Slashdot Mirror
Bill Would Bar US Companies From Net Censorship
Meredith writes "A bill that would penalize companies for assisting repressive regimes in censoring the Internet may finally be headed to a vote. The Global Online Freedom Act 'would not only prevent companies like Yahoo from giving up the goods to totalitarian regimes, but would also prohibit US-based Internet companies from blocking online content from US government or government-financed web sites in other countries.' Unfortunately, there's also a giant loophole: the president would be allowed to waive the provisions of the Act for national security purposes."
$150,000 per violation.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
It looks like this law applies only if the totalitarian regime is not your own? Considering the way things are going I wouldn't be surprised if the US became a totalitarian state sooner or later.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
So, in other words, the bill would prevent US companies from helping censorship in countries other than the US. Awesome.
Why is he allowed to waive a person's rights for national security purposes?
National security is HIS problem, not the individual's problems. The constitution doesn't limit the right to expression, assembly, and so on, on the condition that it be used to protect national security. If he can't protect his country without infringing on constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of individuals, then well, sucks to be him. I can has new country, pleeaz.
The individual is more important than the government, not the other way around. The government can die, for all we care - it can be replaced by another piece of paper quite easily.
A bill that would penalize companies for assisting repressive regimes in censoring the Internet may finally be headed to a vote.
Does that mean the "child porn" laws and DMCA are repealed?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
So to the average Chinese resident, services like YouTube will just disappear. Then they'll see a story on the gubmint-run news saying how the West cut off all those sites because they hate the Chinese and don't want them to succeed. And we're going to convince them otherwise... how again?
...where the president is a loophole that can be abused.
Will Cisco be penalized for helping create the "Great Firewall of China" in the first place?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
the US is hardly the one to penalize anyone for supporting repressive regimes. How recently was Saddam Husein a client of our state department and defense organizations? Or Pinochet or...you know it is a long list.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
If a web site in another country (say, Japan) puts up images that are illegal in America (say, cartoon drawings of nude children engaged in sexual acts), and Google image search and other search engines block them because they are illegal child porn....are they then engaging in censorship? Are they then punishable?
Other countries to follow up with laws that prohibit their companies from following US laws. Like controlling lead content in toys or blocking Al Quida terrorist training material.
do we think this will have any effect other than cost us tax revenue?
All this does is force Yahoo or Google to open a company in China. Now the filters do not change and companies moved some of their revenue businesses out of the country.
Does anyone not see it happening this way if this is enforced?
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
Are they passing a law which would make it unlawful to comply with the laws of the country in which you do business?
Because, that would leave Yahoo et al with the choice of having no presence in places like China -- or, in the front of a lawful subpoena in that country having to say "no, it would be illegal for me to obey the law".
Am I getting this right? I fail to see how this law wouldn't leave these companies between a rock and a hard place.
This sounds like a law which was ill thought out in terms of how you enforce it. Then again, that shouldn't exactly surprise me.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
[CENSORED]
Seems to be perfectly in line with the same reasoning on torture vs. waterboarding.
One is "bad" the other is somehow different.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
This bill sounds far from ideal, but at least there's some effort being waged to protect Internet freedom.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Why should he care about the supposed "right" of foreigners who are ruled by THEIR own governments?
The Constitution doesn't apply to the world at large. It is by and for US citizens.
US interests should matter before sacrificing anything at all for foreigners. I'm tired of being told
what the US supposedly "owes" non-Americans. If I owned a business that could make a buck supporting
a regime that wasn't anti-US, I'd do it no matter how "repressive" they were. That sort of ruthlessness
helped win the Cold War, and there is no reason the shrink from it now.
The idea that we should support only "good" ensures we won't have any allies in the real world.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Would that list of "repressive regimes" include the good old USofA?
Today, I present to you a bill to help spread freedom around the world. To stop companies doing evil and censoring global citizens from accessing the Freedom of Press here in America. (*sniff*, *sniff*, I love America...)
(Fist thumping the desk) But in the name of NATIONAL SECURITY, I'll reserve the right for the President of this (sniff) great land to, as he sees fit, step in and block access to any site he deems a threat to this great land.
Thank you all, and God bless ya'll.
why bother with the "provision"? i thought we already established that "if the president does it, it's not illegal".
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Movies are edited for TV and nudity and language is censored.
And yet every time little billy walks by the newsstand he turns his head, and some half-nude swank looks right back at him in all her fleshy glory.
We have to pragmatic here. If our companies don't do as foreign countries ask all that will happen is they will block US internet companies. That's removing 3-5 billion potential consumers.
This is disastrous and will only make the economy worse.
This guy nailed the trojan in this bill.
Yet another political trap for those who dare to vote against it.
now whichever party introduced it can claim on attack ads "this person supports internet censorship" when in reality they oppose the creation of a US "information ministry" designed to oversee and censor america's internet.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
In the US, we censor thing, too: through the DCMA. How does one reconcile these two US laws (assuming this one is passed)?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
"The Constitution doesn't apply to the world at large. It is by and for US citizens."
Read it again. It is a list of things that the United States Federal Government is allowed to do, and enjoined from doing. It doesn't give anybody any rights...it enumerates specific rights (and an incomplete list of those rights) that the US Government is particularly not allowed to infringe.
Not "citizens".
Not "non-terrorists".
Everybody.
(well, that's the way it was designed, anyhow...)
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
And, what happens when some other country passes a law that a company that has a presence in their country, like Yahoo, can not provide any information to the U.S. Government?
Or, said country passes a law saying all companies who do business in their country must provide any information requested?
What then?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
China seems content with only censoring their citizens.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The Constitution doesn't apply to the world at large. It is by and for US citizens. No, it is not. It is for all persons. The ONLY parts that distinguish between citizens and non-citizens are the parts about representation (ie, the right to vote).
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
The USA has done enough legislating of international morality for its own companies. Even Europeans would sell us out to try and get these deals for themselves. For every Boeing that gets busted by DOJ for trying to bribe someone to buy a jet, there is an Airbus waiting to take its place. If Chinese Yahoo got shut down by the US Gov't, the only result would be a European company rolling in, doing the dirty work, and the Europeans would still figure out a way to say they are morally superior for doing so. It is utterly pointless.
Best bet is to have American companies obey the local laws, and if they suck, state our case in international forums, and work for change, but, at the same time, I think Iraq shows what happens when we flaunt international conventions ourselves even if it is for the greater good.
This is my sig.
you're under the false impression that government must exist for its self and anything else is anarchy er serfdom as you put it. The government must be for the people and by the people, if it exists to merely serve and protect its self rather than those it is supposed to represent it must be dissolved or at the least altered to serve OUR interests not ITS interests.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
National security is HIS problem, not the individual's problems. The constitution doesn't limit the right to expression, assembly, and so on, on the condition that it be used to protect national security. If he can't protect his country without infringing on constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of individuals, then well, sucks to be him. I can has new country, pleeaz.
The individual is more important than the government, not the other way around. The government can die, for all we care - it can be replaced by another piece of paper quite easily. I hope you are not serious. I would say that being in jail a violation of a person's rights. I would also say that arresting someone who was going to set off a nuke in DC would be protecting national security. Are you saying that the US gov't should ALLOW me to set off that nuke as to not violate my rights?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Here's The Fine Bill, as can be found if you follow enough links, and here's the entry for it on the THOMAS web site at the Library of Congress. Please read before commenting on the bill. In particular, note that:
That sort of philosophy may work very well in some ivory tower, but, out here in the real world, who's going to be doing the dissolution or alteration? You? You and what army?
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
No - what it says is that he can, for example, override the bill's requirement that US companies not block government or government-funded Web sites from being read in "Internet-restricting countries"; the bill doesn't explicitly say he can block it himself.
Exactly.
Free Speech and the Right to Assemble are impinged all the time. To use the classic example, you don't have the right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theater on the basis that it's likely to cause undue harm to others nearby.
On a general basis, "chance of getting soldiers killed" would work under the same principles. It's no doubt abused for other reasons... like protecting the politicos own asses, but there has never been complete freedom of speech.
Could you cite the parts of the bill that indicate that the Office of Global Internet Freedom is "designed to oversee and censor america's internet"? (Hint: the item the person to whom you're replying referred to is not it.)
This could potentially bar American companies like Google or Yahoo from doing business in countries like China. Is this what our congress is trying to accomplish?
You misspelled "to, as he sees fit, step in and not bother to prevent our fine companies from helping other countries block sites they deem a threat to their great lands". RTFB (in particular, RTFS 207, "Presidential Waiver").
Do we think that this includes caving to the US government? Thoughts of FBI snooping come to mind...
Fear the penguin.
Despite common perception, freedoms granted to US citizens aren't absolute (see other replies for why none of the freedoms and restrictions apply to non-US citizens). For example, you can be arrested and/or fined for yelling "FIRE!" in a public space when there is no fire. Some may argue this is freedom of speech, but it infringes on the safety of others by potentially causing panic, so such speech is not protected for the sake of security.
Your second example is spurious...there is no "right to set off nuclear weapons" (unless you believe it's covered by the second amendment, which I do not concede is a bona fide right).
As to your first example, you are essentially correct, but are forgetting that the violation of the criminal's rights takes place so that others may more freely exercise their own rights. The benefit of putting criminals in jail (if there really is a benefit, but that's another debate) doesn't accrue necessarily to the Government, but to the people or businesses or property who/that would otherwise be victimized by the criminal. Your right to swing your fists around stops where my nose begins.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Knowing how a security system works is not the same as having the keys to that system.
If you had said, "Great, tell me your IP address and what versions of what operating systems and daemons you are running," then that would be more analogous.
Asking when he works and when his wife and kids are home is just being a dick and you know it. He doesn't have the same kind of security a water processing plant should and he never claimed he did. You've proven nothing.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Can we please stop using "loophole" to describe provisions that are intentionally and knowingly written into legislation? If the president waives away the entire bill under the auspices of "national security," no one, especially not Congress, can cry "loophole!"; the president was acting within the explicit provisions of the legislation.
Looked at another way it will force US companies to stop doing business in countries which have laws restricting online content since they cannot comply with both local and US law at the same time.
It is also somewhat morally dubious since sometimes local "censorship" laws are well intentioned like not being allowed to deny the holocaust in Germany. Whether or not you agree with it (and personally I don't) is it any business of the US if a democratic country (i.e. not China!) decides on some level of censorship?
Do what I say, not what I do.
"A matter of internal security: the age-old cry of the oppressor." - Jean-Luc Picard
Cartoon drawings and stories aren't illegal as no actual children were involved.
You are incorrect. The bush administration made them illegal in 2003 via the PROTECT Act
Quoth:
Prohibits drawings, sculptures, and pictures of such drawings and sculptures depicting minors in actions or situations that meet the (Miller test) of being obscene, OR are engaged in sex acts that are deemed to meet the same obscene condition.
Or Google and Yahoo! stop filtering and get blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Google and Yahoo! suffer, Chinese citizens lose Google's and Yahoo!'s services and this helps the freedom in China how?
The idea's of a "right" is a complex thing...obviously we can't all be completely autonomous..if we were we'd be just like country's and so we should be fighting one another all the time. Obviously this isn't desirable so we give up some of our "rights" so as to protect other "rights. Meaning we'd rather have a better life over all as opposed to absolute liberty. Also I'd like to note that there are two kinds of rights (liberties) which we are referring to..and they are very different. Positive liberties: political liberties/ what you may exert on others/society Negative Liberties: What people/society can't do against yourself. Both are needed to allow us to pursue happiness and yet coexist with one another.
Define "oppressive regimes". That's actually a slippery slope that I'm not comfortable going down. If we start beating down on things we consider to be oppressive, we become the oppressors ourselves. What's the point?
"National security is HIS problem, not the individual's problems"
Are you an idiot?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
A prime example of what is wrong with the US, when people are under the perception that the Constitution *grants* rights.
This law would be quite Unconstitutional. The 1st Amendment only applies to the US Government restricting the Freedom of Speech of its citizens. This Right does NOT apply to commercial and private citizens. If you run a website and you want to restrict somebody's speech on it, you have full rights to do so, same with Google, Yahoo!, and any other non-government entity. Yeah, I know, "common knowledge" says differently, but that is how it works. ..and here is the fun part, the very fact that they are telling a commercial entity or citizen that they cannot restrict somebody's speech, is in-fact, restricting their speech.
Twisted, eh?
Oh, why the Anonymous post? heh. I work for the Government.
Maybe we could call this an "eMancipation Proclamation".
First, Yahoo does not operate in China but "Yahoo China," which is a Chinese company partly owned by Yahoo through some very complicate arrangement setup by the lawyers, operates in China. Yahoo inc. and other big websites have to do that to work around Chinese laws regarding publishing and foreign ownership. Yahoo Inc. is just a shareholder and domain name owner. And I'm absolutely sure, without looking in intricacies of this new law, that an U.S. lawyer can easily draw the line between the two entities should the China subsidiary get caught.
The Chinese prosecutors can just submit the evidences as if it were collect from the person's computer or from the Great Firewall log. How do you prove Yahoo Inc. actually give out anything to the prosecutor?
Accept that your "rights" are just mere words.
Remember the college kids getting gunned down by our own national guard for simply protesting the Vietnam war.
Take note of the "protest zones" outside large party conventions.
This system only exists to satisfy a few while keeping the rest too far up hip hop's butt to care.
Two faced and double standard.
Those aren't illegal in the US, much to the chagrin of the "think of the children" crowd.
You are incorrect. The bush administration made them illegal in 2003 via the PROTECT Act
Quoth:
Prohibits drawings, sculptures, and pictures of such drawings and sculptures depicting minors in actions or situations that meet the (Miller test) of being obscene, OR are engaged in sex acts that are deemed to meet the same obscene condition.
Because preventing people who hate us to get their hands on information that could kill a large number of "individuals" is more important than an individual who has an unrealistic view that all information should be shared on the Internet? I understand there is fear of abuse, but you have to be rational. When you view things in absolutes you generally have lost sight of reality.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
And of course, another loophole is that the US government can go ahead and "censor" anything it wants (e.g., child porn, "terrorism" sites, whatever). National security, hmm... whatever happened to "give me liberty or give me death" and "the society that chooses security over freedom deserves neither"?
Currently hooked on AMP
I thought TFA was about Bill Clinton.
"The body may heal, but the mind is not always so resilient." -- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
But I honestly feel like this Administration is doing their level best to put as much possible power into the hands of a single individual (ie, KING) as possible.
Right now technically according to law -- the President has the authority to be KING (literally) if we are in a state of emergency -- deemed by the President.
I'm just sad Americans are too simple minded to realize it nowadays -- I wish people were more active in their politics, but most people are self minded (myself included mostly) and I guess it's a willful ignorance.
Still sad though. And kind of scary.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
when it doesn't break anything in your contract?
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Nudity and sexual related content are the vast majority being censored in China.
Obscurity is an important part of any security system. It adds an extra layer of protection.
Sometimes it's the biggest and most important layer of protection.
In your water plant example: are you saying that they should let everyone know what protective measures are they using and how they are installed?
Are you serious?
And btw, software systems are quite different in that respect: it's much easier to reverse engineer software system or probe it for all kinds of weaknesses. So decent obscurity is not that easy to achieve and thus plays less important role.
U.S. companies should not help any government censor anything, period. Anything else is a slippery slope--real fast.
This is why Google is evil.
expandfairuse.org
It seems ironic that the US government is paying so much attention to censorship in other countries when it refuses to prohibit censorship being commited by corporations right here. This law is quite insufficient in protecting freedom of speech. No corporation should be allowed to manipulate content which is transmitted over the internet. Truly ISPs are common carriers and should be required to transmit data verbatim. Corporations can, via owning critical communications infrastructure such as this, become governments by controlling what can be sent over the internet. You cant have this in a truly free society and the US governments inaction to prevent this censorship shows their lack of regard for the peoples freedom.
With the proposed law, the national security exemption is the sort of thing we see as a typical fixture in totalitarian government, The government will have a constitution or a law which claims that the people have free speech rights, to make people think they do, but then in the fine print adds exceptions so vague you could drive a truck through it, like national security, which can be interpreted so loosely it can be applied to nearly anything by a corrupt regime. Many totalitarian governments have a form of this where these rights can be suspended in an emergency, so the government simply declares a perpetual state of emergency. Telling people they have free speech, but only as long as the government approves of it, is not free speech.
So ... They want to take away our soap box.
The ballot box is rigged, and the jury box is ineffective. They're only leaving us with one option.
Adapt, adopt, or get out of the way!
Nope, you just didn't dig deep enough to read that it would enable the US to censor absolutely anything they want, since as usual they use very loose wording. Summary alone: ' Unfortunately, there's also a giant loophole: the president would be allowed to w
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Really? So you and your .45 cal. peashooter are going to stop a squad of National Guard troopers. Yeah, let me know how that works out for you.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Due to a successful constitutional challenge to the child porn portion of that Act (Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition), the broad language has been changed. Originally anything that "appeared to be" child pornography was illegal -- now any digital/animation must be "indistinguishable from" actual children being forced to do sexual acts in order to qualify. Here's the relevant language from 18 U.S.C. 2256 (definitions), but also see 2252 (original child porn statute, still on the books), and 2252A (newer child porn statute, should have probably just replaced 2252, but didn't).
Here is the definition, with emphasis added:
(8) "child pornography" means any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where--
(A) the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct;
(B) such visual depiction is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or
(C) such visual depiction has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually explicit conduct.
I doubt a "cartoon" would qualify.
P.S. The "kind of" is because I'm one year away from finishing law school, and I just took my "Computer Crimes" exam yesterday -- it included this statute.
Nothing can stop companies from moving and incorporating somewhere outside the US. This is just election year 'feel good' politics even if we thought the President (any President, from any party) would actually use it against countries like China, Pakistan, or the US itself.
Today, if China asks Yahoo under their law for address XYZ, Yahoo really has to give it to them. The result is that a few nerds on Slashdot think worse of Yahoo. Under this prospective law, Yahoo must now shrug and say "Sorry China, we cannot. That's illegal under US law." So, Yahoo gets to protect the anonymity of its users, which is good for its reputation in the US, among nerds on Slashdot.
You're correct that China then expels Yahoo. Bad for business.
Wouldn't this also mean that Wikipedia coldn't block the State Department from making edits, for instance?
So I assume Like IBMs counting machines during the holicost companies can still provide filtering hardware/software as long as they are not activly blocking or directly participating in de-anonymozing activities?
If your going to do business in a country you should respect its laws and not simply ignore the ones you don't agree with. After all if a group of people came to your country and ran a business which activly ignored your countries laws it didn't like what would your people and your government think? How would they react?
What benefit does this reaction provide anyone?
Why make businesses fight a war they are in no position to win? Wouldn't cultural exchanges and some good old fashion diplomacy by *experienced* diplomats produce better results in making stupid censorship whoreing nations see the error of their ways? Putting businesses on the front line of an idealogical war is just a receipt for disaster.
"Legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes." Who gets to decide what is Legitimate and what isn't? TFA even makes the same point.
I'm all for hating companies who help dictators propogate their self-serving bullshit but I'm not sure codifying this into law is the best approach as it throws business into a catch22 it has no way out of without breaking someones law.
Having said that yahoo and Co get everything they deserve for lying to congress... They might be a bunch of grumpy old people who often lack much needed wisdom but they can still make unpleasent laws.
That would be fine, as long as those same countries lose their Most Favored Nation trading status. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
--
$tar -xvf
Perhaps it should read: the bill would bar US companies from providing information about users or blocking websites for any OTHER government...
...for a second there I thought someone in the US Government had taken their hypocrisy hat off. Maybe next time.
thx e
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
This is no need for this bill that I can see. US businesses can already be sued and held accountable for supporting human rights violators. The Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 can and has been used by foreign nationals to sue US based businesses.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The world doesn't have to be a contest. Cooperation is more efficient.
Heh. This is how they force Wikipedia to unban the US gov't? I'm glad those aren't my tax dollars at work.
how is babby formed?
If I owned a business that could make a buck supporting a regime that wasn't anti-US, I'd do it no matter how "repressive" they were. That sort of ruthlessness helped win the Cold War, and there is no reason the shrink from it now.
So you would support the massacre of 200,000 people? That's what President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger did when they supported the Indonesian dictator Suharto's invasion of East Timor. That 200,000 massacred was 1/3 of East Timor's population.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It is a well-established principle of constitutional jurisprudence that executive power is strongest and constitutional protections weakest when national security is at stake.
Except that when both Lincoln and Bush Jr denied Habeas Corpus both Supreme Courts ruled it was unconstitutional.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The bill states that exceptions can be made to comply with local law enforcement, but it does however leave a legal path for retribution in cases where a company (read yahoo) gives a foreign government information with the intent of removing dissent.
However as there's already a US law that can be used there's no need for a new one. A law passed in 1789 allows foreigners to sue US businesses that support human rights violations in US courts. That law is the Alien Tort Claims Act.
FalconShould there be a Law?
So, your small arsenal of shotguns is going to be enough to stand up to one of the biggest and best equipped fighting forces in the world. Right.
Either you're bullshitting or you're Gordon Freeman and you've done this shit before.
I write bullshit
Interesting that the President decides which countries are considered to be "internet-restricting". I suppose that allowing the USA to top that list would be a violation of national security, right?
I always cringe when someone tries to relate a computer-security concept to physical-security. Yes, they both have the word "security" in their names, and admittedly there's a physical-security component to computer-security insofar as that someone might invade your data center. But other than that, the two are completely different.
An example helps. Consider the difference in:
You could lock the door of the power-plant, but what if they knock it down? You can reinforce the door, but what if they bring a tank? You could add tanks of your own, but what if they bring a plane? You could add an anti-plane system, but what if they bring an army? It never ends. And so the question of physical security is one of risk management -- there's no way to make it completely secure, you can only raise the bar higher and higher.
But for the weapon design, you can unplug the network cable, and no hacker can do anything about it unless they can gain physical access to the machine. In the computer world, your attacker can only access what you let him see, and you can always choose to let him see nothing.
We know that "security through obscurity" is no security at all in the computer world. We can tell our attacker exactly how we have protected our weapon plans (by leaving them on a disconnected computer) and that knowledge does him no good.
But in the physical world, the very uncertainty about what he will face when he goes up against the power plant helps to raise the bar higher. If he doesn't know whether he needs a sledgehammer, a tank, an airplane, or an army, he will have a harder time planning his attack.
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness"
in the declaration of Independence, is this:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
There seem to be many who think political processes are futile for people to use, but I am far from convinced. Changing the government is difficult but certainly not impossible. If it cannot be done now, it is because of lack of motivation rather than impossibility. Didn't about 1/3 of colonists support the revolution? For people to suggest that 100 million US citizens, who shared a common ideology, united in action would be unable to bring about changes to the government seems absurd. They wouldn't even need to break any laws, much less take up arms. 100 million would be able to run enough candidates and elect them to control the government and bring about any changes to law and constitution they wanted, given some time. The reason this isn't happening is that the reasons people want change are simply not compelling enough to make enough people act.
If a cause does not have enough popular support to control the government through elections in the US today, it does not have enough popular support to win an armed revolution either. I support the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of having a citizen militia, but this is worth the consideration of any who would take up arms.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Obviously, the good folks at Chinese Google Baidu.com have finally learned about American style government lobbying.
The problem with secrecy is that it takes away the public's ability to access the information they need in order to make informed decisions. That is something that can have huge consequences - from endangering democracy to giving companies free reins to metaphorically piss in the beer; I mean, in the case of the water supply, if the public can't see for themselves at any time that the water production is being run in a responsible manner, the company could in principle save money and use materials that would slowly poison people.
Secrecy is always a bad idea in an open society. The only reason some want to have secrecy is to save money on proper security.
The Cold War was vastly more important than the East Timorese. There was no logical reason to choose them over Suharto, so we didn't.
"For senior officials, the fate of a post-colonial East Timor paled in comparison to the strategic relationship with the anti-communist Suharto regime, especially in the wake of the communist victory in Vietnam, when Ford and Kissinger wanted to strengthen relations with anti-communists and check left-wing movements in the region."
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The Cold War was vastly more important than the East Timorese. There was no logical reason to choose them over Suharto, so we didn't.
Being human doesn't count? Let's see what the courts say if I start shooting people, after raping the women.
"For senior officials, the fate of a post-colonial East Timor paled in comparison to the strategic relationship with the anti-communist Suharto regime, especially in the wake of the communist victory in Vietnam, when Ford and Kissinger wanted to strengthen relations with anti-communists and check left-wing movements in the region."
To them and you maybe but people are important to me and genocide is genocide no matter who it's against.
FalconShould there be a Law?