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Senators Want To Punish Nokia, Siemens Over Iran
fast66 writes "After hearing about Nokia-Siemens sale of Internet-monitoring software to Iran, US Senators Schumer and Graham want to bar them from receiving federal contracts. They planned the action after hearing about a joint venture of Nokia Corp. of Finland and Siemens AG of Germany that sold a sophisticated Internet-monitoring system to Iran in 2008. According to Nextgov.com, Schumer and Graham's bill would require the Obama administration to identify foreign companies that export sensitive technology to Iran and ban them from bidding on federal contracts, or renew expiring ones, unless they first stop exports to Iran."
yet here the use DPI for a lot of stuff
This is bull shit. Cisco sold the same type of stuff to China.
This is just more bullshit for the U.S. government to work around trade agreements they've signed in the past.
Unless you're in Iran in which case it's the other way around. Or since neither of these companies are US based companies do we have to decide if the EU likes the US today before they can negotiate contracts?
Internet monitoring equipment should only be allowed to be sold in "free" countries, like the US... er...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Where's the blockage of federal contracts to AT&T for spying on American citizens? U.S. officials have a complete lack of self-awareness on issues like spying, detention & torture:
It's the same equipment they sell to the US, UK and others, and they're in compliance with UN and EU regulations. Why is it suddenly evil and deserving of punishment when another government decides to use it?
Just like the Europeans, think they can tell countries what to do, and when. Well, FUCK YOU, I say, FUCK YOU !!
the hypocrisy boggles the mind
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
This is damn hypocritical.
at&t has now recompounded with cingular to form voltron
...I'm glad to see Republicans standing up the tyranny of the increasingly repressive American Gov...wait....
---
I guarantee you these are the same people who want to restrict freedom of information to protect the children here in the USA.
Most of our current presumed enemies were either armed by the Soviets and Chinese (North Korea), or developed their own military industries by initially illegally copying from the Soviets and/or the US (China, Iran). Venezuela is modernizing using largely Russian technology, and has been trying to figure out how to get rid of its F-16s to US enemies without violating transfer agreements. Most of the rest (primarily terrorist or insurgent groups) use weapons that are either stolen from wherever they can find them, or produced in knock-off machine shops (AKs, RPGs, and Katyushas).
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Sold too USA good, sold to Iran bad is a good inconsistency because of another level: Iran is an unpopular theocracy using the technology to sustain their reign. Even factoring in the likely illegitimacy of G W Bush's reign, the rulership in the USA has never been as sustained/entrenched unpopular regime as that of Iran. It is Apples and Oranges, and one should not get the technology.
As far as I'm concerned, multinational corporations deserve this and have done so for a long time.
They are crying foul that by selling the tools of oppression to one government, they jeopardize their chances to sell their wares to another.
That's not hypocrisy on behalf of the governments. That's just politics.
And they do have a choice to avoid this - by staying out of that market.
No one forced them to sell systems to allow oppressive regimes to track and crack down on dissidents. They came up with that product all by themselves. And they most certainly would have been aware of what their product was going to be used for.
If all they sold was phones and phone systems, they wouldn't be in this mess, so I really don't see a problem with the US Government deciding that if Nokia supports it's political enemies, that it shouldn't benefit from US government contracts.
Corporate pariahs's deserve to be treated as such.
I don't like what the US government is doing itself in the area of human rights abuse, but I have to admit that I support it on this matter.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Political opportunism by Graham, and naivete by Schumer. Both companies are in compliance with international law. How can you punish a company when you never even told them it was wrong to begin with? The hardware and software in question is usually marketed for corporate use, where they have every right to use it. Maybe it would be better to outlaw the use of such software by governments?
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
Maybe it would be better to outlaw the use of this kind of technology by ALL governments. It should be perfectly legal for corporate use.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
Speaking up in favor of protestors is seen as meddling but sending out a strong signal that if you sell anything hi tech to Iran your stuff will be shunned by the U.S. will have no impact whatsoever.
The horse may have left the barn, but if we nuke the barn from orbit we can be sure no future horses will even be born. Or something like that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
IBM, allegedly, collaborated with the Nazis.
Corporations making a quick buck through trading with 'the enemy' is nothing new.
Let's do something useful. Fire up a proxy and get it into the queue. Start up a TOR node. Get to work on WAP firmware that enables a wireless mesh network. If you know somebody in-country, buy up a bunch of Micro-SD cards in decent capacities and mail them in, stuffed with downloaded videos of protests so that in case they don't have them they can share them around. Even in the absence of networking, microSD cards are a discreet way to distribute large amounts of information. If you receive mail from somebody in-country, check the package thoroughly for concealed data cards and publish what you find.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Those actions turn the US into a less competitive country and will not stop people from having cell phones, software, etc wherever they live. I don't think Nokia cares very much about federal contracts right now.
So, now that we here in Germany have introduced Internet censorship (via the crazy Zensursula von der Leyen law, your choice whether "crazy" applies to the law or the person) - will the US senators punish the companies that supply the infrastructure for that as well?
Oh wait, Germany isn't a "rogue country", right? We don't go by facts, we go by political climate, don't we?
I'm looking forward to an embargo...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
It wouldn't hurt my feelings to punish companies that sell products that are specifically designed to oppress nations, but we also need to punish American companies that do that. Including censoring information, and disclosing information to help those regimes violate rights.
America needs to decide a)Iran is a horrible regime and should be treated as such, which included cutting off any business or country that profits by selling to it, or b) leave them alone. This is all wishy-washy jerking off after the fact. None of this tech is classified or sensitive, so you can't say they were selling them weapons grade material or something. You can't punish a corporation after the fact when the did not break a single international law. These spineless half measures reek of hypocrisy.
I warned Europeans on this board that protectionism was coming with a Northern Democrat sweep... but oh no
Yep - damn those Europeans for voting Obama in.
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
As far as I have heard Nokia and Siemens did just sell the same technology they are forced by the "good countries" to implement already for years. So what is the problem?!
..Shit.
You cannot warp because you are warp scrambled.
If it weren't for CALEA: http://www.fcc.gov/calea/. Nokia/Siemens might have said "no, it's to costly to implement something like this so you can take it or leave it." Instead the system was already in place, tested, and working and sat right on top of their existing offerings as dictated BY YOU.
I'm certainly not condoning companies from doing business of this sort *coughCiscocough*, but the hypocrisy makes me sick. Why don't go after other counties that do something similar to what Iran is doing and go after the companies that built those networks. Oh wait, because that's EVERYBODY.
These guys are such douchebags and don't even understand the consequences of their actions could be. The fact is that sure, Iran could have been sold this equipment without the filtering or logging, but would they have bought it knowing they had 0 control over it? Doubtful. Because there's 1 fact about the internet that held true time and time again, as long as the wire isn't cut you cannot stop it. By having companies like Cisco or Nokia/Siemens doing the installs, the free world automatically gets a leg up on the situation because we know exactly how they work and can help those that want a free voice get around it. The engineers that even built the systems are on our side, they know what's going on and while they do not condone it, the end game is that if people are given the ability, they will find a way.
The alternative is these countries doing a few things. First no internet, nobody would have access. Not even filtered access. This doesn't help anyone. They would become completely and totally cut off from everybody except for whatever their state "media" spews out. Or the other possibility is that they would have had their own in house guys do it. If it were something that they absolutely needed, and they needed to have total control over it, they would have had their own engineers design the equipment and software to implement their cell/internet network. This would have a couple issues, firstly being they could break it for the rest of us, see the Pakistan/Youtube incident. Another issue that would exist, is that their engineers would have likely seen the issues with the current implementation and improved upon it by providing a far more intrusive filtering/logging that would ultimately cause the deaths of many many more people.
I do not like it anymore than the rest of you, but the fact is, is that as long as there exist a means in which one can voice their own opinion freely they will find a way. What we saw from Iran is the people finding that way. Had Iran not had the means, it wouldn't have happened at all. It's like the Tiananmen/Google thing that comes up every so often. Does it make Google evil to filter it? Maybe. But the alternative is not having Google in China. You know what you can find on Google in China? A way to bypass the Great Firewall.
Taking away basic necessities will be the right punishment for the villainous common people of Iran for democratically deciding to deny themselves basic human ri-... wait, wha-?
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
Yep - damn those Europeans for voting Obama in.
IF they could have, they would have. Obama's ratings in Europe were in the 90% range, at the same time he was in Ohio talking about how he was going to undo free trade. Says a lot about how informed Europeans -really- are.
Bush may not have been the style of guy that Europe prefers, but economically, his commitment to free trade made it possible for many European economies to be export driven. Obama will begin the unwinding of that.
This is my sig.
How dare they sell equipment to implement legally required (and specified by ETSI and 3GPP standards) capabilies for the mobile networks: http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/global/Press/Press+releases/news-archive/Provision+of+Lawful+Intercept+capability+in+Iran.htm
You know, it wasn't tanks and bombers that brought down the Iron Curtain. It was blue jeans and rock'n'roll. Western consumer society may be easy to sneer at, but in the long run it's proven to be one of the most powerful forces for liberalization the world has ever known.
As a practical matter, if we try to cut off exports to Iran, I guaran-goddamn-tee you the Iranian government will still get its hands on all the goodies it needs, but the Iranian people will be SOL, and any chance they have of freeing themselves (how exactly do you think we heard about the election fraud, anyway?) will vanish forever.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
As stated in the linked article:
- It's a piece of standard 3GPP (=GSM) equipment for lawful intercept, i.e. to allow law enforcement to wiretap calls (according guidelines set by local law).
- It only handles voice calls and does not allow internet traffic monitoring, let alone deep packet inspection.
- The equipment is compliant with EU and UN export regulations
Also, it's much less of a privacy threat than the mechanisms currently in place in US, UK (and I'm sure EU).
Uh no, it wasn't blue jeans and Beatles tapes, it was the United States bankrupting the USSR. Containment was an incredibly expensive policy for the West, but in the end, the USSR could not compete, and we sure the hell weren't exporting advanced electronics to them (though they ripped plenty off).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Ericksson does not supply a murderous and suppressive theocracy with telecom equipment.
Therefore, Erlang != Evil.
what about the scores of US companies that have sold and are selling weapons to Iran, to other hostile, dictatorial and oppressive regimes and to third world counties. WTF! In my book that is much worse than what Siemens and Nokia did. Oh, but these are not US companies.... so that makes it alright then. Hypocrits.
assignment != equality != identity
Matt 7:3
For those not wanting to bother, it's the part about beams in your eye and splinters in that of another one.
Hey, I just want to give them something they can understand, considering how many politicians ride on God and his will into the house, I'd say they should know the good book, eh?
OK, snideness aside. Do you think this is about "freedom of speech" or similar bullcrap? It's about power. It's the attempt to dictate to foreign companies what they may or may not sell. Neither Siemens nor Nokia is a US company. It's simply an attempt to find out whether those companies rely heavily enough on US government contracts to actually bend over to US government's will.
And that's the shameful part. IF it was about free speech, I'd be very happy for such a bold and outright good move. Similar actions taken in the US lead me to the conclusion that this is not the case. Else, why care for the splinter in someone else's eye?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I know you think that is a bad thing, but frankly, US consumerism supporting US manufacturing isn't exactly a bad thing.
What it does to other economies around the world isn't really the US governments purview. Ultimately, "free trade" never existed, and it never will until the world is under one unifying government.
Venezuela ... has been trying to figure out how to get rid of its F-16s to US enemies without violating transfer agreements.
Why, incidentally...? Just to be a dick?
We live, as we dream -- alone....
You needn't look at Europe. Obama's popularity here in Canada is insane - it's almost as if I see him more often on TV and newspapers than I see the local prime minister. Meanwhile, they complain loudly about "Buy American" campaign...
I know you think that is a bad thing, but frankly, US consumerism supporting US manufacturing isn't exactly a bad thing.
I'm totally against free trade. It's a failure and a myth. I was in favor of it strongly. We tried it. It didn't accomplish its stated goals, so its time to move on.
This is my sig.
The difference between here and Iran? I can call the fat little piggies out and... probably won't be labeled a terrorist and sent to Gitmo. Fox news might call me an America hater, but they're the ones wishing for more suffering on the American people because they must be punished for not voting Republican in the last election. Fox news hates America more than the Iranian leadership ever could.
The similarity between here and Iran? I can call the fat little piggies out all I want and it won't change a goddamn thing. And whether I vote this fat little piggy or that fat little piggy in to office, they're all just fat little piggies in the end.
At least the Iranian people can still get worked up about such things. I hope they can resolve their problems without a lot of people getting killed. They don't deserve to be killed just for wanting their voices to be heard. No one deserves that.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Siemens sold the same stuff to Germany/German operators.
Who's the one doing the screwing here? Your currency needs to lose a lot of value to equalize things, but none of you are prepared to face the consequences. You're just riding on the fact that it's the world's reserve currency, but eventually the bubble will pop...
Even more proof the world is screwing the USA. The fact is, if free trade actually worked, the dollar would have gradually declined and the markets would have done their job. Instead we have a bunch of folks over in Japan, South Korea and China playing mercantile games and hoarding dollars to prop up the currency, so they can f--- us some more.
Let the bubble pop! Then everyone will see what a bullshit deal free trade is, the USA can go back to being isolationist, and let the world engulf itself in regional wars.
This is my sig.
Most of our current presumed enemies were either armed by the Soviets and Chinese
Okay, so you're saying the US *didn't* arm Afghanistan, so that the brave band of Mujahideen freedom fighters could release their country from the shackles of the eeeevil Russkies?
Maybe you should read the transcripts of some of Reagan's speeches on the matter. Or just watch Rambo III. Either way, you should brush up on your recent history.
Fine so long as all companies and countries are punished equally for 'censoring' the internet
So any company involved in Australia, China, Britain, Germany and god knows how many more should all be banned equally...
Oh and ban the US companies that would be involved in the 'drop the internet' red button idea reported in stories yesterday.
In fact, I know, lets ban everything.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
they waited too long before jumping on Iran for the handling of the election. I am really getting worried we are going to see a poll driven Presidency, far worse than Clinton. When the election news in Iran first starting coming out the White House was amazingly silent on the matter, worse even as evidence of demonstrations and government brutality started coming in all they could muster is some comment along the lines of "we support some of the people provided it does not offend the leadership"
When the polls shifted, in other words, public opinion in the US became news, suddenly the White House and now Congress (Read: Democrats in Congress) have changed their tune. Suddenly Iran is now bad. Apparently they figured out in six months what Bush knew coming in, that many countries don't give a rats ass if your nice to them, its a shine of weakness and they will exploit it.
Hence companies who acted within the law must be made pariah's because it gives the appearance that government is taking action to support the will of the people. Look, this is no different than Obama and Congress vilifying legal holders of GM/Chrysler debt just so they could pay off their union buddies and get control of two major manufacturers.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It seems like virtually all Venezuelan foreign policy is designed for the express purpose of trying to annoy the United States.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I think the scariest think about all this is the fact that the Lawful Intercept features that the Iranian national telecom and every other 3G operator on the planet have in their equipment areFEDERALLY MANDATED, and the legislators in question are obviously unaware of or blatantly ignoring this fact.
Not that this is news, but the right hand of the US Govt obviously has no f'ing clue what the left hand is doing. They obviously want some good PR by poo-pooing some companies that were doing business with Iran, and Nokia Siemens easily fell to hand. They didn't bother to do their homework, and now Nokia Siemens has a huge mess on their hands as a result of a lot of people with very loud voices being f'ing clueless about telecoms.
NEWS FLASH: IF YOU WANT TO CUT OFF THE FLOW OF MONEY TO THIS OPPRESSIVE ILLEGITIMATE IRANIAN SHAM GOVERNMENT, PUT PRESSURE ON THEIR CUSTOMERS TO BUY THEIR OIL AND GUNS ELSEWHERE OR FACE SANCTIONS
This is really basic stuff, and we've done it before. All their money comes from selling oil and weapons. Anyone messing with anything else is trying to make themselves look good for political reasons.
Bush may not have been the style of guy that Europe prefers, but economically, his commitment to free trade made it possible for many European economies to be export driven. Obama will begin the unwinding of that.
Are you joking? His commitment and wisdom brought us a worldwide economic collapse. Banks and companies collapsed like Lehman Brothers, Citibank, Fortis, Northern Rock, Kaupthing, GM, Chrysler... an estimated 3 million unemployed in the US (worldwide - nobody knows). Not to speak of US casualties in Iraq (about 4000) Iraqi deaths (est. at more than 1 million).
"farm machinery"
Them Ir-anians. Ya can't trust 'em!
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
For connecting Iran to the rest of the world. Without your network equipment their communication with the outside world would be that much more limited. It's a shame that Iran chooses to abuse the monitoring and filtering solutions provided with your equipment, but I know that many Iranians are grateful for the fact it is available for them to use at all.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Look forward to the bill by Schumer and Graham banning companies that sell to israel after their massacre in Gaza and increasing their illegal occupation of the Palestinian State.
And this is the country that won't lift a finger to prosecute those companies complicit in warrantless wiretapping of its own citizens.
Not to mention the broad range of human rights abuses by the USA.
you had me at #!
I thought we were supposed to hate governments (the embodiment of all evil) and embrace unchecked and unrestrained capitalism and free enterprise (the embodiment of all good). You mean letting the no-conscience, no-morals, everything-in-the-name-of-one-more-dollar isn't a good thing either? Say it isn't so.
I never said any such thing. I'm quite aware of the actions of the US government during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, a war that was far more complex than most people realize.
However, the Taleban are largely not the successors of the Mujahideen. Former Mujahideen fought on their side, but that was in many cases because the Taleban were the ones in power. The Taleban were armed largely by those countries that saw them as legitimate, especially Pakistan. Since 2001, the Taleban's arms come from illegal shipments or manufacturing paid for by private donors and the profits from the Taleban's drug trade.
At what point does the US arming someone fall away as arming its enemies? The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan twenty years ago. Whatever weapons were sent to the Mujahideen are not likely to be the primary weapons being used in the fighting now, especially since most of them were used up in the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
"I'm not a fan of US companies enabling foreign governments to crack heads but this kind of retroactive grandstanding seems to be more about political positioning than genuine concern for the actions of US companies."
Nokia is a Finnish company. Siemens is a German company. Nokia Siemens is a cross-border Finnish/German joint venture. None of these players are "US companies". They simply sell to the US, just like they sell to Iran.
I would not be surprised to find these same senators lauding the homegrown Christian censorship software that's installed in libraries and the like.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
you don't remember.
you had me at #!
And read an actual fucking newspaper, dumbass. (And yes, that means a non-USA, non-filtered news source. Ironic to be dissing Iran when you dipshits live in a fantasy world all your own.)
you had me at #!
horrible atrocities in the name of vile ideology in other countries is tolerable to you, because it makes for nice vacation pictures
that's some nice human conscience you got there
you know japan is a pretty wacky place to visit, and it shares a lot of the same legal standards as western countries. but according to you, that means it must be boring because its the same
you really need to rethink what you wrote above, right now it is pretty facile, self-serving, and shallow. you're the spitting image of the clueless westerner
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We're banning Red Hat, why?
Because Schumer and Graham want people to think that the government is actually in charge.
It's really quite cute, in a "retarded puppy menacing a Toyota" sort of way.
standing, it's plain fucking stupid. Where were these people when Nortel and Intel and others operating in or organized in the US selling similar equipment to China and having it BUILT IN CHINA, too, enabling China to clone the technology in factories and produce extra shit off-hours, off-books. Talk about the feeling of calling the kettle black.
I think these political types are making noise because China buys US dollars and props up the US (but for military budgets China's a great foil), but Iran just happens to be the newest (or current) election irregularities "bad guy" to keep the rest of us here "distracted". If they keep rattling Iran, something will backfire (whether or not related to Iran meddling in Iraq... Iran isn't the ONLY government "meddling" in near or far-away countries...).
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
US Senators Schumer and Graham - talk about an Odd Couple!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"First off.. who are you (or who am I) to decide if an "ideology" is vile ?"
i have a conscience
the junta in burma is vile
based on the way they treat their citizens
if you see someone stabbing someone in the street, do you not call the police because you have no right to judge what is going on? same facile, lobotomized position as saying no one has a right to judge the varying crimes of regimes in this world
"The point is, if a people of a country want to have a certain type of government that is up to them"
the point is, moron, the PEOPLE of burma DON'T GET A FUCKING SAY. and when monks march to protest this, the regime MURDERS THEM
wake the fuck up you shallow sheltered prick
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
How dare you sell technology to _another_ country to oppress their people -- you unfaithful bastards?