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ICANN Wants Immunity
rprins writes "In what is perhaps a reaction to recent Homeland Security demands, a strategic report by ICANN suggests that it should take on the model of a private international organization (PDF). That would make ICANN immune from US law and regulations. However, it's unlikely that the Bush administration would grant ICANN these privileges. So the organization might opt to relocate to Switzerland where such privileges are easier to attain."
The US has long lost its role as mediator of the web.
Maybe they could bid for Sealand and create their own country. Or move to North Korean embassy. Seems to be a popular alternative now that U.S. is becoming very unfriendly to the Internet. But if they move, will they take the tubes with them, or will have to call contractors to install them again? Inquiring minds want to know.
However, it's unlikely that the Bush administration would grant ICANN these privileges.
So then it's more like ICANN'T, when you really think about it.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Mr. President, ICANN is asking for immunity and a full presidential pardon, signed, in writing, before they tell us where the bombs are planted.
Jack, this organization tried to KILL me!
Surely the model would have to be something like the WTO not the IRC?
For better or worse ICANN deals with a system carrying billions of 'all currencies' over the world.
But relocating to Switzerland would be soooooooooo cool!
Nico M, London, GB.
So the organization might opt to relocate to Switzerland where such privileges are easier to attain.
Yeah, I can see the US gov't just sitting by quietly while that happened.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
And I guess we're not to ask "why", right ? Whom will get custudy over ICANN after this operation ? Are we to believe that the ICANN board, we all know how reliable they are, will make the right choices for all of us ? Will it be the UN ? I trust them even less to make the right choice. I like where the internet has gotten under US law. Why would a change, as big a this, be necessary ?
Frankly, for one country to "control" ICANN, with what ICANN "controls" is foolish. Especially the States, with people who seem to think that the free exchange of ideas is their personal property, and that since we're the "good guys" we can screw with the free exchange of ideas, and it's okay.
Mind you, I wouldn't trust any other country more. Independence from national issues is pretty much the only solution.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
ICANN: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
They dish out IPs and run DNS.
What exactly do they want immunity from?
All corporations want to be "above the law". Plenty move offshore to accomplish this.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This is terrible news. The US has the best free expression laws in the world. In all other free countries, anyone can and is muzzled for violating "hate speech" laws which are purposefully kept vague and ambiguous. No one is imprisoned for having an opinion in the US. If ICANN leaves the protection of the USA, ICANN will have to start recognizing all the repressive and bizaree anti-free expression laws of other countries like Saudi Arabia, China, Europe, and revoke domain control. Controversial US web sites like Planned Parenthood and Little Green Footballs could have their domain names removed from the root servers due to international pressure on ICANN.
Secondly, it might not even matter. If ICANN does go international, it is likely the US would start its own set of root servers that would remain free, remain under protection of US law, and would quickly become dominant over ICANN.
Mr. President, ICANN is asking for immunity and a full presidential pardon, signed, in writing, before they tell us where the authcodes are with our Registerfly domain names.
You know how animals like deer and cattle innately understand when a natural disaster is coming and instinctively seek safer ground?
It might be something like that.
They should merge with Halliburton and move to Dubai. By the time the oil runs out Cheney will be dead, and all these quasi-government monopolies funneling money from people through the military/industrial corporate complex will need a "new paradigm", anyway.
Wasn't that what Enron was supposed to be doing, oil and Internet via offshored hidey holes?
--
make install -not war
I say they move it to China or Iran. After all, if they're good enough to sit on UN security councils and human right's councils, why not run the intarwebs, too?
Because the US law is changing.
c++;
If the problem is the Bushites, wouldn't it be easier to wait for a year? If they go to the great trouble and expense of relocating to Switzerland, it's obvious that the real reason is the skiing.
The internet has done quite well under US law but it's far from perfect. Things like the .xxx dispute should not be a political football amongst under-educated US politicians. Same with the US having too much control over the root servers in general. Americans should wake up to the fact that the whole world uses the internet and respect needs to be given to every country.
For example, China is thinking about creating it's own internet, being greedy about who controls ICANN just encourages them to work on their own project which could potentially have devastating effects on current system, not to mention the added cost in supporting such a system (which our company for one would have to do).
Lets just get rid of, as in incinerate, the dept of homeland security and the problem, as such, will just go away. Then we can all get back to what needs to be done.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Where is my toast? Someone has stolen my toast! Where is my toast?
This is all about the recent request for access to the DNSSEC root keys. As a firm proponent of DNSSEC I agree, In ACSAC 2005 I published a paper proposing the IKS (Internet Key Service) a distributed domain-name based certificate authority grounded in DNSSEC and the sole authority of ICANN to assign domains. A functionally deployed DNSSEC would allow us to bootstrap strong end-to-end cryptography. Allowing the US government to spoof DNS entries would seriously impair DNSSEC and greatly damage my work.
Forget ICANN, use OpenNIC, the Democratic Name System.
http://www.opennic.unrated.net/
They have no power beyond the power of the US government, because Verisign controls the actual servers and use to have ICANNs job before ICANN came along. So no they won't relocate to Switzerland and no they don't want immunity from US law, they want immunity from being sued by disgruntled domain name holders.
Like the recent Registerfly domain registrar where they did nothing even as their domain names were lost until they were prodded into action by bad press.
It's where it's going that scares me.
The United States want TOTAL control of where you go, what you can do, etc. They're going to use 9/11 to get anything and everything it wants in terms of our liberties. And the fact of the matter is that it simply doesn't have the right to do that. Not only does it not have the right to be that intrusive on it's own citizens, it sure as HELL doesn't have that right to be that intrusive on citizens of other countries! "Hey, Canada won't accept our demands to make their own version of the DMCA? Cool, we'll do it for them!"
The United States has justified everything they do lately with no more than two words: terrorism or paedophilia. Those are the heavy hitters that get people moving. Even if the subject at hand has nothing to do with either of those things, they shove their laws down the throats of their own citizens on those two principles, weather they like it or not, and if they can't have it become a law, then the US just does whatever it is anyway (see: domestic warrantless wiretapping, secret spying programme, the FBI abusing the Patriot Act, etc.). Now you want them to be able to do that with THE ENTIRE INTERNET?
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
In the long run, becoming fully international may be the only viable option to ICANN or whichever instance that inherits its responsibilities. The Chinese, for example, will only take that much before they decide running their own root services, separate from those of ICANN, is the lesser headache. It wouldn't take much more for either certain South American or Mid-Eastern countries to follow suit. A few politically motivated laws on top might even convince European states to set up their own system. The price of course would be utter fragmentation of the internet. If ICANN removes the shadow of White House administration from above themselves, they might be able to hold onto unified internet. If they don't make a move, the rest of the world may. it takes just one to set the ball rolling, the rest just need to opt in.
Any move that takes the current US administration out of the picture is a step in the right direction. Bush and his cronies have become the Nazi of our time. If you aren't doing as they tell you it should be, you're the enemy.
Because, where it's going under US law is atrocious, appaling, broken, and unwelcome. The relgious right in the US can supress the creation of new TLDs for xxx because it's currently under US control.
The rest of the world isn't really prepared to have the US be capable of arbitrarily re-writing the infrastructure that is the internet on their whim, or to suit their needs, or to be able to spoof any IP on the planet. It has grown from being a research project in the US to a global infrastructure.
Do you think that the US would like it if, say, North Korea or Cuba could arbitrarily alter it? I bet the answer is no. Under the guise of national security, DHS will practically do anything they want to, and they have laws to make sure you don't tell people they did it.
I don't wish to be subject to the laws the asshats in Washington DC are writing. Neither does all of the rest of the world who aren't Americans. The US doesn't own the internet. I fail to see why the rest of the world would be eager to see the keys handed over quite so readily.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The US isn't anything special.
..at ICANN, and the idiots in the Bush administration, to protect the future of the Internet. That makes me feel much better.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Calm down, chicken little. The winds have changed, you can smell it. Nancy Pelosi is in Damascus right now (which is really pissing off Bush) - essentially stating that if the Bush administration won't start using diplomacy in the Middle East, the Democrats will (which almost everyone expects will take both branches of government in 18 months). Bush was handed two stinging defeats from SCOTUS this week - which demonstrated that previously right leaning judges have swung left in response to Bush putting rabid conservatives on the court. Bush is also demanding military funding bills out of Congress - which is yawning in response. Same with the AG scandal - Bush is demanding a rushed schedule, Congress is ignoring him. The PATRIOT act is under attack. The FBI as well, for abusing the PATRIOT act. The good news just seems to keep coming. :)
It is a different country now than it was just a few months ago. The pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction. If we can manage not to have another terrorist attack on US soil in the next year and a half, expect some real change out of Washington.
.xxx is doing bad.
..., fell from the stairs", or worse, the "we kill you if you're not a muslim" Saudi's will improve the situation how exactly ? Or the European "we support free speech, uhm, except racism, uhm no scratch that, except what we think is racism, uhm sorry missed again, we demand that anything any european deems racist is removed from the internet". You know the whole "we have solved Nazism and racism ! We just punish anyone who claims otherwise"-attitude.
Oh right and with the Chinese "no, really we didn't kill any students, they, um
That will really help. Sorry to break it to you but free speech, as it exists in the U.S., is pretty unique in the world. Therefore removing ICANN from the US government will worsen the situation considerably.
(and yes I've got experience in multiple international organisations, and I really shouldn't be saying this, but if you expect them to be in favor of free speech, or fair against the little man, you're in for an unpleasant surprise. I'm not saying the US is perfect, far from it, but right now, it's the best there is)
You're probably scared of women too.
*Tin Foil Hat On*
If, as you say, the pendulum is swinging in the other direction then I'd be inclined to predict another terrorist attack on US soil within the next year and a half is highly likely...
br Bob
Listen to my latest album here
Yes, and I wonder how many government watch lists I've been put on due to my excersize of "free speech". "Free speech like it exists in the U.S." doesn't really exist in the U.S. in case you hadn't noticed.
Oh can we get an example? If not go craw under your rock please.
"Whom will get custody"? Come on. If you don't know what you're doing, take the socially acceptable out and use "who" everywhere -- but don't throw in "whom" where it doesn't even belong. Although -- you can tell whether you should write "he" or "him" in a given place, can't you? Why can't you tell whether to write "who" or "whom"? It's no different.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
[quote]I like where the internet has gotten under US law. Why would a change, as big a this, be necessary ?[/quote]
Because the US and it's "laws" has been changing over the last decade.
It used be the "land of the free and money" and this allowed the internet to grow (for good and bad) under it's control, now it's the "land of special interests and the money of the latter group" and this is not only holding the internet back but endangering the whole thing to the point where it might break apart.
The UN would be a far from ideal group to control the internet but these days it would be a 100 times better than the US
I thought "War on ...." was a code phrase meaning "an unsolvable problem we will waste billions of dollars trying unsuccessfully to solve using the same failing methods over and over again." Didn't it start with the war on poverty?
If by "waste," you mean "transfer to our campaign donors," then yes, that's exactly what it means.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
That's a 10 minute time out for you mister!
Applying logic here... what are you thinking!?
They say "Let's invade Iraq!" and even though there's no proof to be found of WOMD they still do it against every law and moral.
Okay, that's an overused example (while still very reasonable).
Let's think about certain prison camps, presidential elections or maybe environmental protection. Yes, you are so right, the US government is great and can do far better than a stupid organization. And where in south Africa is Switzerland anyways? Or was that Sweden?
(/Sarcasm 0)
All you people who are hoping that the US will loose control of the Internet are complete fools. The relative freedom you have on the Internet is because of US control, not in spite of it. Here are just a few reasons why you people are total idiots. 1) Most countries of the world are not concerned with Internet freedom, only Internet censorship. China anyone? If the US were to loose control you will at some point see censorship built into the infrastructure of the Internet as a whole, succumbing to the overwhelming pressure of nearly all of the world's governments. I mean give me a break, even freedom loving France shuts down websites that show a swastika even for historical purposes. Fortunately for all you Internet freedom lovers out there the US pioneered freedom of speech, and is big enough to be immune from the bullying, censor loving governments that make up most of the world. 2) There has been a lot of pressure to put a tax on the Internet from many countries and especially from the UN. Freedom on the Internet doesn't just mean free speech, it also means freedom from taxation. If control of the Internet goes international, I guarantee that the UN will finally get its way and tax all of you idiots. And where will the money go? To support the Internet's infrastructure? I seriously doubt it. To support the inevitable out of control bureaucracy that would be created? Maybe... More likely the money will go to the governments that represent the "less fortunate" and a small portion will go to give Internet to those who don't have it while the rest gets put where ever the dictators want it. Seeing as much of the money that the UN gives out goes into the pockets of corrupt foreign leaders, I doubt much good will come out of your monthly check you will fork out... "Oil for Food" anyone? Fortunately for us the US is in control for now, and has put a ban on Internet taxation. 3) US tax payers paid for the Internet. US government agencies and US tax payer funded Universities paid for the development of the Internet. Fortunately, the US decided to be nice and let the rest of the world connect to their network, instead of making the rest of the world actually develop their own network, which would have been cost prohibitive for most of the world without Americans giving it away for free, and the Internet would be nowhere the size it is today. When it comes down to it though, the rest of the world is still sitting on the backs of a primarily US government developed TCP/IP protocol and a US government and US university created network. Every time you connect to another computer via TCP/IP you should thank the government and people of the United States for developing it for you and giving it to you for FREE. You people are all a bunch of cry babies.... The freaking US develops a national and then global network for you people for free, gives you the software to connect to the network for free, and then "Ohh wahhhh, I think the US government has too much control of the Internet! They are squashing my freedom!" What a bunch of ungrateful pieces of.... My 2 cents
"You know how animals like deer and cattle innately understand when a natural disaster is coming and instinctively seek safer ground?
It might be something like that."
More like roaches scurrying when the light is turned on.
That light of day can be a pesky thing - it makes all sorts of things visible.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Who actually wants a .xxx? It's not like you can force someone to relocate there, and since you can't, the rest of the internet is never going to be totally child safe.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
That will really help. Sorry to break it to you but free speech, as it exists in the U.S., is pretty unique in the world.
Well, I'm not sure I would go quite that far, although I do agree with your ultimate analysis. The U.S. seems to be fairly unique among the other would-be superpowers in terms of having both free speech, economic freedom, and intense secularization. However, if you open the field to the entire G8, or to the rest of the First World, there are a bunch of other places that are competitive.
I don't think Canada and Japan have much in the way of overt censorship, although the Canadians do have that weird ISP-censoring thing going on that I'm not sure would be legal in the U.S., and they don't seem to take as hard a line on the absolute sacrosanctity of individual freedoms as we do here (mostly an issue when you're talking about gun control, although the differences in basic principles come up in other areas). But when it comes to the Internet, it's getting close to six of one, half a dozen of the other. The U.K. is pretty close, too; I don't think they've gone down the European path of criminalizing Nazism or Holocaust denial simply as a belief or ideology. Same with Australia.
The Northern European countries as a general rule are also pretty good. I've never quite figured out how one reconciles what's bordering on economic collectivism with free speech, but they seem to do okay at it. I guess Sweden technically has an Established church that has some historical ties to its government, but it's secular in all measurable respects as far as I can tell (and you can opt out of funding the church I think).
You're correct in thinking that there are a lot of places in the world where you can get in a lot of trouble for saying things that wouldn't even get you funny looks on a New York City street corner, but it's not as though the rest of the world are exactly hunting mammoths with pointy sticks. Where the U.S. is unique is only in the particular combination of secularism, freedom of speech, individual libertarianism, and moderate laissez-faire economic policies. You can find examples of virtually all of these in varying combinations elsewhere; none of the ingredients are particularly unique, its only the proportions.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
China setting up their own internet? Oh my goodness - no more spam from China, no more security probes, whatever shall we do?
That would be a disaster of the highest order. NOT.
and then we have:
Okay.. the original iteration of the 'net was invented here in the US. We've had some pretty nice advances from abroad (re:WWW), and I'll admit that. The "rest of the world" latched onto what was originally funded by US taxpayers, and being the first one in the boat has afforded the US quite a bit of power. Could you explain to me why we'd give it up? Go break out your own DNS.. seriously. I'm not joking. Fuck playing nicely with others.. let the Chinese do their thing, etc etc etc. I think they have the right idea! Until you've got the balls to set up your own DNS quit crying.
In addition, a whole cottage industry of providing access to alternate DNS trees is waiting to be born.
Where's that? I think maybe I need to relocate.
I still say it should become a function of the International Telecommunication Union. Yes, that's a UN agency, but during the Cold War their standards kept the West, the Soviets, and the Asians talking and telexing without too much politicking. (And they're located in Geneva.)
They say the mind is the first thing to
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
You are free to point to any DNS server you feel like.
I've never seen XXX anywhere eles than in the US. Now I'm not much of a porn buyer, but for me XXX means alcohol as much as it means porn.
Don't be stupid. You could also have the idiots in the UN or the idiots in the EU!
Besides, Bush has about a year left... probably less before he can't really do anything at all. With Bush out of the picture at this point I'll trust the *chance* of a better administration after Bush more then the EU, UN, or an independent ICANN.
I hate bush as much as the next guy, but I was offended by your attempt at comedy, and the mods that rated it as such.
Yada-yada... It does not have the right to usurp our liberties. But it does have the right (and the physical ability) to control Internet — and that, rather than your paranoia-spreading, is the subject here.
If this people want to move to Switzerland or simply quit their jobs at ICANN — fine. US has developed the Internet, it hosted (and continues to host) the root servers, and so it will be, if whoever is in charge has any sense left in them...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I would think various scatterguns laws to hold anybody or everybody even remotely involved in moving any form of information some random person finds offensive might have them concerned.
I mean can a job at ICANN on monday and be on the sex offenders register by friday.
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
Yeah. I'd like to hear the names of these countries too. In fact why wouldn't you cough that up in the first place? Because you're making it up? Afraid that if you said a name a dozen people would point at examples of censorship? Point at politicians on the take? Or are you Prince Roy?
uh, now let me see:
France, Germany, UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Canada, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain, need I go on??
The US isn't unique, they just brainwash their population into thinking they're unique in the free speech world.
I imagine there would be quite an uproar by the current administration of ICANN tried to leave the country. My guess would be that they would be siezed in the interest of National Security.
Sad thought, ain't it?
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
F--- Yeah!
Relocating to San Francisco / Palo Alto... Hire me?
US has developed the Internet? That's taken too far. Internet had its beginnings here. Now it's infrastructure is spread all over the world, owned by thousands of companies and organizations in hundreds of countries. Saying that the US has the right to control the Internet is flat out ridiculous. Internet is common a good of a billion people worldwide and the fact that some of its critical parts are based in the US is our privilege, not some kind of favor we are doing. I am sure more than a few countries would be very happy to take over this "burden".
By the way, the World Wide Web, nowadays the Internet's most important part, was invented in... duh, Switzerland (CERN)
Look at ICANN's insistence on requiring all registrars to collect True Names and True ICBM addresses for everybody who registers a domain name - they're not concerned about actual network administration working, which doesn't require that, but they want to make sure that you can deliver a trademark lawsuit or DMCA copyright shutdown notice on anybody who's got a domain name, regardless of the importance to human rights of being able to speak and publish anonymously. Do you want to have a domain name but not get your personal email and snail-mail spammed? ICANN doesn't think your privacy is as important as the RIAA and MPAA's business interests. I suspect that moving themselves to Switzerland will reduce this pressure, as well as getting away from the current Bush Administration who doesn't know quite what they want ICANN to do but whose knees keep jerking any time anything occurs to them.
This doesn't mean that losts of the quasi-anonymous domain registration isn't abusive - most of it is various forms of spammers, crackers, and other low-lifes. But even in a rigidly enforced mandatory-true-name environment, anybody who's involved in profit-making abuse can buy themselves a $100 shell corporation that legally exists in a file drawer in Delaware, and even if Alberto Gonzales hauls their corporate papers off to Gitmo to waterboard them, the worst that happens to the miscreants is that they need to send another $100 money order to set up another shell corporation. (The first half of that isn't just a hypothetical - I've traced spammers down to that particular black hole.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Let's look at these one at a time:
France: Stand in Paris ad shout "The Holocaust never happened." You can be arrested. Restriction (among several others) on freedom of speech.
Germany: Same as above, plus their law restrictions disparagement of the state and federal government, along with insults to "organs and representatives of foreign states." Not only can you be restricted from insulting the german federal president, you also might not be able to insult George Bush (Americans would go mute).
UK: has one of the worst defamation laws. Defendant has a lot of responsiblity to prove their were not defaming the complaintant. This is why you see a lot more defamation lawsuits in UK than US. This is one way freedom of speech can be restricted. Britain also bans incitement to religious and/or racial hatred.
Ireland:Freedom of speech may not be used against "public order or morality or the authority of the State".
Switzerland: law bans "denying, belittling or justifying any genocide".
Sweden: Hate speech banned against several groups (including homosexuals)
Denmark: No problems found. They seem to have a true freedom of speech, or at least as high of a standard as the U.S.
Norway: Seems fine, though up until the 80s was banning films.
Finland: Let's give you most of the nordic countries, greenland, iceland.
Canada: Hate Speech is restricted.
Italy: Can't find any restrictions.
Greece: Has laws against blasphemy.
Portugal: Can't find any restritions.
Spain: Working on a law to make all webmasters register with the state (not domain owners, anyone who posts content on web). This isn't per se a restriction of freedom of speech, but historically making peope register to use their freedom of speech has been frowned upon.
So of your list of 16, only 8 of them have freedom of speech protections that equal the U.S. Lots of places have laws saying they have freedom of speech (I'm pretty sure China actually has a law protecting speech). It's a combination of putting the protection in the constitution and having a legislature and/or judiciary that preserves that protections that determine if you truly have freedom of speech. The United States (along with a handful of other countries, mostly in Europe) is one of the few countries (out of 192 UN members) that you can do all of the following: stand in front of the white house (on property that you are legally allowed upon) and declare to anyone and everyone that the president of the united states is an ignorant hick. You can also tell anyone you want that christ (or budda or allah) doesn't exist and is just used to scare simple-minded people into submission. There are three basic restrictions on freedom of speech in American: you can't yell fire in a theater, you can't incite violence and you can't slander/libel someone. These restrictions are all based on the idea that your rights end where everyone else's begin. Which means your right to freedom of speech ends when it endangers life or well being (slander, but only in the instance that it is untrue, you can't tell the truth and be found guilty of slander and/or libel). Notice the difference between this and most of the euro countries on the list that ban incitement to hatred (as opposed to violence). As an American I can talk about how lazy and dirty caucasians are, and how we should send everyone of them back to Europe where they belong. To get in trouble here I would have to tell people to kill the whitie, not just hate him. In Britain if I were to give the same speech about Muslims, I would be breaking the law. Freedom of speech means you have to allow the indefensible along with your own pet causes. This means holocaust deniers and sodomists along with feminists and progressives.
Oh, by the way, if I lived in a country that doesn't have a true constitution and doesn't have true freedom of speech, I probably wouldn't come on here and badmouth citizens of a country which does have freedom of speech.
What the fuck dude?
Whats to say that doing something like Canada, and banning hate speech, is a bad thing? I mean, what exactly is blind hate going to achieve? You can say the same things albeit a bit more subtly, and you are much more likely to get your messages across, let alone not arrested. That just seems like common sense to me.
Also - do you think banning slander/libel is really that much different to banning hate speech? You've still limited free speech. Even disallowing death threats is eroding the freedom that you seem to believe you are entitled to.
No country is perfect. Not even the USA.
So, OP said that there was only ONE country on earth that had the protections of freedom of speech that the US does.
GP said named SIXTEEN.
You jump in and correct that number to EIGHT, but only attack the latter, when both were equally wrong, and indeed the GP you attacked had his arguments verified BY you - i.e. that the US is NOT the only country.
Whilst you could technically do it, I'm sure there are many things you could shout in Times Square that would get you arrested. Wear an Arab headress, with several of your buddies. Start chanting "JIHAD, JIHAD", and similar. No direct threats. Watch how long it is before you're arrested. Sure, you may well be able to try to file suit for attacks on your first amendment rights, but that's reactive. Your rights will be quashed, quickly and summarily, and your only redress will be after the fact.
OH god. Common good, not only is this old socialist diatribe it is outdated and incorrect.
Ok, First, the Internet stopped being a "common good" a long time ago, it is now entertainment and marketing. That is why it is so important to so many people. The Internet went so far off the path of common good, the Internet 2 was created and we normal folks don't get access to it so we don't junk it all up again.
Next, the Internet never was intended to be for the common good of anyone. This is a little fable told to people to make them feel better about some intended goal they are pushing. It really is no different then santa clause keeping a list and checking it twice or the government is here to serve the people. The original intent of the Internet was for defense, then education and then to link businesses together. We were allowed in and made it what you see today. But don't fool yourself. Thinking the Internet is for the common good is like me saying you cannot trim the tree that is in danger of falling into your house because the shade lower my heating bills. I don't think you would be happy with the risk of your home being damaged to lower my heating bills but thats the common good.
Take it in stride but take it for what it is at the same time. I've been on the Internet since 92 or so when our BBS was linked to a university branch line that eventually went to feed one of the fist ISPs in our town. I remember when goggle and yahoo was just starting and when the idea of web commerce was listing a phone number and address at the bottom of your homepage. It has taken on many roles but passed the common good one up a long time ago.
I wouldn't be too comfortable right now. Bush has a few aces up their sleeves. They have to because they aren't worried.
If Bush was worried, he could have the vice president recall congress into session and when 1/3 showed up, have them put a funding bill together without many of the democrats or Pelosi and sneak one through all legal and constitutional like. Or he could call the session and make them sit in Washington through the holidays to pressure them.
The fact that he isn't says there is something else brewing. He has a plan of some sorts and this doesn't effect it. Maybe he is going to show pictures of dead soldier during the election and say it was because congress loligaged around. I don't know, but I doubt he would let this upset him when he could make their lives somewhat miserable all constitutional like and all. Your guess is as good as mine to how this will pan out.
And if ICANN moved to some other countries, it wouldn't take them out of the reach of the US. The US would likely stop the Root servers from moving and force the same separation that we I just describes. ICANN would be replaced with something else in the US and we all live happily ever after. Well, that or they would still follow US laws and do the bidding but somehow everyone would feel better since they are in some other country.
This concept has been discussed before. China is working on it's own Internet and would work under the same principle except that there would be a gateway out of their country and some router would do translations or something. This would be ideal for their filtering and all but not necessary for the rest of the world.
I suspect the problem with doing something like this isn't the funding that would need to be spent. It is that the other countries want to use the Internet to do business inside the US but don't want the US to say anything about it.
...just like the US has long lost its role as the leader of the UN Security Council...
I think they should of moved out of the states years and years ago, I strongly think they should become a global organisation operating free from governments in multiable countries
These restrictions are all based on the idea that your rights end where everyone else's begin.
Other countries consider dignity a fundamental right which is why insulting someone is violating their rights. Your rights still end where others' rights begin, those others just have more rights.
if I lived in a country that doesn't have a true constitution
Um, what? When's a constitution not a constitution?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
All your TLDs belong to us!!!
If the Chinese build their custom Internet and connect it to the "regular" Internet, then it will just be part of the Internet. Since the Internet is by definition a bunch of heterogeneous networks connected together.
The only thing would be that it would make it simpler for them to filter stuff at the routing points between both networks. Either way it would make little difference to the rest of the world when communicating with the Chinese networks.
And hopefully the barriers will come down as China gradually opens up.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
My Christian faith is tradition/conservative, not a liberal one. However, my political views are libertarian. There is a world of difference between a Christian conservative and a conservative Christian. It's all about what Hayek said about adjectives and nouns...
All thanks to America's benevolence, business sense, and good design. These people's usage of the Internet in no way diminishes America's right to do, what it pleases with it, though...
Ha-ha!.. So, if one builds a playground for his kids, and allows other kids to come and play too (for their and his own kids' benefit), he loses the right to control that playground — while keeping "the privilege" of the upkeep?
I understand, how envy and similar emotions may make it difficult for foreigners to squeeze some gratitude towards America out of themselves. But for an American to do the same is incomprehensible. So good at seeing the other side, they lose sight of their own...
A common myth maintained by anti-American zealots uncomfortable with America's claiming credit for anything, however rightfully...
The idea itself was rather obvious to anyone "skilled in the field" and known (especially in America — ha-ha!) since before computers. As we know it today, it wouldn't have taken off without the Internet (duh) — although various BBS-es were early prototypes. What Tim Berners-Lee wrote at CERN would never have become "the Internet's most important part" without a product usable by a non-scientist.
Nor was it a browser in today's sence of the word, but rather more like a Wiki — tied to a single database (more like CERN's own BBS). He did not "invent it", he put forward one of the first (and very limited) implementations. For earlier ones see Xanadu and NLS — both, incidentally, by Americans (the latter, even, by the dreaded American Military!).
I'm still glad CERN exists, of course, but there is no denying, that its contribution to WWW is dwarfed by those of NCSA and other American organizations.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Can we ( as the US ) simply negate their authority?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Seriously, though, what is it with Americans and blind, irrational hatred of multilateralism? Is it chauvinism or just ignorance? Or a little from column A, a little from column B?
One correction since I live here: Norway: hate speach banned ("rasismeparagrafen")
... Oceania has always been at war with terrorism.
Their constitution is unwritten - I'm not sure why they call it a constitution. It's a combination of written statutes and common-law practices.
Fair fair. Point taken. I'm just tired of people acting like the U.S. is such a shit hole, especially when they turn around and brag about Europe. I like Europe, I vacation there whenever I can, but I wouldn't move there.
So yes, BAD OP! You're wrong (though he didn't say the ONLY one, he said "pretty unique" which I interpret to mean not unique but still rare). And don't be such a fricking elitist! But the U.S. is still better than the majority (9 out of 16 after the norweigan chimed in) of countries that GP tried to put forward as examples.
And yah, I do think a dipshit that says his country is the only one who does something is less offensive (pride is excusable) than the one who says no, here are 16 countries that also do it and is wrong on more than half. At least the first dipshit was right about the basic fact (his country has freedom of speech).
Ryan Stultz