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."

Comments

Re:What about hardware?

[ArcherB]

Will Cisco be penalized for helping create the "Great Firewall of China" in the first place? No. You can't pass a law illegalizing a previously committed action and the prosecute for that action. That would be like changing the speed limit on a street from 70 to 35 and giving tickets to everyone that drove 60 on that street yesterday.

Re:What about American censorship?

[Asmor]

Those aren't illegal in the US, much to the chagrin of the "think of the children" crowd.

Re:The Bill Should Bill

[Nos.]

Maybe you should RTFA:
"If the companies violate any of these new restrictions, they could face civil and criminal penalties of up to $2 million"

This needs a mod up, you missed this little trojan

[plasmacutter]

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.

Re:O Rly?

[mweather]

Then they get penalized. If they don't want that top happen, they either need to move their HQ, or get out of that market.

RTFB before commenting, please

[Guy Harris]

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:

• the word "totalitarian" doesn't appear in the bill, just "authoritarian";
• the President of the US determines what countries are "Internet-restricting countries" (fat chance that this would include the US or any of the US's friends);
• the forms of censorship, etc. it affects are providing personally identifiable information to "Internet-restricting countries", filtering search results at the request of "Internet-restricting countries", and "jamming" "United States-supporting content" (government sites and the like) in "Internet-restricting countries";
• the bill doesn't affect whether you can help any country other than an "Internet-restricting country" to censor the Intarweb,

Re:What about American censorship?

[gnick]

are they then engaging in censorship? Yes.

Are they then punishable? No, because that wouldn't remotely constitute blocking the viewing of US government/government-financed web sites in foreign countries.

I can accept that a lot of people won't RTFA, but is it too much trouble to RTF summary?

Re:What about hardware?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Yes you can, it's called an ex-post-facto law, latin for "After the fact". They're against the US constitution, yes, but theres a few being upheld now.
From Wikipedia:

One current U.S. law that has an ex post facto effect is the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. This law, which imposes new registration requirements on convicted sex offenders, gives the U.S. Attorney General the authority to apply the law retroactively

Ex-post-facto laws are fine in the eyes of the public as long as they only impact scary evil people.

Theres also instances that aren't exactly ex-post-facto, but can be applied similarly. Best example I can think of is a new drug coming out. No laws against it, so you acquire some. Law gets passed without you knowing and you're stuck with possession.

Re:So....

[Touvan]

1) The potential for abuse regarding government's ability to keep information secret is well documented, and a much larger problem for the security of the people than access to the details of a well designed security system.

2) The OP made no references to free speech, which is a whole different ball of wax. Encouraging others to commit a crime already puts somebody at a multitude of legal risks (inciting a riot, accessory to murder, etc.).

There's really no need to be afraid anyway, it would be incredibly easy to poison the NYC water supply for example (there are places where the century old wooden water pipes that carry the water to that huge city can be seen by the side of the highway), and it hasn't happened yet.

It's important that we not to let our fears of bogeymen lead us to sacrifice our freedoms.

Re:The Bill Should Bill

[Nos.]

Apparently I should have quoted the entire paragraph since you still didn't read the article:
If the companies violate any of these new restrictions, they could face civil and criminal penalties of up to $2 million, and aggrieved citizens (those who have suffered from the companies' violations, like the Chinese dissidents discussed above) are free to pursue punitive damages and other legal remedies from the offenders.

So, "aggrieved citizens" can still go after whatever they want in punitive damages. Sue for whatever you want. The FINE is capped at $2,000,000.

Re:The Bill Should Bill

[falconwolf]

Anyway, this actually seems to be a good law. Has Hell frozen over ?

Nope not really. It's just another hypocrisy law. It won't fly; the US has too many economic interests in China to pass any type of 'Human Rights' type legislation.

As I just posted in a response to someone else, there's no need for a new law. A law allowing foreign nationals to sue US businesses in US courts for supporting human rights violations has been on the books since 1789. The Alien Tort Claims Act, ATCA, was passed into law in 1789 and has been used, is being used today, to sue US businesses. Here's some of the cases that have been in US courts recently. For instance Unocal settled a lawsuit brought by Burmese villagers in 2005. In another case Coca-Cola was sued for supporting paramilitaries in Colombia.

Falcon