theo Van Gogh was murdered there was more attacks against muslims in "tollerant" Holland than in the U.S. immediatly after 9/11. I know from personal experience that the company I worked for could not get work-visas for sending non-white workers (musicians doing a music tour) to France (getting them for white people were no problem). And lets not even get into the Romani, who for the most part live the same in Europe as blacks lived in the mid 19th century deep south just after slavery.
You will see a lot more attention on racism in the U.S. than Europe... and it makes sense... Societies that are more racist will tend not to address racism publicly, where as societies that are less racist will tend to make a huge deal out of it. Look at racism being addressed in media 60 years ago, and look at it today - If you had to judge by media attention, racism in society increased. But racism in society decreased, and hence attention and conciousness given to racism increased - There is less racism, and it is percieved as a bigger problem.
And if you look at the huge amount of European ethnic minorites immigrating to the United States, and then look at the almost insignificant number of Americans moving to Europe (and virtually all of them being upper class white people). If Europe was the land of racial harmony and equal opportunity, people in the United States wouldn't be able to emmigrate fast enough.
Even if you look at crime statistics, violent crime is lower in the United States. Murder is higher in the United States, but murder is pretty rare in either place. But fightings, stabbings, assault, muggings, football riots, and non-lethal violence (the kind you will most likely actually be caught up in sometime in your life... you are very very unlikely to be murdered) is far lower in the United States than in Europe. Americans don't fight each other as much as Europeans (although when they do, it tends to be more deadly).
I do agree with you that Brazil has no problem at all with freedom of religion... The state is no coercive at all regarding that, nor the people in general have any prejudice against someone else's religion. But freedom of speech does mean that you can speak whatever you want without ANY legal consequences (of course there should be civil lawsuits, but these are not state sponsored). We do agree that hate speeches are bad, but where to draw the line between hate and no-hate speeches? And mostly, who's gonna draw this line? So, people should be free to say whatever they want... But physical violence should never be allowed. period. That's where we should draw the line. And no, private property is not respected as it is in other less socialist countries... The MST (land-less moviment) which invades private properties at will, and it is backed by the government is a proof of that. A progressive legal system is usually a bad thing, as there are no real breakthrough in the legal studies in the past 200 years. Respect for other peoples opinions, the right not to be harassed by the government, and the right to own the things you earned with your hardwork are quite old... Any "progression" or change on these basic rights is actually a regression. Your statements about "imported" culture, and how the laws are not respected are not really in the scope of the subject of this thread, and to what I said, so I won't comment on them this time. Cheers
Oh, so your telling me Brazilian courts would have jurisdiction over an American company which no longer operates in Brazil? Firther, they could then force them to turn over records?
That's one way to structure freedom. Another way is when a society structures itself such that no one comes to harm in the case of no secrets.