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US Gov't. Ending Its Hands-Off-the-Internet Stance
Taco Cowboy writes in with a report from The Register about a US policy shift away from keeping hands off the Internet. "According to Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling, Obama's top official at the Department of Commerce, the US government's policy of leaving the Internet alone is over. Instead, an 'Internet Policy 3.0' approach will see policy discussions between government agencies, foreign governments, and key Internet constituencies, with those discussions covering issues such as privacy, child protection, cybersecurity, copyright protection, and Internet governance." Here is the presentation in which Strickling enunciated these changes.
This is all because of their recent failed security simulation where they couldn't repel a cyber attack. Now that they feel vulnerable they have what they think is adequate motivation to screw the rest of us. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how this plays out...
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Privacy vs Sureillance Feed @ Feed Distiller
Along with a renewed Patriot Act!
Funny, I seem to have missed the Slashdot story of the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passing that bill, or the Democrat-controlled Senate passing that bill. Nevermind the Slasdot story about the Democrat President actually signing that Patriot Act extension....
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!
Actually, that's not true. The old bosses at least said they were going to keep Gitmo open, extend that Patriot Act, and leave troops in Iraq. So at least they did what they said. These new bosses are MUCH worse - they LIE and do and say anything to get elected, then keep on with the policies of the past that they LIED about changing.
And now, these LYING new bosses want us to turn the largest sector of the US economy - health care - over to THEIR control. Because that'll be better for all of us.
What kind of person could possibly believe that THIS group of egomaniacs getting control of another couple of trillion dollars a year would help anyone?
I like the spam problem as a measuring stick. First go and solve the spam problem without reducing the usefulness of the internet to anyone (except the spammers of course). If you can do that, then we'll talk about some other policing that might be a good idea...
If they could stop all the child porn and stop all illegal downloads then i'd be all for it, but only if they can stop _only_ child porn, and _only_ illegal downloads, without any 'collatoral damage' of legal material. And they can't - all recent attempts to do so are proof of that. So in the mean time, keep a better eye on your kids and make it easier for people to buy your stuff than download it.
According to Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling, Obama's top official at the Department of Commerce, the US government's policy of leaving the Internet alone is over.
Any time this has happened the past, geeks blaze a trail to another communication medium. While most people were using phones to make phone calls, geeks used it to create a BBS system. Later came the internet, which was a great place until AOL came along. Just seems like when one medium starts becoming crowded and excessively regulated, geeks will find another place.
Maybe self-discovering mesh networks, something over satellite, not sure what's next. But the more crowded and regulated the internet gets, the more the inner geek will start looking around for a less crowded place.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
stop all illegal downloads then i'd be all for it
Not me, and not millions of people who want to see dramatic copyright reform.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Aren't most government sponsored 'crises' that way?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Why is voting a prerequisite for having an opinion? If someone is against the current US democratic system in principle, should he still have to vote in order to have an opinion? Saying "I don't care" is itself a perfectly valid political statement.
There is a big difference between regulating an industry and taking over an industry. Take the health care debate, for example. It would cost exactly $0 to pass laws that says "Insurance companies cannot deny you for a preexisting condition". But that doesn't give the government control over the industry, instead they want to spend $800 billion to be an insurance company.
Regulation is fine. Involvement is not.
Yeah, obviously participation in the Pepsi vs Coke circus that is our "two-party" system is the be-all and end-all qualification for engaging in the political process.
This smells a lot like the copyright lobby is behind this. I think Obama made a big mistake choosing Joe Biden as Vice President. Biden is a staunch copyright goon. And I wonder if it was him that influenced Obama to put all those copyright lawyers in the justice department. I would be surprised. Biden stinks.
The government should not control anything it is there to serve the people not tell them what to do. The government has done nothing but ruin anything it touches, like for instance the economy. The fed is allowed to control our money with no regulation or accountability. The recent bailout of wall street has undermined the very basis of capitalism by not letting massive and inefficiently run companies go bankrupt. The government takeover of the largest private manufacturing company in the US, General Motors, will lead to government ownership of other businesses such as health care, which will lead to a government that tells the people what to do instead of a government by and for the people, like it is supposed to be. Tube Steak must be one of the the Obama voters that's still waiting for his entitlement. I got news for you sir, the only entitlement you will be receiving is your bill for more taxes and your requirement to buy mandatory health care or get fined.
I agree with with the gov't bashing; however
Or, abstaining from voting can also be expressions of apathy or being completely discouraged due to the corruption that goes on, and on, and on, and on in political circles no matter which party is in power.
The point still remains that you could have done something as simple as write in your own name when you vote official positions. By doing nothing you are effectively telling the system, "do as you please, I no longer care."
If everyone who didn't vote (some 70+% of registered voters) actually voted for someone they believed in, even if it was just a self vote, that would be more likely to change the system than abstaining. You can't just bitch about corruption and expect everyone else to take up arms.
"We must become the change we want to see in the world".
---Mohandas Gandhi.
Why isn't he publicly calling for the attorney general and ministry of justice to investigate and prosecute all of the illegal activities perpetrated by Bush administration officials?
You, sir, don't understand politics very well.
The simple reason is that once you open that can of worms where investigations are opened against previous administrations by later ones, you'll not only validate nutjob conspiracy theorists, you'll also end up with investigations of even earlier presidents (do we want Clinton-era investigations reopened, especially since President Clinton is now the Secretary of State? Er, I mean his wife?), which won't do your own party any good.
And then, the next time a Republican gets into the White House, they'll open an investigation, whether warranted or not, on your own administration. No, better to leave Pandora's box well enough alone so you have a chance at escaping your term with some level of (possibly faked) integrity.
Further, such an investigation would inevitably lead the population to trust the office of President even less, which would be disastrous for the sitting President.
Of course, even with all of that, I have my own conspiracy theories on the situation: once sworn in, the new President is exposed to top-secret information that the rest of us don't know about which actually entirely justifies the previous administration's actions in the controversial areas, and ending those programs would have mortal consequences for the United States. I was very curious back in 2001 when President Bill Clinton (I'm not an American, but I think I've heard that once you get that title, you retain it even after leaving office) came out in support of Dubya's Al Queda conclusion, and his plans to topple the Taliban. (I don't remember him getting any air time on the issue of Iraq.) That made it sound to me like there was some other information that we weren't privy to that Clinton would have been aware of, having just completed his term not long ago, at that time, which would have made even the Democratic former president a believer in the mission, even when the House/Senate leaders of the Democrats were against it.
Now that he's in power, President Obama is also privy to the same information. Maybe that has forced him to reevaluate, without allowing him to divulge the information, or even that he has that information.
I'm not saying I actually believe this conspiracy theory. Just that it's a curiosity to me. It's merely my best theory for what I've seen (which isn't everything by a long shot - not being American, I don't get all the American news). It's also not a fancy conspiracy theory - it's missing the "they're all out to get us" part that makes conspiracy theories so much fun. It's based on a theory that the Presidents are simply men who are interested in power for themselves, and not quite as concerned about the rest of us.
I'm really sick of this "I don't want to vote for the lesser of two evils" crap. If you actually believe there is a lesser of two evils, I'd say it's your duty as an American to vote for it. Abstination from voting is an expression of cynicism...nothing more.
I used to be one of those guys that told friends and family "Don't waste your right to vote... people died so that you could keep it". But after years of watching politics, I've come to the conclusion that if you don't give a damn, if you can't even be bothered to know who the candidates are and what the basic outline of the issues of the day are, then no, by all means, don't vote. Do your country a favor and stay home on election day, and leave the voting to people that actually give a damn.
I'd be delighted and encouraged if more people got involved with the issues and thus more voted because of that. But under no circumstances do I want unmotivated, uncaring people wandering into a booth and choosing the first name on the list just because they were told they should vote. In a free country, the decision not to give a crap is a valid one, like it or not.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Actually, it's more of a Shoot the messenger type thing.
It's ingrained in with recent American politics. Imagine a bill being introduced to law that would require every working person to pay one unemployed person $20 a week of their salary to help them feed their families. Now imagine the opposition to this bill claiming that it would be more beneficial to create job opportunities for the unemployed and allow them to feed their families with their own money instead of relying on weekly handouts. Those supporting the bill would immediately claim that the opposition means they are for starving families and their children. If it gets repeated enough time, then no one takes the opposition point seriously and eventually, they lose credibility even though it probably would be more beneficial to have jobs for everyone willing to work.
Back in the mid 1990's or so, we had a few incidents in my state where school children clothing or backpacks were tangles on the bus when they got off and one or two was dragged in a blind spot sustaining minor injuries. One of the purposed solutions was to hirer a second bus driver who's job was to walk around the bus and make sure all children were safely away from it before it resumed transportation. A competing solution was to retrofit all the buses to make sure lose clothing would easily catch on anything, place addition mirrors or CCTV cameras so the driver could view the blind spots more readily, and with some models, place a removable locking mechanism on the parking brake which would allow the existing driver to leave the controls of the bus without fear of the students operating the bus in their absence. The unions supported the hiring of extra personnel and quickly started claiming anyone who didn't agree didn't care for the safety of the children.
OF course the Unions lost the battle because the cost of fixing the problem for 10 years was less then the cost of one salary of the extra bus driver for 1 year. We are talking about basically $5,000 per bus in retrofiring (which became even cheaper by requiring them as standard safety equipment on new purchases) verses $20-30,000 a year salary plus benefits and all for every bus per year. But it took something like 2 years for the laws to be changed because of how demonized the opposition became. It's the same with calling someone who doesn't like Obama a Bush lover, it's mean to somehow dismiss them out of hand without dealing with the substance or quality of their argument. It's not because anyone is a moron.