Iran to Filter 'Immoral' Mobile Messages

jb.cancer noted an article running on eweek about plans in Iran to censor phone messages sent within the country. At least it's not quite that bad here yet. But give it a few years!

Comments

F***T P**T

[LiquidCoooled]

This First F***T P**T was sent using an Iranian proxy!

My God.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

From tfs/tfa:

* Iran censoship story *check*
* Comparison of Iran censorship to censorship within the US *check*
* eweek article *check*
* Orwellian techniques by the Iranian govt refusing to define imorral messages *check*

The trolls are going to have a field day. Maybe we should have some sort of rule about stories with less than 50 words in tfs? (or at least be able to mod them flamebait).

I know what to do

[master_p]

first, CENSORED, then CENSORED and then, CENSORED!

Question:

[el_munkie]

What, exactly, would make the poster think that it would be possible that text messages in the US would be filtered for content? Has the US censored IMs, phone conversations, e-mail, or any other means of communication, or is this just the nebulous political FUD we've had to endure for so long?

Re:Question:

[Threni]

> What, exactly, would make the poster think that it would be possible that text messages in the US would be filtered for content?

Are you denying that it's not technically possible? Or that there's no desire on the part of those in power to limit speech, and that any laws restricting governmental interference will be obeyed? Because I'm not sure if you've been paying attention over the last few years...

Re:Question:

[Zeinfeld]

The reason for the Iranian concern here is that the revolution was originally spread through compact cassette tapes. This has nothing to do with morality, it is all about political control.

The regime is becoming very unstable, the only shill the mullahs could find to front for them was Ahmendinejad. And many of them have been visibly regretting it since. He is doing the crazy act a little bit too well.

The problem is similar to Cuba, it is pretty easy to keep a regime going for a very long time if there is a widespread perception of an iminent external threat. If a country is attacked the people are going to side with their government regardless of what it is like. The Russians sided with Stalin, the Cubans side with Castro, the Iranians will side with the mullahs.

Sanctions don't work unless the country targeted by the sanctions respects the party applying them. Sanctions worked in South Africa because the South African whites considered their country to be a part of the Western world. The rejection mattered to them. Cuba might respond to sanctions from Latin America, but sanctions from the country that backed the corrupt Batista despotism are not going to work.

Instant messaging is a way for opponents of the regime to organize. They can keep tabs on Ahmendinejad's gangs of armed thugs. They can arrange protests and demonstrations.

There is a blogosphere in Iran and it is spread by SMS messaging. That is cool.

Language issues

[VincenzoRomano]

Hmmm ... sounds like the anti-SPAM filters for email.
With the right language and some "ad hoc" grammar mistakes you could foolish the filter.

Here's an example of censored messages.

[AltGrendel]

Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.

"At Least???"

[purduephotog]

At least it's not quite that bad here yet. But give it a few years!

What country are YOU posting from? There is hardly ANYTHING censored in the US- and yes, I recognize that you are attempting sarcasm, but it's rather pathetic. There are several dozen things that I wish were censored, but aren't, and that's a good thing too.

And yes, you can be executed in Iran if you perform Immoral Activities. Shall we wait for that to come to a US City nearest you, too now?

Re:"At Least???"

[Hubbell]

Gays are not banned from the military. Being openly homosexual in the military is banned for VERY legitimate reasons. Who is the largest group that makeup the armed services? Poor/lowerincome groups. Who are the groups most likely to be homophobic? Oh yeah, lower income groups, and to a lesser extent minorities whether they are poor or not. It's a matter of morale. If you dislike gays, and most of your squad dislikes gays, are you gonna feel upbeat and awesome with a homosexual in your squad? No, you won't perform to full potential because you'll feel he's underqualified, inadequate, or just shouldn't be there or possibly even alive depending on how strong the feelings are on the subject. It's not a matter of the government hating homosexuals, it's a matter of the government understanding the constitution of their armed services and making a very good judgement call on what is or isn't allowed to be public in it so as to keep morale up.

Re:"At Least???"

[Dog-Cow]

The lack of a death penalty is a crime against humanity. Humans are the only species that will protect the most dangerous members of the population. Only the most stupid people in the world think that putting down a rabid dog is necessary, but putting down a thinking human that purposefully murders people is evil. Compared to life in prison, death is not a punishment. That's not the purpose of the death penalty. The purpose is to remove dangerous members of society from the population. This is because it's far more important to make everyone safe than to not feel guilty for killing someone. Those against the death penalty are too afraid of taking responsibility to promote the safety of their own people.

It's a sad testiment to the complete hypocracy of the idea that there is an intersection between those who support war and those who oppose the death penalty.

I for one welcome our new msg censoring overlords

[_xen]

Well thank goodness for this. I know I'm often tempted to send out messages so immoral that I shock myself! So I'm glad there's someone with my best interests (and the best interests of society at large) at heart who is going to take the time to censor the messages I send. Isn't it nice when those kind people in the government relieve you of any need for self-restraint!

not surprising

[aadvancedGIR]

With the nuclear stand not getting them anywhere and the need to release the english mailmen mostly because the moderate ones refused to back them on that issue, it is not surpirising to see Iran leaders attacking their homeland ennemies again (they also recently banned "occidental" haircuts, a ban obviously targeted at the teenagers and young adults).

Re:I for one welcome our new msg censoring overlor

[SilentSheep]

Ahh, i see you fall for the "drunken text message" trick too? Always gets me that one does, if it weren't for a 'sent items' folder on my phone i wouldn't know how many people to apologise to in the morning.

Then they came for me

[MatrixCubed]

First, they came for the "inappropriate" text messagers. But I did not speak out, because I do not have a cellphone.

Then, they came for the "innapropriate" emailers. But I did not speak out, because I do not use email.

Then, they came for the "innapropriate" web-surfers. But I did not speak out, because I do not surf the web.

Then they came for me - and by then, there was no one left to speak out.

Re:Then they came for me

[quarterbrain]

Censoring text messages is hardly the first sign of censorship in Iran. From what little the article has, there is no reference of anyone being arrested as of yet for breaking the moral code via text messaging. This may come down the pike, but right now people have an honest reason to fear being sent to jail for blogging, wearing sleeveless shirts, or styling their hair wildly

Re:Then they came for me

[UTPinky]

*sigh*
He made a spin off on a famous poem, "First they came...", written by Martin Niemöller about the Holocaust and Nazi rise to power. Please educate yourself and learn some culture.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Re:Then they came for me

[alexo]

> He made a spin off on a famous poem, "First they came...",
> written by Martin Niemöller about the Holocaust and Nazi rise to power.

More info here

Yeah that's going to work

[DrXym]

After all, look at the success we have filtering spam adverts for viagra, cialis etc. from our mailboxes.

Re:Yeah that's going to work

[Constantine XVI]

I know you're going for funny, but I haven't had but one piece of spam break through Gmail's filter in god-knows-how-long

Defining 'immoral'

[Calydor]

The Iranian government should define immoral messages as any message that is not grammatically correct, contains proper sentence structure, and is free of typos.

Nasty

[Moggyboy]

Don't know why they're bothering. You ever try to write "durka durka, mohammed jihad" with predictive text on? It's a bitch.

"But give it a few years!"

[caldodge]

In a few years you'll still be spouting this sort of paranoid crap, with no censorship taking place.

That sort of loony paranoia doesn't boost your side's credibility, any more than my side was helped by predictions that Bill Clinton would use FEMA regs to declare a national emergency and establish a dictatorship, or the right-wing paranoids who referred to the Oklahoma City bombing as "Bill Clinton's Reichstag Fire".

Why don't you focus on REAL government abuses instead? For example, the "if you have lots of cash then you must be a drug dealer" lunacy known as "Civil Asset Forfeiture", or the suppression of free speech in the name of "Campaign Finance Reform"?

OMG

[ady1]

it's full of stars...

So what is Iran actually like?

[bestinshow]

According to this article (well worth reading, despite the newspaper it is from), Iran's not that bad.

Sure, the elections may be dodgy, but it's democratic. Nobody seems to like the leaders as they don't represent the people and it's unlikely they'll be in power long. The people are pushing the boundaries in all walks of life. In fact they're far more Western than a country like Turkey. And as for the political situation, it doesn't sound unlike any other Western country - unpopular leadership, dodgy elections, etc.

But no, the Western media portray Iran as a country hell bent of destroying the West, destroying Israel (the viewpoint of one politician who doesn't have that power), and evil evil evil. But in a country with 40% of people under the age of 15, you really don't want to invade badly like in Iraq, and turn them ALL against you for the rest of their lives.

Now whilst the article above is but one story that gives an idea of life within Iran, it is counter to the rhetoric and fearmongering that is so popular within our media.

Re:So what is Iran actually like?

[Moridineas]

Wow, what absolute crap.

Sure, the elections may be dodgy, but it's democratic. Nobody seems to like the leaders as they don't represent the people and it's unlikely they'll be in power long. The people are pushing the boundaries in all walks of life. In fact they're far more Western than a country like Turkey. And as for the political situation, it doesn't sound unlike any other Western country - unpopular leadership, dodgy elections, etc.

Yes, the elections are absolutely democratic--if you are ok with the fact that anyone running for any position anywhere--city council, governors, parliament, etc--has to be vetted through non-elected government bodies. Here's an assignment for you--in the last elections (you can check either I believe december or 2005 elections that brought Ahmadi-Nejad to power) find out how many candidates were BARRED from running. It's unlikely they'll be in power long? Possibly the most radically conservative government since the Revolution was brought to power two years ago. The reformists have suffered massive losses across the country. The most recent elections saw less radical conservatives, but conservatives nonetheless make large gains. Let's be clear: when we say conservatives in the case of Iran we mean Islamists, very frequently clerics, and more and more frequently army former army officers. Nothing wrong with any of those things, but they are all groups deepy vested in the status quo, and maintaining the Islamic Republic as it stands.

They're far more Western than Turkey? ok, now this is where you absolutely lose credibility. I can only assume after this that you're basing 100% of your knowledge off the above article. Iran is "The Islamic Republic of Iran." It has an unelected body of clerics that more or less rule the country--they certaintly hold the leash on any elected officials. They have things like morality police. Women showing too much hair is a crime. Now, how exactly is Iran more "Western" than Turkey? I'll be honest, I've never been to Iran though I would love to, and many of my friends have been. I have been to Turkey though, and your comment makes no sense to me.

But no, the Western media portray Iran as a country hell bent of destroying the West, destroying Israel (the viewpoint of one politician who doesn't have that power), and evil evil evil. But in a country with 40% of people under the age of 15, you really don't want to invade badly like in Iraq, and turn them ALL against you for the rest of their lives.

It seems to me that the "Western media" doesn't have to portray Iran that way at all--its (by your reckoning FAIRLY) elected president portrays it that way just fine. Look for some Khamenei quotes (he's the Supreme Leader for life if you don't know)...the power behind it all. 40% of people under the age of 15--that statement might be the closest thing to accurate in your whole post.

Now whilst the article above is but one story that gives an idea of life within Iran, it is counter to the rhetoric and fearmongering that is so popular within our media.

Look, the rich urban elite show their hair, go to university, have parties and sex, love their pizza and hamburgers more than kabab (which I personally don't understand at all!) and probably aren't that happy with the laws and the crackdowns that have been occurring recently. But you know what? They're not the majority. There is a huge urban and rural poor population that is very religious, very devout, very nationalistic, and happy with the Islamic Republic (not so happy with economy and jobs..)

Think of it this way...hang out in downtown NYC, talk to the youth, etc. Now, go to rural Nebraska and talk to the people there. Do you think you are going to get some differences of opinion? Westerners LOVE trotting out the Iranian urban elite as proof that they can be like us too..or something like that.

I used to be hopeful that the Islamic Republic could change. I'm much less so now--the difficulties inherent in the system

Re:So what is Iran actually like?

[mckyj57]

Sure, the elections may be dodgy, but it's democratic.

Did you listen to yourself?

If an election is dodgy, it is not democratic. Particularly when opposition members are routinely imprisoned or threatened with same.

(Cue people claiming 2000 or 2004 election in US was dodgy.)

Censorship never works

[mangu]

sounds like the anti-SPAM filters for email

Spammers work by making grammar and spelling errors that people recognize anyway. However, in the long list of countries that tried press censorship in the 20th century, all failed because there's always innuendo, sarcasm, satire, etc.

There was a joke in the Soviet Union that went like this: a man is arrested because he was shouting in the street "that man is a disgrace, he made everybody suffer" and so on. In the KGB station he was questioned about who he had been shouting against. "Why, Hitler, of course!" was the answer. The KGB agents apologized and released him. When he was getting out the door, he asked "hey, by the way, who did you think I was speaking about?"

Unless the government controls the publishing hardware, there's no way they can stop people from using double entendre.

and the problem with them doing this is???

[Shivetya]

Granted the submitter is trying to imply it will happen in the United States but I still ask, why does it matter to us what Iran chooses for messages in its own country?

It a repressive regime, what are we to expect? Does it violate their own laws? If there is an international law being violated do you really think they care? Its their country, let them govern it as they see fit. No one is losing their life over filtering.

Stop applying our standards to those in the rest of the world. There are things we take for granted many people never had, never wiil, and some probably don't want. Oh I am sure anyone can list a bunch of things ala Strawman style to refute that claim. It still comes down to, its their country, no one is losing their life over it.

Re:and the problem with them doing this is???

[ScentCone]

why does it matter to us what Iran chooses for messages in its own country

Because it provides some more insight into a country with a culture (or, at least - and worse - a government) that thinks it's reasonable to arrest people based on hair styling ... and which is busy cranking up a uraniam enrichment program, and which speaks in terms of wiping other countries off the map (you know, countries that don't tow their line, religiously). It DOES matter, because it helps to come to terms with the fact that the people running that country are sitting on a huge oil reserve, are running their economy into the ground (making them more likely to make bad decisions about their dealings with others), spend a lot of their cash on directly and overtly supporting terrorist organizations, are busy doing plenty to destablize the new governments in their neighboring countries.

Because we don't live in a vacuum, and what happens in that country can dramatically impact what China does, what Russia does, and what the rest of the world does. They CAN govern as they see fit, I suppose - but if you want to put your head in the sand about the coupling of a soon-to-be-nuke-armed crazyland of medieval-minded thugocrats with their slightly-slow-on-the-uptake new realizations about net-based communications, fine. But don't act surprised when they spend some of their oil revenue to fund violent third parties that would like to see that same world view shape the future of, say, all of Africa - where they're already getting traction.

Everyone in Power Wants to Regulate Speech

[el_munkie]

But it has luckily been fairly resistant to attacks. Both major parties are equally guilty of this. In the Clinton years, you had Tipper Gore wanting to apply "Explicit" labels to records and the DMCA, which prevents one from disseminating fairly obvious bits of knowledge. Under Bush, you have more of the same.

However, it's been a long time since I've seen a congressional hearing about anything that didn't have a member of Code Pink or some other lefty organization visible in the audience, covered in slogans. If we ever get to the point where they're kicked out before they start yelling and disrupting the proceedings, then I might start to get worried. Until then, this is just the same, tired hyperbole.

Re:Everyone in Power Wants to Regulate Speech

[MightyYar]

Seriously - all of the politically correct crap that we've had to endure all of these years comes from the so-called "left". Everyone seems to want to control what we say, Democrat or Republican.

Here we go again...

[Moridineas]

I'm so sick of the moronic editor comments here. "give it a few years" ?!

Seriously, come on. Freedom of expression is worth fighting for. It's even worth carping about on slashdot. Abuses should be publicized and not tolerated.

But what good does this hysterical hyperbole do? The difference between media controls in a country like Iran or China is an order of magnitude away from just about any Western country. Apples and oranges. A whole 'nother ballpark. Whatever other trite expression you want. Does anyone REALLY think that censorship of text messages is a few years away?

This nonsense just makes being concerned with freedom of speech/expression/whatever seem like it belongs in the realm of crazy people.

In Democratic Iran..

[Pointy_Hair]

ur txt msgs cnsr u!

General Iranian "moral crackdown"

[hachete]

along with women's scarves and men's hair. Your foreign policy is shit, the economy is sliding into the gutter, your best brains are going abroad, your government has worse cronyism than Bush's, what do you do? Have a crack-down on those stylish scarves and some incorrectly trimmed hair. Yeah. That'll get the country right back on track to armageddon the Middle East.

Um... No. Your tinfoil hat is on backwards.

[Etherwalk]

Censorship in the US works rather differently. Watch Good Night, and Good Luck or look for the interviews with ex-Fox reporters about Monsanto. The government here rarely censors directly, with the exception of things it claims fall under the rubrick of National Security. Instead, most censorship happens according to the interests of major corporations, and isn't government sponsored. A lot of things are also censored almost by default--third party candidates barred from presidential debates, for example. There's a tremendous amount of social, psychological, political, and financial inertia that--while not technically censorship--make it very difficult to spread information or viewpoints that don't conform to the norm. (And the norm, sadly, is generally addressed to the Lowest Common Denominator.)

The censorship in the US is subtle--and of a different kind, so that in a sense it's not really censorship at all. You can still stand on a street corner and talk to the stranger next to you and not worry much about being locked up. Even if the stranger's a cop, or a Fed, for that matter.

(We won't censor the messages, btw. We'll build an enormous super-secret database of them. Is that better or worse than explicit censorship?)

And how do you know he has the "truth"

[SmallFurryCreature]

Holland is known to be tolerant of gays, Amsterdam especially. Yet the word "homo" is a curse word and not a light one either. In english where you call someone a bastard, even a fucking one, in dutch the person is called gay, same for a stupid idiot or a mean person. Gay each and everyone of them.

A transvestite was recently beaten to death and two male newspapers reporters who pretended to be a gay couple found out just how gay people are viewed, especially by that other hated group, muslim immigrants.

And yet, I could take you on a tour and you would see none of this.

Not that it matters. The people of Iran do NOT matter, the goverment that rules them and that they support (through action or inaction does not matter) is what counts on the world stage.

Many americans claim to be against the iraq war, in fact some sources claim the majority. So how exactly was Bush RE-ELECTED, how the fuck did he get elected in the first place and why are there no efforts to stop the war or at least hamper it?

I would have find the article you linked to a great deal more convincing if the reporter had dressed up as a jew. Or if he had been a she and refused to wear a headscarf, notice how ALL the women in the photos wear one?

White male known to be a reporter from britain is shown a positive face of Iran. Wow, yeah, amazing.

Life isn't a bioware RPG you know. There is no physical representation of the "good" or "evil" of a people. I am reasonably postive that death camp guards on their day off do NOT sprout horns and lurk in dungoens and beat foreign reporters to death for fun.

In fact isn't it amazing racist or at least culterists to claim that "Iran's youth wants western fashion therefore they are not our enemy"? Some of the bloodiests wars in histories have between countries that outsiders could not tell apart.

Democratic ?

[unity100]

You dont know a jack about iran. Islamic Revolution guards rule that country. They are financial (own many big companies) military ( they have their own military) secret service (of their own) apart from the government. Nothing revolutionary guards organization does not allow passes through. Democratic my butt.

Predictive text

[evilgrug]

Some of my friends are quite lazy and will not deviate from the first suggestion their phone's dictionary gives them. I've become quite adept at deciphering what predictive text words are likely to correlate to, and that "Safe? sub" is likely to be "Paddys Pub"

I suspect the Iranians will be able to cyber their "citags" and "dual" their "yet" "aunts" just as well as anyone else. Then there's l33tsp3ak, backwards text, intentional misspellings, number sequences, and the like.

At last

[hey!]

a competitive advantage for creative perverts.

In the good old days of censorship in the US, code for female genitalia included: fish, jelly, lemon, coochie, coffee grinder, and honey dripper. "Mojo risin'" wasn't about casting a hex, it was a reference to male genitalia. "Jelly roll" was, of course sex.

The Andrews Sisters were a WW2 era girl group that sometimes covered blues songs in an extremely non-blues, up-tempo close vocal harmony style. I heard a piece on NPR recently where they were singing about how much they love "fish for dinner", which in the day must have been unintentionally hilarious to people who understood blues slang.

So listen up:

Male genitalia can be referred to as: bald headed hermit, bone, broom handle, country cousin, crack hunter, dipstick, gizzard tickler, gravy-maker, gully-raker, joystick, kidney scraper, little brother, middle leg, Old Blind Bob, one-eyed milkman, peacemaker, pink flute, private member, rump splitter, Sir Martin Flagstaff, sugar stick, tally whacker, tube stake, tug mutton, wedding tackle or willie.

Female genitalia can be referred to as: baloney flaps, bean, box, catcher's mitt, clap farm, coin slot, front bottom, fur burger, honey pot, hoo ha, jelly, kebab, lemon, meat curtains, pink taco, pocket, tater, whisker biscuits or yum-yum. Obvious variations can be built from these: fish taco, vertical taco, haddock pasty.

Coitus can be referred to as: balling, banging, beast with two backs, boinking, bonking, bow-chika-bow-wow, bumping uglies, buttering the corn, chasing the tail, cooking sausage, docking the thumb drive, doodling, down time, drilling, exchanging DNA, fluid mechanics, funny business, game time, giving a good seeing to, grinding coffee, hitting it, home run, horizontal folk dancing, how's your father, laying pipe, monkey business, nailing, next stop tuna station, on the job, playing doctor, plugging, plowing, riding, roasting, rock and rolling, spelunking, spinning the cheese, squeezing lemon, or taking the big onion.

lp.org

[el_munkie]

Check it out. They're a little out there, and they'll never have any success, but they exist.

Stop the idiocy

[Spy Handler]

Yes I'm talking about YOU, Taco.

We all love to bash Bush and hate America, often with good reason... but please, at least give it *some* thought and make sure there's at least some shred of evidence before blindly and mindlessly criticizing everything USA.

Freedom of speech and lack of government censorship is one of the few things that America still has the best of, more so than anywhere else - even the wondrous paradise called Europe. Here you can express support for an unpopular political ideology or make fun of a crazy religion and still expect to keep your freedom. Not so in many parts of Europe; you can be arrested for doing just that.

Re:Give it a few years.. yes, spread of Islam

[PHPfanboy]

Living in Israel, I'd love to believe you. But seeing as:
- most of the countries round here are full of Muslims and they aren't pushing for a Caliphate (not caphilate you ignoramus)
- and the fact that most of the Muslims in Europe actually ran away from the traditional societies they lived in previously (and seems they liked it enough to stay in Europe) ....your posting is basically crap.

However, it would be an interesting variation on the "we buy your oil, you buy our goods" relationship. It would be "you keep the oil, and we take all your loonies to make sure you don't get toppled". Sounds quite reasonable actually and certainly cheaper than a land invasion.

Leet?

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

Isn't this kind of crap easily gotten around with leetspeak (substituting similar numbers/symbols/creative misspellings for the original words)?

Reaons for the Iranian Revolution....

[arthurpaliden]

So, is histroy going to repeat itself???
Among the reasons stated for the revolution:
Focusing of government surveillance and repression on the People's Mujahedin of Iran, the communist Tudeh Party of Iran, and other leftist groups, while the more popular religious opposition organized, grew and gradually undermined the authority of his regime;
Wikipedia..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Re volution

PsyOps

[LilGuy]

Anyone else find it ridiculous that we're seeing all the reports of how oppressive Iran is to it's people? WHO CARES? Honestly. If the people there didn't like it, and were fed up, they'd fix it. I'm seeing this as a preamble to invasion/attack.

Get everyone talking about how horribly oppressive the government is so they don't feel so bad about blitzing them.

Not happening here.

Re:PsyOps

[Grym]

Anyone else find it ridiculous that we're seeing all the reports of how oppressive Iran is to it's people? WHO CARES? Honestly. If the people there didn't like it, and were fed up, they'd fix it. I'm seeing this as a preamble to invasion/attack. Get everyone talking about how horribly oppressive the government is so they don't feel so bad about blitzing them.

What would you suggest? Should we completely ignore the societal warning signs within Iran? Should news agencies not report such incidents or should we just not care when they do? Oh... I know! Maybe we could just report the GOOD NEWS from Iran, like when they build a new school or when another raped woman is stoned--you know.. happy things.

It would be nice if the world worked that way. Indeed life would be much simpler if we could just ignore governments across the world as they became more and more aggressive and unaccountable. Unfortunately, the world is not so insular. If there's any lesson that EVER came from the events leading up to World War II, it's that blind Isolationism only gets people killed--by the millions.

Iran is a major power within the middle east and its influence is only increasing due to our bumblers in Washington. We can't afford to make the mistake of ignoring what's happening there, no matter how much fun it might be to indulge our imaginations and pretend that this and all the other bad news coming out of Iran is part of an elaborate CIA "psyOp."

-Grym

Re:Really?

[Moridineas]

Really? I remember a time nobody would tolerate the military-guarded, razor-wire-fenced places called "free speech zones." Well, I'd like to believe there was such a time. Maybe it's just that nobody had the cojones to pen up protesters before now. I've been to protests before. I've never been ANYWHERE military-guarded however, nor was there razor-wire for that matter. I do know some people who have been in penned away areas. Don't have too much of a response here.

But while we don't filter the message, we are starting to filter the meduim. What about the threat of the NSA reading your internet communication, the threat of RIAA lawsuit or campus police if you fire up Bittorrent to download Ubuntu 7.04, the threat of being brutalized by police for civil protests? NSA: I don't know if they're reading my internet communications. I would doubt it. I don't know of any evidence of civil liberties being violated by NSA wiretapping that may or may not have taken place either. But then again I also assume that ANYONE can read my internet communication.. I'm kind of paranoid that way. I guess it comes down to, ultimately, I think our govt needs some spying ability. I don't know if the NSA has done everything properly, or what not--I don't think any of us do. I'll stay on the fence for this one.

RIAA lawsuit: If you...break the law...you can expect a lawsuit, and this is bad? RIAA isn't the government. As far as I know, they haven't sued anyone for _saying_ anything, either. Not too worried.

Campus police? Funny you mention this one... as a matter of fact I DID download many, many things in my undergrad days. I didn't live in fear. In fact, my local LUG hosted a number of torrents.. The "funny you mention" it part comes from the fact that one year someone living exactly one floor above me DID get busted by police--of course he was a highup member of DrinkOrDie (wiki it). again, this is as it should be as far as I can see. I'm not worried about this.

police brutality: again... I just don't know that this is a problem...

Secret service / police chat: this is supposed to be chilling? if that's true, I think we've lost the meaning of the world "chilling." Chilling is having a a little chat with police and then having your parents disappear. Or having a little chat and having some mysteriously broken bones. Chilling is being threatened. Any of those things. I don't think having to explain yourself to some cops after posting threats against the pres--whatever--is chilling.

Iran's censorship is understandable?

In short, I feel NO hesitation to say anything I want. Well, that's not true--I don't feel like saying nonsense such as "I've got a bomb!!!" at an airport or "I've got a plan to kill the President!!!" in front of ... anyone. and I don't really have any problem at all with foolish people like that having to spend a couple hours explaining themselves. The mere fact we can have this discussion shows how much of a non issue this all is.

I will back off SLIGHTLY and say things aren't perfect--but then again, the people enforcing the laws are just as imperfect as we are. There are bound to be mistakes, stupid, lazy, uninformed, whatever. It only becomes a problem when it's more than this--say, state sanctioned censorship of text msgs.

Isn't this already a solved problem?

[stevewahl]

I saw this on bash.org a while ago, and I thought of it the instant I read this headline:

<Cobra> so i was watching a pr0n
<Thunder> wait
<Thunder> why u guys always say pr0n instead of porn ??
Thunder has been kicked by Guardian (No porn on this channel !)
<Cobra> ...
<Cobra> so i was watching a pr0n

Death Penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

If the jury is prepared to die in the event the accused is exonerated, then yes - let's have the death penalty. If there is no death penalty for the wrongful administration of the death penalty, then that is an even bigger hypocrisy. We have the benefit of education, centuries of judicial experience. Some emotional restraint on the state's part is necessary. Besides, warehousing humans is cheaper than the over-extensive due process (necessary appeals to avoid the inevitable mistakes) necessary in death penalty convictions.

WTF?

[penguin_dance]

f dey txt lk kdz hre, n01 wl undRst& em Nyway!