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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.
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."
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.
This is America, the corporations ARE the government.
No, they are not. Actually being the government would leave them with all the bothersome stuff, like the national debt or the responsibility to run a country and provide at least basic services to people. Also the whole problem of elections.
Being "just very influential" to the point of control is much better, as it leaves you with the profits, but without the costs.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
"No, they are not. Actually being the government would leave them with all the bothersome stuff, like the national debt or the responsibility to run a country and provide at least basic services to people."
Except that none of these are the responsibility of a properly-functioning government. There is no right to "basic services". There is only the right to your life and your property, the protection of which is the function of the government. The debt can easily be handled if the government shuts down the services that it does not have the right to run, and sells off the infrastructure and equipment used to maintain and facilitate those services.
A company can persuade all it wants. It is only when an elected official helps pass laws in that company's favor that corruption occurs.