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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Does that mean the "child porn" laws and DMCA are repealed?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?
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
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
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.
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
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.
Maybe we could call this an "eMancipation Proclamation".
You know, I've always wondered how we are protecting children by outlawing computer generated and animated child porn. If no child was ever involved, and the images aren't made in the likeness of an actual individual, where is the child abuse?
I'm not advocating child porn, just wondering where the logic comes from.
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.
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
That explains why you are reading slashdot rather than working. ;)
The miller test is bullshit:
1 Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
2 Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions [2] specifically defined by applicable state law,
3 Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. (This is also known as the (S)LAPS test- [Serious] Literary, Artistic, Political, Scientific).
1) Nothing is shocking to this generation
2) Nothing is offensive to the point it needs to be banned or censored to this Generation
3) This Generation understands that free speech applies to everyone even when said people are stupid. The only exception is when the speech itself causes harm. Examples include SPAM and verbal and written threats on someone's life.
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.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
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!
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.
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
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?
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?
Actually, it would not be protected by the First Amendment, and the law would be Constitutional.
;-)
- The Government CAN restrict the speech of it's citizens. Speech that endangers the lives and/or safety, or advocates illegal actions. Examples would be saying the "So-ans-so should be shot", "I'm gonna kill you", yelling "Fire!" or "Bomb!" in a crowded place, saying "So-and-so should be killed", slander, and libel are technically not protected by the First Amendment. Supplying information that will knowingly be used to bring harm or danger to a person/place/thing falls into this category. Technically, "Hate Speech" and "Sexual Harassment" speech are also protected by the First Amendment, and international law, but nobody seems to understand this, as you could still be arrested.
The KKK can denounce blacks/jews/minorites (or anything that falls under their wide scope of hatred), but they cannot supply information that has the explicit intent to cause harm to anybody (even those that share their views). The same goes for Black Panthers/Nationalists, or any other person or group. Another example of this would be the Anti-Abortion/Pro-Life website (I forgot the name-it was awhile ago) that posted the names, photos, home addresses, business addresses, telephone numbers and other personally descriptive information with the intent of having other people, even on their own accord, of bringing harm against them, their families, employees, and businesses. The court order removing the information from the website, and the arrest of the individuals was challenged and defeated (on the grounds that it vilated the First Amendment), since it was intended to cause harm to the individuals mentioned.
The Government is attemting to prohibit the disclosure of information that violates international by denying human rights. To allow the disclosure of such information actually violates international law by aiding in the violation of human rights. Since the right of Free Speech does not apply to commercial entities, the Government can restrict what is said to foreign governments.
"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."
-Again, the Government can restrict what it's citizens say. It an also restrict what is said by commercial entities and groups. I'll bet you would have a very hard time giving millions of Social Security numbers of American citizens in Mexico, since the only use could be for illegal operations in "creating" new identities for illegal immigrants, with harmful repercussions for American citizens. (The Mexican Government has explicitly stated that they are helping immigrants illegally enter the U.S. - No joke.)
Not really twisted, just an idea that will keep American companies with massive amounts of personally identifiable data from disclosing it knowing that it could be used to bring harm and human rights violations against other human beings by foreign governments.
P.S.: I trust you are not accessing SlashDot from Big Brother's computer!
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
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/
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?