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

The Bill Should Bill

[monxrtr]

$150,000 per violation.

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"

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

So....

[Tuoqui]

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.

Re:So....

[piojo]

Well, national security can be important, believe it or not. If somebody posted the floor plan and guard rotations for a large water processing plant, would you really want a law that said nobody could tell them to take down the information?

I think that requiring the president himself to okay the exceptions is a good way to keep them in check. Not that I trust his judgement, but the government shouldn't start censoring like crazy, because the president has better things to do with his time than sign censorship permission slips all day long.

Re:So....

[calebt3]

And the President can't claim ignorance when it happens.

Re:So....

[MBGMorden]

Well, national security can be important, believe it or not. If somebody posted the floor plan and guard rotations for a large water processing plant, would you really want a law that said nobody could tell them to take down the information? Actually, I would. What you're defending is the real-world version of security through obscurity. If knowing the floor plan and guard rotations of a water plant is sufficient for a person with ill intent to gain access, then the security situation at this water plant is insufficient. Physical security must be designed just like computer security: it works even against someone who knows exactly HOW the system works.

Re:So....

[piojo]

Security by obscurity is bad, but there are two large holes in what you said:

1) Good security can be effectively supplemented by obscurity. No security system is perfect, and it's perfectly reasonable to make the system harder for an outsider to understand. (Please don't bring up the Open Source argument. A water purification plant isn't a fun software project, and people don't augment that type of security system for fun.)

2) You just advocated allowing somebody to broadcast, "Come poison this well! Here's most of the information you need to kill thousands/millions of people." This should be allowed because their security isn't good enough? Are you crazy?

Re:So....

[hpa]

We KNOW he's breaking the law, but who's going to be the one who stands up to throw the first stone? So far, no one's doing it.

Actually, quite a few are stepping up (including the ACLU), but with half the population believing the propaganda wing of the Republican Party, a.k.a. Fox News, is actually a news source, it's hard to get through to enough people to make a difference. At this point, the best bet is pretty much to make him do as little damage as possible before he gets thrown out. He certainly has lost any momentum toward eliminating the XXII Amendment, which was floated several times in the 2001-2003 timeframe.

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:So....

[MBGMorden]

Ok, so suppose somebody posts the encryption key used by the VPN into the water supply system?

Or the 10-digit code used to unlock the front door? What's more sensible:

a. telling them to pull that information down,

or

b. CHANGING THE CODES IF THEY'VE BEEN PUBLISHED.

Trying to stifle information is not wise. Correcting the problem itself rather than trying to hide it always works better. In your example, it's already been proven that somebody you trust is willing to publish that information. Pulling it from the net doesn't meant they can't tell friends, or that anyone who saw it before being pulled will magically forget it. Work to eliminate the source of the leak, change the codes in the meantime, and forget about trying to put the genie back in the bottle.

Re:So....

[AJWM]

and it hasn't happened yet.

On Sept 10, 2001, nobody had flown commercial airliners into the WTC or the Pentagon yet, either. "It hasn't happened yet" is a damned weak argument.

Re:So....

[NiteShaed]

The President doesn't have to claim ignorance, he embodies it.

Stop other people from censorship

[Asmor]

So, in other words, the bill would prevent US companies from helping censorship in countries other than the US. Awesome.

Re:Stop other people from censorship

[superbus1929]

But censoring against your own citizens is still A-OK.

Re:Stop other people from censorship

[ArcherB]

So, in other words, the bill would prevent US companies from helping censorship in countries other than the US. Awesome. An example of why I think the point of allowing the US Prez to allow censorship is, let's say a group in Afghanistan are using the webcams to track US troop movements and MSN messenger to pass data and orders.

Another example would be using the web to follow or report on NYPD officers to plan when to plant a bomb or whatever.

Finally, let's say someone stole the plans to the F22 fighter that exposed a way to detect it via radar and wanted to post the information on their MySpace page from an Internet Cafe...

These are just a few examples of where I think the Prez should allow censorship of Internet activity. Generally, censorship is a bad thing, but not always. On RARE occasion (Very RARE), it's necessary.

National security more important than individuals?

[mozumder]

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.

Great news!

[sm62704]

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?

Re:Great news!

[TubeSteak]

Does that mean the "child porn" laws and DMCA are repealed? FTFA:

When it comes to non-government sites, the Act would require companies to disclose to the newly-created Office of Global Internet Freedom the terms that they do filter, and for the Office to continually monitor these filtered terms. Would this make the US Gov't a direct party to overseas filtering, since they know what's being filtered and have a veto over its filtering?

What's the goal?

[mrami]

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?

Re:What's the goal?

[evilphish_mi]

Not to mention the lost revenue of these American countries for having to shut down those operations.

Re:What's the goal?

[mweather]

So you think the Chinese people are retarded?

Re:What's the goal?

[ArcherB]

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? I believe you misunderstand the goal of this bill. The goal is TO stop companies like Google, YouTube or Yahoo from helping repressive regimes (the Chinese in your example) censor information to the average citizen. Of course, we can't stop the Chinese gov't from doing it, but we can stop Google from doing it for them.

Re:What's the goal?

[LionMage]

Goal 1 is achieved by putting social pressure on a repressive/authoritarian regime -- the citizenry of that country (e.g., China) will presumably be upset that they can no longer access certain sites, and will complain, or engage in civil disobedience by bypassing any locks and controls enforcing the ban on those sites. Alternately, people within the repressive nation might be motivated to create their own alternative site that is inside the nation's firewall, and thus harder to block (at least in the short run -- someone maintaining the site might still have to do subversive things like move the server periodically to avoid detection by the authorities).

Goal 2 is absolutely guaranteed, in the sense that it prevents U.S. companies from developing "unclean hands." If a foreign nation wants to censor the Internet and prohibit its citizens from seeing certain material, that's their prerogative -- but no U.S. company should ever be complicit in such censorship, and this bill would mandate a moral or ethical imperative for businesses. It's sad that U.S. companies wouldn't choose to avoid such coercion on their own, but as their rationale for supporting foreign censorship efforts is the consequence of non-compliance (i.e., not being able to do business in that country), these companies are heavily motivated to just "go with the flow" by profits. This law mandates a moral backbone at the expense of profits.

Personally, I don't see this as any different from child labor laws -- when such laws were enacted in the United States in the 19th and early 20th Centuries, many capitalists decried them, but morally it is the right thing to prevent the exploitation of children, especially in dangerous jobs. Many companies now get around these laws by exporting labor to countries which don't have adequate child labor laws (nor adequate enforcement of any existing laws), but the social climate in the U.S. has changed to the point where the exposure of such wrongdoing elicits the appropriate outraged response.

So, in the long view, goal #1 is preserved, even if in the short view Chinese citizens get a bunch of web sites blocked. In a sense, that's kind of the point -- force the issue and see what develops. If the Chinese people (or the Iranian people, etc.) don't complain and demand change after their own inept regime is forced to do all the dirty work itself, then they didn't deserve what little illusion of freedom they had to begin with. You're either totally free or you're not. I'm sure at least one of the authors if this bill is counting on the Chinese government reacting in knee-jerk fashion the second this goes through, possibly by yanking the rights of American IT companies to keep offices in and do business in mainland China.

Having said all that, I'm sure the Chinese authorities will probably take a pragmatic approach and try to reach some kind of compromise which allows them to continue with business as usual, while letting U.S. companies off the hook. "You can host whatever you want in our country, but we reserve the right to place filters on all network connections going in and out of your local data centers."

What about hardware?

[nebaz]

Will Cisco be penalized for helping create the "Great Firewall of China" in the first place?

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 hardware?

[techpawn]

You can't pass a law illegalizing a previously committed action

Or passing a law saying that your warrantless wiretapping program wasn't illegal and all parties involved get immunity because it's for the good of the nation and the failing economy, besides they wheren't doing anything illegal anyway.

Yes, you can not do that.

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.

oh, that is rich

[museumpeace]

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.

Re:oh, that is rich

[Robert1]

So you would rather they continue to support oppressive regimes than try to be progressive and move away from those policies and do so through passage of laws explicitly prohibiting support?

You clearly don't like what they did before so why the hell are you whining about them trying to rectify that and ensure it happens less in the future? It's like your'e bitching for the sake of bitching.

Re:oh, that is rich

[museumpeace]

having said nothing more than I did, I suppose you could be right. But while we we make that insignificant token step in the right direction, do we use it to deflect calls for substantial corrections to our rights-shredding and our hypocrisy about oppression? I am not opposed to this measure...unless it is a way to deflate initiatives toward other measures. And do you not admit its a tad ironic?


Besides, I can bitch for a lot more reasons than self righteous gratification.

Like shouldn't we put our own house in order first and stop giving our executive a free and warrantless hand to access any communications among its citizens that it wishes?

Our pot is so black none of the kettles should be expected to listen.

I would love to see

[iamacat]

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.

So .... let me get this straight ....

[gstoddart]

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

Google China thinks

[imyy4u2]

[CENSORED]

IOW: Do as we say, not as we do

[denis-The-menace]

Seems to be perfectly in line with the same reasoning on torture vs. waterboarding.

One is "bad" the other is somehow different.

Does that include ours?

[portnux]

Would that list of "repressive regimes" include the good old USofA?

Re:Does that include ours?

[Gat0r30y]

No way man, you see, we aren't in a repressive regime, we've just been freed from our liberties!

Re:Does that include ours?

[ArcherB]

Would that list of "repressive regimes" include the good old USofA? In in the good old USofA and I'm not repressed. Are you? If you are, please call 911 or your local news affiliate because that kind of shit is not allowed here.

*Table thumping* In the name of National Security!

[Bananatree3]

Miy Fellow Americans!

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.

umm

[superwiz]

why bother with the "provision"? i thought we already established that "if the president does it, it's not illegal".

Re:What about American censorship?

[Asmor]

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

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.

This contradicts the DCMA

[rjamestaylor]

In the US, we censor thing, too: through the DCMA. How does one reconcile these two US laws (assuming this one is passed)?

Re:National security more important than individua

[Moofie]

"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...)

O Rly?

[DaveV1.0]

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?

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,

Hmm...

[SiriusStarr]

Do we think that this includes caving to the US government? Thoughts of FBI snooping come to mind...

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:Your analogy fails

[megaditto]

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 Security through obscurity is about the most effective kind in the "real" world. Security through obscurity is the reason why we can't get Bin Laden or know where all of Russia's or China's nukes are.

Security through obscurity is in fact extremely effective, hence the reason people use camouflage, hide their military movements, encrypt their communications, hide their passwords, etc.

The only reason it is sometimes frowned upon is because the users might tend to be overly confident and overestimate the level of protection it provides.

eMancipation Proclamation!

[Belial6]

Maybe we could call this an "eMancipation Proclamation".

Another loophole

[wealthychef]

Unfortunately, there's also a giant loophole: the president would be allowed to waive the provisions of the Act for national security purposes."

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"?

I know it's tin foil hat type of thinking....

[HerculesMO]

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.

Insufficient protection

[Eravnrekaree]

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.

Re:National security more important than individua

[falconwolf]

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.

Falcon