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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."
That's what happens when there's a retarded monkey in office?
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.
..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."
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.