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Thai Government To Close 400 Anti-government Sites
Will Lord writes "The Guardian is reporting that the Thai government plans to close down 400 anti-government websites and is asking ISPs to block 1,200 more. The response follows a declaration of a state of emergency which has seen troops take to the streets of Bangkok to police anti-government protests.
With web crackdowns like this becoming more and more frequent, do you think we will start to see similar (overt) activities from US and European governments?"
It won't be so much the government cracking down against *dissident* websites in the U.S., it will be the government and major broadband ISP's cracking down on websites based on file-sharing and "Intellectual Property" violations (at the behest of the MPAA/RIAA and their ilk). It's only a matter of time before typing in piratebay.org into your browser leads you to a page that says "This page is blocked for copyright violations" or something similar. The courts have already directly taken down sites like Torrentspy and Lokitorrent in the U.S.
People will learn to get around blocks with proxies, true, but how long before ISP's start blocking major proxy sites too? If my workplace can use Websense to block virtually any proxy list (and it's REALLY good at it too, BTW), there is nothing to stop my ISP from doing it too. And, like most people, I only have a couple of choices of broadband ISP's in my area (AT&T and Time Warner), so it's not like I could just take my business elsewhere.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
At least they aren't shooting them
That wouldn't be in the best interest of the people, right?
Yes. A simple answer for an obvious question.
With web crackdowns like this becoming more and more frequent do you think we will start to see similar (overt) activities from US and European governments?
I doubt it ... although, I think China & Russia will follow suit (if they aren't already).
... although I was getting a bit frightened there when it seemed for the longest time that a small select elite few wanted the war in Iraq. When Bush was re-elected, there wasn't much I could say however. I feel like half the country wanted it so there's no sense in me violently reacting to this. I'm certain the Thai feel much differently about their situation.
From what I've read, the short of this state of emergency is simply an elite urban ruling class that supports the Thai monarchy and abolished the prime minister back in 2006. The elite class is calling itself the People's Alliance for Democracy even though they have little to nothing to do with fair representation across the entire state. Again, I don't live there, this is second hand information.
Basically, violent protests from both sides are going down and people are dying. Hopefully shutting down the sites that point out the obvious will stop these clashes. I sincerely doubt it, this will clearly be more justification for the rest of Thailand to revolt against the Monarchy.
Unfortunately, Russia & China could both be seen in this same light with Beijing & Moscow being islands of wealth in an otherwise third world country.
I doubt the US and much of Europe need to do this
If you can't see healthy dissent in a country to some extent--something is terribly wrong.
My work here is dung.
They'll also do it under the guise of "The protection of children" because of one person posting photos of people who are underaged. It's what caused ISPs to stop providing USENET access to anything but The Big 8.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
No. You may see maneuvering by ISPs and content providers. I seriously doubt you'll see any crackdown by the governments.
This seriously reminds me of that yearly list of censored stories. I mean, you get the list, you whine they're censored, yet provide links to each one. Sorry, there's no censorship here, least of all against anti-government sentiment, whether the content is true or 100% false, as should be quite obvious by some of the sites out there.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
If you were standing next to a guy with a knife as big as the one in photo on the guardian site, would you even bother to get that "my penis is smaller than his" catapult out of your pocket?
Seriously though, I don't think many western governments will be doing what this desperate Thai government is doing, not until there is rioting through the streets and they are fearful of their power. In that situation western government would probably do a lot worse than shut down websites.
It's only a matter of time before typing in piratebay.org into your browser leads you to a page that says "This page is blocked for copyright violations" or something similar.
It won't say "This page is blocked..." it will say "Your IP address has been recorded and the FBI has been notified that you are attempting illegal activities."
If people rebelling is so much of a concern that you find yourself trying to regulate it, you just might be a facist!
Twinstiq, game news
The US government is controlled by financial interests. Whether the congressmen who vote because of local financial interests, or big oil causing wars.
So I would look to cases where sites are being cracked down where the sites protest against companies in an effective way. For example the RIAA, has been able to push DMCA and DRM through, which has been a disaster for all concerned. Yet they are now able to close down sites that share keytabs for guitars, many types of filesharing that in the past were just gray are now illegal.
"somebody somewhere is suffering... so anyway, what about me?"
if you want to preserve rights and freedoms in this world, you go on the offensive, you take the fight to the regimes where they are being abused
if you play a defensive game, if you only worry about yourself, you will lose your rights and freedoms anyway, and furthermore, you don't deserve the rights and freedoms you worry about because of this self-concern
how can i say this?
because the rights and freedoms we are talking about here are aspects of higher morality, of a human conscience. part of a human conscience is concern for the well-being of others. these are not merely contemporaneous concerns: rights and freedoms and concern for the well-being of others, but dependent upon each other in order to exist: it is through concern for the well-being of others that you maintain and repair and extend the framework of rights and freedoms in this world
meanwhile, if you only care about yourself, how can you expect society to protect you? society protects you by you staying involved in society, and by society, i mean the world at large, not your own little nationalist fiefdom
which is all the story summary seems to care about
selfishness will lead to your loss of freedoms faster than anything happening in authoritarian regimes
in the story summary above "someone somewhere is suffering, anyway, how about me me me?" is the beginning of the downfall of your rights and freedoms. your selfishness indicates you don't deserve them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Suppose I believe that - regardless of the religious rights and wrong - it is a legitimate action for citizens of a country to take paramilitary action against foreign forces present in their land?
OK - not a present-day situation but lets suppose back just after Saddam's regime had fallen and before the foundation of the present Iraqi government, I made that argument? I'd have been closed down and probably arrested too
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
This is America, the corporations ARE the government. Just check out all the lobbyists at the conventions.
Please stop giving our government ideas like this.
Thanks,
USA
Yeah, but at least then people would pay to see crappy movies and listen to horrible music. Right? All problems solved? No? Oh.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
There's bad censorship and there's good censorship. What you're describing is good censorship.
In the US I am afraid of draconian censorship being applied to all of us. I'm not entirely convinced that people who become "political" are safe from death squads or assassination here either. Once people are required to protest "elsewhere" it is only a matter of degree in having them protest in the absolute elsewhere, as in six feet under.
That is simply unacceptable in the United States. The government has been getting away with a lot of things that they should not have been, but that kind of thing is very clearly over the line.
you accuse me of mistaking shortsightedness for selfishness
ok, charge accepted
but at least i didn't mistake altruism for selfishness, antonymns:
"It is the individuals self interest to secure and protect the rights of others"
paraphrased: "it is selfish to be altruistic"
wtf?
i understand that selfish interest and altruism can go hand in hand, which is what you probably meant to say
but you are not allowed to equate contradictory terms and still think you are saying anything coherent
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I was supposed to be heading to Thailand for the first week of october.
Looks pretty unlikely now though.
Guess I'll have to be stisfied with *just* singapore and australia.
I spent August 1973 to August 1974 in Utapao AFB in Thailand. Utapao was a short boat ride away from Phuket (pronounced "fuck it"; the Thais have a different alphabet than we do) At the time, Thailand was then a third world country. Utapao was in the southern part of the country, and there was no electricity nor running water nor natural gas in homes. The roads were unpaved. The business districts of Saddaheep and Bong Chong to the south of Utapao had electricity, but not the houses.
We had a Thai intern at work a few years ago, and from her account Thailand has industrialized and is no longer a third world country.
Once while riding a bhat bus (so called because it cost one bhat to ride; a bhat equaled five American pennies. The "bus" was a Japanese pickup truck with benches in the bed) flashing lights came up behind us, the driver skidded to a halt and took off running. I cursed and started to get out. "No!" a fellow passenger insisted, "Day keel you!" She was right; I watched in horror as Thai police shot the driver as he ran across the field.
I attributed it to the fact that Thaland was closer to Vietnam than St Louis is to Chicago, and the war was going on, but it appears that even though they may no longer be a third world country, their government is still authoritarian.
What's troublesome is my government, USA, seems to have been headed more and more towards authoritarianism and less free as time has gone on. So I fear that the answer to the question posed in TFS is "yes".
I wrote two K5 diaries about my Thailand experiences a few years ago, Gecko Poker and War and Sex if anyone is interested in hearing about the place.
While I was there I thought that a visit to Mars couldn't be stranger. Nothing was the same as here, even the dirt was a different color, the hills were a different shape, the vegetation was completely different. But the world seems to becoming more homogenous as time goes on.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
where you equate a basic human concern for the well-being for others with western imperialism
can a brazilian care about what goes on in thailand? can a nigerian? can a japanese? and if they get involved, are they being imperialist warmongers?
but if an american or a french cares about what goes on in thailand and gets involved, its automatic in your mind they are being imperialist warmongers?
why can't what motivates the nigerian who cares about what goes on in thailand and what motivates the french who cares about what goes on in thailand come from the same moral sense of human conscience?
why do you have to think western imperialism is all there is happening when someone gets involved? what is the source of this blindness on your part?
the problem is that you have a historical hangover. dude, its not 1848. you need to update your terminology and perspective. your perspective of the world is from a dead era
thailand has always been a free country. in fact, "thai" means free, it has never been colonized by western powers. so if the french or the american sent support ships to bangkok: this means they are going to turn thailand into a colony? you really believe that?
perhaps its the year 2008 and you need to update your idea of what motivates concern here
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"In addition, a Thai court issued three orders to shut down about 400 websites, 344 of which, it claimed, carried material that was contemptuous of the country's royal family. The other blocked websites included two with religious content, one video sex game and five sites deemed to carry obscene content."
Ooh, contempt, content, games and obscenity. We wouldn't want any of that on our internet.
Q: With web crackdowns like this becoming more and more frequent do you think we will start to see similar (overt) activities from US and European governments?
A: No, they'll be as covert as possible.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
You can thank the Noerr Pennington doctrine for that. I'd love to see it challenged but I don't know how we can do so.
Get rid of that, and you won't see corporations with lobbyists. Would fix a TON of shit in the US.
In order to pass legislation, a comprehensive solution will be required, that covers multiple forms of communication, and covers enough issues to gain enough votes. Similar to passing a budget, there must be enough pork spread around in order to gain enough votes to pass.
This year is too soon IMO, because it's not an election type of issue for voters to decide, it's an issue decided by backroom politics. In the past I've predicted something like Net Neutrality + Fairness Doctrine = 2010
Yes
There is no way the fairness doctrine can be considered good censorship when applied to a medium with extremely low barriers to entry. It made a certain amount of sense when applied to the initially scarce public radio and tv channels. I still disagree with the concept, but I could at least comprehend the reasoning.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
As soon as someone dips their toe in the water and realizes that, in addition to all of the other legal transgressions committed by the government in recent years, they can get away with this to.
By "get away," I mean that they can forcibly take down a website and the public reaction will be a bunch of angry blogging and a noisy protest march, both of which completely unfaze the government (nor does the direct action (aka vandalism, aka hissy-fits) of the so-called anarchists).
Considering that this was as much as anyone did when the government started a war under either deliberately false pretenses, cherry-picked intelligence, or outright incompetence, I think there are those already thinking about outright censorship, which they'll cloak in some kind of undead HUAC-style (except having to do with "terrorism") rhetoric. I don't think this is some dark conspiracy where they're twisting their mustaches and laughing easily. Rather, the urge of this government and the power behind it is a line on a project plan somewhere, mapped to some kind of sick bottom line.
The same was the result of monkeying with the electoral system, and the same is the result of the various crackdowns on protesters, illegal detention of supposed "combatants", extraordinary rendition, and so on. Angry blogging and impotent protests.
The issue here is that no one is really willing to risk their neck to confront the government, or those who are, are unwilling to commit legal or literal suicide in doing so when the most solidarity they can hope for is people posting a bunch of angry shit on the Internet when they are arrested or worse.
This administration is laughing in the face of our impotence as citzens. They've probably always felt this way about us, but are now doing it in our faces.
There's nothing we can do. We have made this military-industrial corporatist complex into a religion of sorts, and they have addicted us to it - our jobs count on it - and they've basically got our nuts in a vice. They've taken a whole lot already. You can bet they'll take more, and with the witless approval of between 40 and 60% of US citizens, too.
People will learn to get around blocks with proxies, true, but how long before ISP's start blocking major proxy sites too? If my workplace can use Websense [wikipedia.org] to block virtually any proxy list (and it's REALLY good at it too, BTW), there is nothing to stop my ISP from doing it too. And, like most people, I only have a couple of choices of broadband ISP's in my area (AT&T and Time Warner), so it's not like I could just take my business elsewhere.
Well.... there is always Comcast .... right? ;-)
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
>With web crackdowns like this becoming more and more frequent do you think we will start to see similar (overt) activities from US and European governments?"
Duh.
Of course we will. There is only one way to prevent governments from abusing power and that is not to let them. With the general complacency that the population shows about issues where civil liberties are at stake (remember most people are in favor of censorship 'to protect the children' [and oddity since I rather think we should be protecting our children from living in a police state shouldn't we ?]) this kind of thing will only get more mainstream.
When will people want to fight back ? The same time they always have- when they have lost all their rights, people as a rule aren't known for valuing their most precious gifts until they lose them. The trouble is - this time, that may really be too late. With the kind of weaponry and power governments can wield today, if a citizenry doesn't defend it's rights while it still has them - they are likely to find that when they have lost them, there is no way to ever get it back.
And sorry folks, the second amendment will not help my US friends when that day comes. You will pull out your nine-mill and find out exactly HOW useless it is against a tank. And don't count on massive revolt from the soldiery either, they sign away their civil rights when they join so the services tends to self-selects against those who actually value having those rights.
Ultimately our biggest problem isn't that corrupt politicians want too much power (that's always been the case) but that people who value short-term security over freedom are happy to hand all our rights over to them for the promise of protection. Throw in the fact that some of them are skillfull manipulators of people's religious and moral believes and you have real trouble. Even McCain has been campaigning for the religious right vote with his anti-abortion stuff.
By making moral issues into artificial legal issues - they can get a lot of people to vote on a moral base instead of a practical base. Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice really shouldn't HAVE anything to do with what president you vote for, that's a matter for the courts. What should matter is who will give you the highest level of protection of your basic civil rights. That is after all what the government is SUPPOSED to be for. We can never get one that won't mess up at least a bit, but we can do a damn site better than the kind that wants you to think his ideas about who-can-marry-who is a valid consideration of his potential skill as a leader.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Actually, there's just bad censorship.
TRT = the old elected government deposed by the military
PAD = the wannabe government that called for the military coup
The leader of PAD owns a TV station (manager TV) this station promotes his cause. He claims to be democratic, but calls on the King and military to take control of the country away from Thaksin Shinawatra and the TRT party. His excuse was 'vote buying'. King said no, that would be undemocratic.
So Thaksin calls a snap election, says PAD should monitor elections closely, wins easily, but not an outright majority. Goes to King, King tells him, for the sake of unity of country step down anyway, even though you won.
Thaksin says OK, preps another election without him.
PAD claims he'll rig election for his successor, suggests maybe he'll do a U turn and not step down. Military decides to have a coup.
So PAD got it's coup, and the miltary took over, they rewrote the constitution, banned TRT, arrested a lot of its leaders.
The military leadership was crap, nothing got better, a lot of the allegations against Thaksin evaporated as false. Things they blamed Thaksin for got worse under the army. Especially the muslim insurgency in the south.
But with TRT banned and leaders locked up, PAD is sure to win right? Right?
Military ran elections closely monitored by the military and police.
Old TRT members that were not arrested formed PPP and won the election.
PAD are seriously pissed off, continue to make ever more serious allegations against the government, call for protests and demonstrations to bring down the government.
Thailand more divided than ever.
PAD+ military won't let the government rule, but people won't vote for PAD. The D in PAD stands for democracy, but their leader can't take it when they don't vote for him.
A lot of those old blocking systems are based off of IPV4; once IPV6 gets on the go, although it has some fairly frightening features, it'll be next to impossible to police anything; getting a new small subnet is cheap. Not to mention 3rd Party DNS services are also popping up which may if IANA starts blocking things, compete directly with IANA for DNS services.
Plus there's things like Tor and round robin. If you bit torrented a tracker site, then added a round robin DNS tracker to it like Wikilinks off of a 3rd party DNS tracker, then loaded all of it into a nice easy to execute app. The amount of resources required to block something like that; sure you could jam it but it isn't like the app couldn't be set up to check things like that. There's also things like WASTE still out there and kicking. Plus in a few years we'll see hard-drives grow by leaps and bounds so storing large data vaults will be less of a problem making public networks less necissary. It isn't too far off we'll see 1TB drives grow into 2TB, 4TB, 8TB, 10TB, 20TB etc. A 20TB drive can store a lot of data.
What will inevitably happen is the internet will force things into the public domain that aught to be in the public domain in the first place. Imagine a world where pornstars have a problem making a living since they have to compete with 1000's of people who've made porn before them; where there is so much porn it competes with your "product" and that's how it will be for music, movies, and other forms of media. Sure, there'll always be a market for the new stuff, and there'll always be a market for hard copy and concerts, but really copyright should not be about controlling the public domain.
How many times do you hear about the fact that Walmart could not expand and make as much profit without the existence of government welfare programs? Or that the FBI employs fewer than fifty people who know Arabic? I can link you to one story about each of these items, but try to find them on your own. Now look for meaningless stories about sports, celebrities, fashion, celebrity news. There are tens of thousands of individually written stories about Brangelina's baby, but as far as I can see, not a single major news organization wrote anything about the Secretary of Defense claiming that the government had lost 2.3 trillion dollars on September 10th, 2001. How in the world is that just a coincidence?
Sure, you hear about "scandals," which is little more than confirmed political gossip. The real and sensible criticism of government and business simply isn't covered, though it does exist. You have to look for it, because no news corporation is going to endanger their profit, their friends, or their access to government power for the sake of society.
Hard copy porn and porn concerts?
So in other words, prostitution and orgies?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Please do not use the term "cracking down" with respect to peaceful, voluntary activity. This implies something wrong or immoral about what the victims of the "crackdown" are doing. By any stretch of the imagination, a peaceful protest cannot be viewed as aggression, and by using the propaganda term "crackdown" we are only furthing the cause of the true aggressors (government).
Again, government cannot "crack down" on peaceful activity. Government can attack and oppress peaceful activity, but they cannot "crack down" on something which wasn't morally wrong in the first place.
The correct term here is "oppression", not "crackdown".
See here (Torygraph via Guido, with relevant thanks). Essentially the issue is that there aren't many pro-EU establishment blogs (because even an ardent Europhile like myself finds it impossible to justify things like the CAP or the fact that the Eurocracy hasn't had its accounts signed off, via the Adam Smith Institute).
The European Union has already taken corrupt and borderline illegal action to suppress an anti-fraud journalist, Hans-Martin Tillack, working for Der Stern, because he had the audacity to protect whistle blowers on the Eurostat scandal.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
check out free republic or patdollard.com some time, there are dozens of posts a day about how 'liberals should be killed', and there was even a radio show on blogtalkradio.com/patdollard where they basically, guaranteed themselves a secret service visit. (that episode has since vanished without a trace)
as for the anarchist websites, i dont even want to think about what is on there.
i have seen alex jones screaming at michelle malkin for at least 10 minutes, saying he 'doesnt care' if he 'incites violence'.
Funny? I wasn't trying to be funny...
Yul Brunner for King
no gadgets required. greed, fear & ego (in any order you choose) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of yOUR dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & the notion of prosperity, not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one. see you on the other side of it. the lights are coming up all over now. conspiracy theorists are being vindicated. some might choose a tin umbrella to go with their hats. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
http://news.google.com/?ncl=1216734813&hl=en&topic=n
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/29amnesty.html?hp
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/nasa.global.warming.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/05/severe.weather.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/02/honore.preparedness/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01dowd.html?em&ex=1212638400&en=744b7cebc86723e5&ei=5087%0A
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/05/senate.iraq/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17contractor.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/world/middleeast/03kurdistan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080708/cheney_climate.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080805/pl_politico/12308;_ylt=A0wNcxTPdJhILAYAVQms0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080903/ts_nm/environment_arctic_dc;_ylt=A0wNcwhhcb5It3EBoy2s0NUE
is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail (world without end, etc...), as it has always been. the process of gaining yOUR release from the current hostage situation may not be what you might think it is. butt of course, most of US don't know, or care what a precarious/fatal situation we're in. for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it? we're intending for the whoreabully deceptive (they'll do ANYTHING for a bit more monIE/power) felons to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather', as well as a # of other things/events.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=weather+manipulation&btnG=Search
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying
dictator style micro management has never worked (for very long). it's an illness. tie that with life0cidal aggression & softwar gangster style bullying, & what do we have? a greed/fear/ego based recipe for disaster. meanwhile, you can help to stop the bleeding (loss of life & limb);
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/28/vermont.banning.bush.ap/index.html
the bleeding must be stopped before any healing can begin. jailing a couple of corepirate nazi hired goons would send a clear message to the rest of the world from US. any truthful look at the 'scorecard' would reveal that we are a society in decline/deep doo-doo
Just studying for my civics lesson to become U.S. citizen, wouldn't taking down anti-government sites be a complete violation of the 1st amendment (vital part of the U.S. constitution)? I mean I know it has happened in the past that the government did make use of "in the interest of national security". However this would violate the 1st so blatantly, so I think that the suggestion is far fetched. Oh, and yeah, we all can whine about our governments (both US and EU), but point me to a government outside the western block that allows its citizens greater freedom. Don't get me wrong, whining is good for progress and to keep freedom active, but let's try to whine about more sensible things (like wars?). Oh, and I think its not fair to compare file sharing sites or related to government protest sites. I'm in no way supportive of the RIAA, but DRM and DMCA is to protect the intellectual goods of these companies from being copied illegitimately. Even if the system of DRM and DMCA is fundamentally flawed, file sharing sites just don't fall under "freedom of speech". If our founding fathers would have wanted it, we would have included "...and the freedom to copy printed press...". They didn't, so no, such sites (and those that promote such sites) are not protected. Now I feel disgusted supporting such a slimy industry and wish we'd tackle this issue differently.
It would seem dictators/governments and such have a thing for blocking anti-government websites. Companies block anti-business websites. Then you have the parents who block anti-family websites. I'm starting to see a trend... This might be more prevalent than furries.
>>Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice really shouldn't HAVE anything to do with what president you vote for, that's a matter for the courts.
The Supreme Court is populated by judges nominated by the President and approved by congress. We currently have a left-wing of the Court that is eager to use foreign laws as a lens by which to view our constitution and views it as a "living, breathing document" which changes in its meaning according to the times we live in. By contrast, the Court has a right-wing population that interprets the document in terms of the Original Intent of its authors and sees the meanings within as rigid. The result is either document which can mean anything the reader wishes (a legal Rorschach inkblot test?) or it has specific meanings that cannot vary. I find the former alarming since our rights and the very nature of our government would then depend highly on who is currently in power and could change like the weather.
Rights are inalienable and God given, not granted by man, and the Constitution is a document designed to limit Government, not grant it unyielding power. But so long as there is a risk of judges willing to "read between the lines" and ignore fundamental measures (such as the 2nd and 10th Amendments), I would argue the election of the President is tremendously important to the state of law in America.
Q: With web crackdowns like this becoming more and more frequent do you think we will start to see similar (overt) activities from US and European governments?
A: In order to do this in the U.S. on any significant scale ( e.g. China), there would have to be a pervasive, gradual (so as not to raise alarms in the general populace) erosion of 1st Amendment Constitutional sensibilities. There are several pretexts that could be used to accomplish this, all of which are based on fears of one sort or another. I doubt very much if commercial concerns would succeed directly, but certainly commercial interests are capable of co-opting gov't, as we have seen many times in U.S. history. Consider how the confinement into concentration camps of U.S. citizens in WW II was rendered acceptable to the population at large by spreading FUD regarding the possibility of Japanese 5th column activity. I say that in the end fear is much more powerful than greed, both as a motivator and as a pretext. The notion of "the enemy within" is powerful indeed.
As fears of terrorism and 5th column activity within our borders increase, it becomes easier and easier to sway popular sentiment away from safeguarding 1st Amendment rights and move it towards safety and security. I need not repeat the admonition of Benjamin Franklin to this audience. I make no judgement as to the legitimacy of such a move when we are at genuine extremity, but in any other circumstance, it would be a tragedy.
"With web crackdowns like this becoming more and more frequent do you think we will start to see similar (overt) activities from US and European governments?"
You know, ten years ago I'd have said no way. Now... with ridiculous 'security' efforts, the Dems (yeah yeah, mod me down if you must, it's true) trying to make Big Government regulating absolutely everything and taking away freedoms left and right... Sadly, I do think this is possible. And it scares me.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
Yup. Here's how we do it in the States.
You'll never hear about 90+% of the shutdowns because the takedown order will come with a legal threat (from the FBI) against even talking about it. A gag order.
-Matt
"With web crackdowns like this becoming more and more frequent do you think we will start to see similar (overt) activities from US and European governments?"
No, and equivocating a place that gets rocked by military coups to the most stable, progressive democracies in the world leads me to think your world view is wildly fucked up.
The right to criticize the governments of the west tend to have been enshrined in law at the most basic level for decades or even *centuries*. Our right to criticize the government is one of the civic cornerstones of our culture. Nothing short of catastrophe, revolution, and fascism will change that. Get out of the basement and get some perspective.
To all who will provide examples of recent "fascist" tendencies, I say these aren't recent - they've always been with us and they always will be, because we're human, and humans are horrible shits. Luckily we have very mature systems of government that minimize our tendency to be shits to each other, like representative government, independent courts, and the right to disagree enshrined in fundamental laws.
you are going to be accused of all sorts of fearful bullshit, regardless of your real reason for getting involved
there is the propaganda reason the usa got involved, and the real reason the usa involved
for the usa in iraq, it was liberation, but really concern for oil supply
there is also another propaganda reason the usa got involved: the reason the usa got involved according to to anti-american morons (as opposed to pro-american morons, the only people who aren't morons are the ones who aren't blindly and rabidly pro or anti american)
there argument is the usa got into iraq for american imperialism. really? people believe that? that the usa is suddenly going to start colonizing iraq and turn it into a territory?
you really believe that?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"We" already have ...
(Don't let the premise fool you)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Please do not use the term "cracking down" with respect to peaceful, voluntary activity. This implies something wrong or immoral about what the victims of the "crackdown" are doing.
Apart from breaking the law by ripping off the people whose products they apparently value but won't pay for if they can get away with it, you mean?
There's plenty to debate about copyright both in theory and in practice, but let's not pretend that the kind of person who uses TPB is an honest, upstanding citizen and not an antisocial freeloader who thinks they'll get away with it. Cracking down seems an entirely fair description to me.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Please... We are more likely to wind up seeing some sanctions against Thailand than anything else.
Wait till the Dems have full control of Executive and Legislative Branches to bring back the good old Fairness Doctrine. It'll be applied to the the web as well as TV/Radio.
Looking at this article: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6573406.html, Obama is on the record against the Fairness Doctrine. If he's elected and changes his mind, he'll have a Democratic House and Senate more than happy to bring it back.
You sir, are making the wrong argument, in the wrong discussion on the wrong web site.
a) This discussion has nothing at all to do with copyright and IP, it's about government censoring anti-government web sites.
b) This is Slashdot. Take your anti-piracy sentiments to where someone cares. Like, say, the RIAA offices.
I hate printers.
An important thing to keep in mind is that these latest protests are pro-military, pro-monarchy and anti-democratic. And they actually do threaten the stability of the country and its lawfully elected government.
Basically the protesters don't like how the election turned out.
Not saying censorship is the solution, but its kind of hard to judge them as an outsider.
with BO's attack on talk radio and any television station that might air negative information about him, and the threat not only to the airwaves, but also to web content by Democrats in Congress, to apply the "fairness act" to the web (as if there were a limited number of channels on the web).
It won't be so much the government cracking down against *dissident* websites in the U.S.
Yes, only on /. is it "Insightful" to compare an attempt to foil software pirates in the U.S. to the attempted annihilation of expressing political beliefs by those in another country.
The last I checked, both of our major political parties thrive on protesting each other. Somehow I do not see this changing anytime soon. The right will want people protesting the left, the left will want people protesting the right, etc. This is kind of a tradition here.
Anyone who moderates up this kind of garbage really should be ashamed. People in Thailand are up a creek without a paddle and you actually encourage bringing a discussion of U.S. piracy into the thread. Shame.
What's next? GWB isn't going to leave office peacefully when the new guy is voted in and immediately begin leading an army of robots to take over the world? That sounds "Insightful". /rant
I'm not going to make a long post since my title says it all but having a free Internet is the only way to make sure this kind of thing never happens again. For example, if everyone was using freenet, the Thai government wouldn't be able to do a thing.
Personally, I'm waiting for the "other" one that is a little bit past version 0.6 (they don't want us to name them on slashdot for now, too much publicity). If they could just work faster and get more donations though...
this is why it annoys me when people talk about how private corporations have the legal right to do whatever they want, and if you don't like it you can just go with another company. as if that should protect them from criticism by the public.
the fact of the matter is, corporate culture affects all of our lives. and in many cases (the ones that matter at least, not like what brand of shoes you buy) there aren't any viable alternatives, or there aren't any significant differences between the available choices. so it may be well within an ISP or a telecom company's legal right to do certain things like block BitTorrent traffic or employ packet shaping software, but that doesn't mean the public should just live with it and not do anything about the negative effect corporate policies have on our lives.
and these days it's not all that uncommon for popular corporate policies to turn into industry-backed bills, which are subsequently passed into legislation. the DMCA is one such case. the Net Neutrality debate is another. and if consumers get used to being told by corporations that certain things are acceptable/unacceptable, they come to accept these policies as 'common sense'. so when it does get passed into legislation they see nothing wrong with it.
this is particularly dangerous when most media & IT corporations have pro-business, anti-consumer views. for instance, if you visit the IGN or Gamespot message boards and discuss anything to do with homebrew development or custom firmware, you are immediately reprimanded for it and your post is censored. if you look at their TOS agreement, it does in fact delineate this policy. however, the wording of the agreement is extremely deceptive in that it tries to justify this form of censorship by lumping homebrew development & software/hardware modding with piracy and categorizes them as "illegal activities."
now, modifying your gaming device and running custom firmware or homebrew applications on it may void your warranty. but it is certainly not illegal in most countries. at least not yet. but if the public gets used to the attitude expressed by sites like Gamespot, IGN, and Sony's Playstation Network, then it won't be hard to convince legislators to pass a law that does outlaw these practices--especially when consumers are already used to having to hide their participation in homebrew activities as if it's some kind of taboo or illicit practice.
.. or the parent of a teenager?
at the DNC Convention, and was arrested for being on a public sidewalk.
Depends on how you do it, but you just might be!
if we don't
all life choices are ebtween shades of grey
no life choices are between black and white
you lose something no matter what you do. the point is to figure out what path loses less. getting involved protects you more than becoming a hermit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
See, that's the funny part...
At least that's what I'm having for lunch.
Somebody who knows what he is talking about! I lived there for a short time in 2006 and had the exact same impressions.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
The only reason this does not happen is that violent riots and antigovernmental action is not widespread.
In other words, websites are not shut down, because there is no need to and no gain from doing it.
The moment a government feels itself in an extreme situation and that the order of society as they define it is threatened however, principles of free speech, right to gathering etc, mean fuck all and will be suspended. The same principles as from ancient times, of cutting off communicating between dissidents, making people fearful of gathering and planning demonstrations etc, apply.
Take the case of the Muhammed caricatures, when demonstrations were going on throughout the world and some people were sincerely believing in religious war. The previous (left-wing) Swedish government felt the situation was out of control and could not foresee the consequences that could happen. So they simply ordered the ISP to remove the website hosting them. This is a well-publicised and studied case.
The only criticism I imply however is that they are not above this way of doing things even if they may claim so - every government who feel their world is crashing down will be keen to get the booted boys out. And in their view it may very well be for the best of people, as they protect society as they know it against the horrors of the rioters.
Not to mention nobody is going to be able to look you in the eye and believe anything you say as long as Steamboat Freakin' Willie is still under copyright,and probably will be after our great,great,GREAT grandchildren are all dust in the wind. Copyrights are a CONTRACT between the public and the copyrights holder. When one side reneges on the contract(by buying off the politicians) then the contract is no longer worth the paper its written on.
And his corporate booty kissing should be allowed in this discussion,since that is how we got into this mess in the first place. You can trace the real downhill slope to the end of WW2,when the large military industrial complex decided not to shut down and instead just kept the ball a rollin' by buying the hawks who gave them plenty of "police actions" for them to build weapons for. And it is the big corps, not the government,who will decide what freedoms we are allowed to have, by giving large checks to have the laws shaped to their collective wills. I am sure that even the tiniest copyright violation will be criminalized(with a loophole for the megacorps) followed by a great firewall of the US to keep us away from those nasty(insert terrorists/thieving IP infringers/kiddy pr0nographers) and it will just keep getting worse from there. Because with a two party system all the corps have to do is buy both parties and they always win.
How sad that Bill Hicks pointed this out twenty years ago and yet nothing has changed,except perhaps the fact that they don't even try to hide it anymore. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
But honestly speaking, I'm not sure if this is even such a bad thing. The Thai government has an emergency, and shutting down sites that are adding fuel to the flames isn't that bad of an idea.
For those unaware, the current protests actually boil down to the fact that the majority of the protestors are of Chinese descent, and are rather pissed that they don't have a Chinese descent prime minister catering to them anymore. That's why you don't see MORE protestors out there, or a lot of sympathetic citizens. Then on the other hand, the Thai police and military have been very reluctant to take physical action, as it will likely see blood, and they don't want that. Both the protests, and the military action (or lack of) are actually peculiarly peaceful in this day and age.
I'm not condoning internet censorship, but in light of everything else, it's not as big of deal as you would see in China where you'd likely see censorship on sites that report of government brutality. And I'm willing to bet that once things calm down, the bans will be lifted. Protesting against the government, or making that voice heard is not that big of a problem. Breaking into TV stations, closing down airports, and in general doing a lot of damage to the economy in a rather irresponsible manner is. Temporarily cooling things down is a good idea.
Thailand is actually a very interesting country within Southeast Asia, and I suspect that many countries could take lessons from it.
The Thai government also canes people that vandalize cars, or spit gum on the sidewalk.
Do you think that the US and European governments will start caning people who vandalize cars and spit gum on the sidewalk?
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
You sir, are making the wrong argument, in the wrong discussion on the wrong web site.
Perhaps, and I don't intend to pursue the point very far because as you say this is not the place for that, but I do dislike people trying to twist discussions by using inflammatory terminology or comments.
Most of this discussion is indeed about the censorship issue, and that is what I came here to read and perhaps comment on, but if you check the posts in this particular subthread, we seem to have diverged somewhat. The grandparent post for my reply suggested a connection between censorship of anti-government sites and censorship of sites that help people to break the law. To me, these are completely different issues (and whether the law is itself appropriate is a third issue). I have no problem with the government cracking down on people who break the law as a general principle, nor on using the term "cracking down" to describe it. If some particular law is itself broken, then of course it should be fixed, but again, that is a separate issue.
The parent post to my reply, unfortunately, seemed to miss this distinction entirely, and went off on some sort of thinly disguised apologist crusade for copyright infringers everywhere. Either that, or they lazily posted a general comment in a thread with a specific context and didn't even bother changing the thread title, in which case I don't have much sympathy if their intent is misinterpreted. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Better get those wireless city-wide darknet mesh networks up and running. I don't think a government will ever get away with "that piece of radio comms equipment is illegal and must be handed in at a police station"
Because they'd shut down my favorite sites with hot pics of Sarah Palin. Grrrr... what a tiger!
And yet... I could have been going there to get a legit torrent of something.
But when has that ever stopped the FBI?
Aah, good ol' Slashdot. Where the very first post concerning a government crackdown on dissidents is "ZOMG I CAN'T GET MAH WAREZ AND FREE MUSICS!!1!"
We need to rethink what we mean when we say "the Government". A lot of people seem to take this to mean only the executive branch of the federal government. That is an incomplete picture of governance. I would consider anyone who has enforceable authority over another (other than parents) to be a part of the government. But certainly the courts are a part of the government, as are state and local authorities, which enforce the laws. Since this is the case, I'd say the government shut down any web-site shut down by a court order.
"With web crackdowns like this becoming more and more frequent, do you think we will start to see similar (overt) activities from US and European governments?"
No.
Despite the cries from people who read 1984 too many times, we very far from living in a totalitarian state. Bush at his worst doesn't have the kind of power to make this sort of stuff happen. All of our checks and balances and the antagonistic relationships of all the actors between the gov't and commercial enterprise would make such an effort futile, followed by becoming a meme on YouTube or an SNL sketch. Many people seem to think our gov't is something monolithic and centrally controlled. It just isn't. The vast majority of gov't positions are just jobs, not elected or appointed. Most of those jobs are filled by relatively normal people. Not square jawed conspirators. Real life just isn't that interesting.
If Obama is elected *crosses fingers* the "Patriot Act" will probably go away and many of W's abuses will be uncovered, or at least won't go on. Unless of course the tin foil hat crew is right and both parties work for the Colonel, the Gettys, the Rothschilds etc.
Or maybe i haven't smoked enough pot/watched enough X-Files.
Also, the gov't doesn't give a shit about you downloading the anarchist cookbook. You're not that interesting or important. i seriously hope that Obama's election will put and end to the ego-centrism and paranoia of the last 8 years. It's hilarious, but tiresome.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I don't often make this shout, but I've been reading of the situation in Thailand for some time. Parent is spot on.
[FUCK BETA]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
You have performed an illegal activity.
Please use the handcuffs provided to attach yourself to the PrisonPod outside the window and await rendition.
There are over 50,000 hits for "nasa faked moon landing." How many times do the stories I mentioned appear on the front page of any news organization? How many front page stories are there about sports?
Google counts aren't very revealing for measuring media exposure.
"... it'll be next to impossible to police anything..."
Please. No matter how many round-robins and proxies and how much encryption you use, at the end of the day, any P2P system MUST be engaged in the process of downloading and uploading gigabytes of data. Simply count the bytes flowing into and out of your IP address, and the whole thing sticks out like a sore thumb.
Put bandwidth caps in place, charge on a per-byte basis, or throttle upstream traffic, and P2P falls like a house of cards.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
NY Times today reported that she had inquired about banning books in Wasila. That would be nice if Obama would dissolve Homeland Security and the Patriot Act. But we'll see. It might be tough to do while trying to be a post-racial, post-partisan President. McCain's crazy VP selection process: http://tinyurl.com/5zr47h
-- Hot chick + lightsaber = http://tinyurl.com/sxtmsg
You got some of the facts of the situation wrong... there's no anti-monarchy sentiment on either side--the clash is between the rich elite in Bangkok who traditionally held political power (and tended to disenfranchise the rural majority) vs. said rural majority.
Summary: the people elected a Prime Minister who gave a lot of aid to the rural poor (mainly at the expense of the rich elite). He was extremely popular, and was actually elected to a second term (unprecedented in Thai history... Thailand hasn't quite gotten the hang of this "democracy" business and tends to depose their elected officials). Well, the rich folk were getting POed about all their money being taken to help the poor, so they protested, and managed to get the army to stage a coup d'etat. After a period of junta rule, they have elections, and the people vote in the current Prime Minister, a guy who has the same policy as his ousted predecessor. The rich folks are now steaming mad that the majority like someone who'll pay attention to their needs, so they protest again. They're now saying that democracy won't work in Thailand, since the rural hicks aren't smart enough to vote: only 30% of parliament should be elected by the people--the other 70% should be appointed (and of course, the rich elite should be the ones doing the appointing). So far, the rich protesters have temporarily taken over a TV station, blockaded and vandalized airports, and are currently occupying the government house (sort of like the White House). In any other country, if a mob took over government offices, the police would go disperse them, but the Thai government is leery about using force, since past governments have had a bad history of killing anti-government protesters--the police can't even use tear gas. After over a week of anti-government protests, a group of rural pro-government protesters arrived, and they got into a fight, with one guy getting shot and killed (last I heard, it was still unclear which side the guy was on, but most news outlets were saying he was on the pro-government side), and numerous others injured.
FWIW, here are a few articles that give more details: article 1 and article 2
That the Thai government might block one or several sites is nothing new, really. They've done it before, and I'm sure it's been discussed on /. before.
Of greater interest, perhaps, is that yesterday, the union of telecommunication workers announced that if the prime minister didn't resign, they would pull the plug on ALL internet services, as well as all international telephone traffic (think "banking").
As of today, the union has "temporarily suspended" their threat, and it is being reported that the PM will resign at 7:30AM Thursday, Thailand time (5:30PM, PST). All quite fascinating, and seemingly impossible in most western countries?
Minor corrections relating to previous posts:
- The history of the Tai people is somewhat less than 2,000 years, and not 5,000 years.
- "Phuket" is pronounced "Poo-ket," and not as another reported.
- In contrast to someone's 1970's third world image of no water, no gas, no electricity, allow me to report that DSL is now even available in places such as Doi Tao.
The Ironically named People's alliance for democracy is trying to do away with democracy. The problem is the rich elite are faced with a government that is being elected and supported by the poor rural majority. As a result this government is appealing to their support base and providing lots of support for rural folks including financial help and incentives. The rich elite call that corruption and want to eliminate democracy because they don't want the poor majority in control.
and then home user sets up a proxy in non blocked area tells his online buds and then what gets banned, too?
he reboots does this until all that isp is banned hten tells the next network and so on and eventualy your stupid country is facist enough to make hitler proud.
In Italy, opponents have not occupied Silvio Berlusconi's office yet, but Silvio Berlusconi has already begun hiding news, suing opponents, demanding ISP mask foreign web sites, and making laws that make him law-free.
Please, visit Italy until it's free!
We used websense at my last place and it got me thinking about ways to circumvent it. The best way i thought of - and this may work for generic govt censorship/blocking is to have a simple php* backend plugin that any website owner can stick behind their site that will proxy things like wikileaks and such. If this had a tor-like network built in then it would not only allow the *distribution* of disruptive information but provide potentially millions of mini-portals to allow normal people to *access* to said information without needing their own freenet/tor install or having to visit dubious urls.
I understand the key word here may be "effective", but you are ignoring all the anti-walmart, anti-exxon, anti-microsoft, anti-paypal sites. Those manage to stay alive very well, hell the anti-walmart crowd got a documentary produced with nationwide distribution.
So I would wager that the DMCA might have different goals than being solely pro-corporate. Depending on your level of cynicism it could be to protect the greater level of profit losses, or it could be because some Congressfolk view piracy (wrongly) as a quick-to-judge black-and-white moral issue.
None of the legal papers they cited go to the root complaint - that the IndyMedia servers were brought down, and how that happened. They instead point at the continuing efforts of the EFF et al to gain access to specific web addresses in the logs so they can identify the individuals using them. The early documents explain a portion of the Italian case - these individuals are associated with an active investigation of actual (and threatened/spurious) bombmaking, and attacks with same. That case has NOTHING to do with your subsequent examples, for which you offer no evidence. Even Google has nothing on arrests for rioting while at home - what's your source?
As for Amy Goodman, who according to her own transcripts chose to run into a ongoing bust and demand special privileges for her people ... WTF was she thinking? Her people got bagged while following people that they identify as causing property damage (AKA rioting) following the peaceful and uneventful protest march. The police enveloped the rioters and the reporters were caught as well ... and it appears the police just arrested the lot, leaving the court to sort them out. That's standard police procedure, not harrassment, IIRC. Amy by her own words ran to the chaotic arrest site, getting into the faces of several officers along the way and at the scene and demanded her folks be released, etc, based solely on her word and her news credentials. She should have run for her lawyers instead - it's their job to get people free, not hers, and they know how to do it. You also fail to mention that each & every one of the media persons involved including Amy were released and back at work the next day.
As for the Press pass, it is designed to identify the press, not to allow them to commit crimes with impunity (not that these reporters were doing any such thing). At best in such a case their credentials should give the court officials reason to dismiss the charges and/or release the arrestees (which they did)- but even a "Get Out Of Jail Card" makes you go to jail first.
I see from your email address you are connected to one of the sites apparently knocked offline - perhaps you could share some details next time.
Yep, that's an adequate summary of this whole thread.
So far, looks like the parent post by circletimessquare got modded down as "Offtopic," which I think one could make a valid argument for (whether or not I think the moderation is "fair" being a different issue).
Seriously, why take this guy's bait? He's karma-whoring, IMHO.
For what it's worth, I think you had a valid point in that it's not a good idea for any Western power to get involved in these matters. We can certainly express an opinion, but when it comes to "calls to action" like circletimessquare seems to be advocating, do we really even know enough about these kinds of situations to inject ourselves into them and try to change them? What if we choose wrong and wind up creating more problems for ourselves (or the people we are ostensibly trying to help) in the long run?
I also want to take exception to circletimessquare's apparent assertion that asking "What if this happens here?" is somehow being selfish. (If that's not the point he was making, then I apologize, but that's what I gleaned from his comment.) I think that's a perfectly valid question being posed in the summary. Whether the current anti-government protestors are in fact anti-democratic (as many analysts believe) is not the point. The fact is that the democratic regime in Thailand which is currently in power undermines its own credibility when it tries to suppress dissent and shut down opposition web sites. This is a scary precedent, and I would hate to see something like that happen here.
In point of fact, according to Lawrence Lessig, we may already be heading in the direction that the Thai government is -- did you see the recent article on BoingBoing about the coming iPatriot Act? This legislation is sitting on a shelf or in someone's desk at the Justice Department, waiting for the right excuse to be dusted off and implemented. The video is embedded in the linked page -- Lessig's comments on the iPatriot Act are about 6 minutes in. Note that he also discusses how the Patriot Act was already pretty much completed long before 9/11 happened.
You repeatedly use the word "Libertarian". I am no Libertarian.
You have stated this repeatedly, but I must say that that leaves me wondering what you call yourself. Are you just attempting to distance yourself from the American Libertarian party? Or do you really believe that your ideals are distinct from what is generally called libertarianism? (Not trying to claim that they are not distinct; merely that they appear, from my perspective, to be similar...)
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.