Iceland Votes "Já" To Proposed News Haven

eldavojohn writes "The proposed rules shielding journalists harbored in Iceland are now official. It appears that sites like Wikileaks and Cryptome could have a friendlier home base. For those familiar with the Icelandic tongue, the voting results and legalese. Some of the details can be found at www.immi.is."

Comments

Wow

[SnarfQuest]

It would be nice to get something like this in the US.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

One man's cliche is another man's peak of insightfulness.

is it just me?

[tomkost]

Seems like the "socialist" Scandinavian countries are the most honest and "free". I've visited many of them and always been received with kindness. Yes, the women are as attractive and "fun" as stereotyped. Time to investigate moving there.

Re:is it just me?

[morgan_greywolf]

But the beer costs $10 a glass.

Well, at the dollar's current valuation, that doesn't surprise me.

Re:is it just me?

[h4rr4r]

But they get stuff for their tax money. Instead of here were we get almost the same tax rate, but no healthcare, shitty roads, no real social services to speak of and a government that passes laws for the highest bidder.

You may not like high taxes, but I would prefer high taxes and services to slightly lower taxes but nothing in exchange.

Re:is it just me?

[CallMyCards]

Well, there's places in US where beer might cost as much, it's not that expensive in everywhere in Finland for example. A sizable portion of that is taxes of course to cover the medical costs caused by alcoholism, since healthcare is essentially free. Same with taxing of gasoline (naturally not towards alcoholism), I think that 75% of the price is tax, currently at roughly 6.75 $ for a US gallon.

Off topic: A funny detail is, that Nordic countries have this unofficial (maybe even official) agreement that in acute medical cases, citizens of other Nordic countries are taken care of for free, basically with no questions asked. No need to show travel insurance or anything, applies to operations, x-rays etc.

Re:is it just me?

[Trepidity]

Being half-Greek, I think you'll find that Greece's bankruptcy has more to do with being Greece than with being socialist. It's not even particularly socialist in practice. There's a huge private sector that pays effectively 0% taxes, and even the officially free health care in practice operates as quasi-private--- doctors work 2nd private practices outside their official jobs, and they uh, strongly suggest that you make an appointment with that one rather than with the free one. Oh, and they don't pay taxes on those private practices, either (cash-only payments, no receipts, no reporting).

If Greece were more like Sweden, where rich people actually pay taxes, public services that are officially provided are actually provided, etc., its budget, and the country in general, would be in better shape.

Re:is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Calling socialism a Ponzi scheme gets you +1, Informative? Socialism is "we use a bit of your money to provide freely available healthcare to everyone of the same or greater quality than private healthcare, and at a lower cost, providing an overall benefit to society". Socialism is "we use a bit of your money to properly educate children to ensure that they can be productive members of society when they grow up, providing an overall benefit to society". Socialism is "we use a bit of your money to properly regulate companies so they don't do retarded, short-sighted shit that causes fucking global economic meltdowns, providing an overall benefit to society". Socialism is nowhere near "a Ponzi scheme".

Take your head out of your ass. There are plenty of countries far more socialist than the US that are, by multiple metrics, far better places to live than the US. If you think far less government is the solution, you are absolutely insane.

Re:is it just me?

[dave420]

Idiot. If the US was a paradise of freedom with milk and honey for everyone, you'd have a point. As it is, in the US there are people dying from poverty, people losing their houses because they had the temerity to get ill, murder rates similar to developing nations, high infant mortality, and the highest jail population in the world. But please - keep on thinking socialism doesn't work. It's not as if the average American doesn't pay much taxes - they do! And what do they get for it? Fuck all. They still have to pay for healthcare (if they can), their police forces are full of under-trained idiots, and their armed forces are making more enemies than they can kill. The rest of the western world knows balanced socialism is the way forward, and will keep getting a better and better place to live. USA #1 - in delusion, it seems.

Bandwagon anyone?

[NervousWreck]

According to the article, Iceland did this to make it a more desirable server location. Seems like that market can serve as an incentive for more "data friendly" laws; Here's hoping other countries follow suit.

Re:Bandwagon anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

They did this because Wikileaks posted bank records for one of their failing banks which showed they were transferring billions of dollars out into safe havens as they were going down. Seeing as how the big bank fiasco tanked their economy they didn't take to kindly to this misappropriation of funds and decided Wikileaks was a good thing.

err, the rules are not yet official

[Trepidity]

The proposal to draft some rules is now official. The rules themselves will now be drafted by a committee, and then the committee will present them to the legislature, which may then in the future enact them. The proposal is indeed promising, as is the strong (unanimous) support for tasking the committee with fleshing it out, but what exactly the committee will come back with could vary quite a bit.

Wake up America!

[Anonymous Coward]

And nobody should know about abuses of power either. Gosh, if the American public ever found out why so much of the world hates them, what would happen then?!?

Terrorists attacked the USA, and the people have no idea why. You think "Freedom hating bastards! That's why they did it!" Perhaps if the American people understood that the government that (mis)represents them is what is getting otherwise innocent Americans killed, then it could stop.

Please Americans, you need to pull your head out of your asses! For your own good as well as the rest of us. Blind Patriotism chanting "we're number one" does not make it so. If you only knew how far from number one you actually are, you could do something about it. Reclaim that title. America was wonderful, and a land of the free. So much has been lost, and ignorance of so much around you will erode what little is left. I fear it may already be too late. I hope it is not.

Re:but just for people that look just like me!

[arth1]

Racially homogeneous? You have no idea what you're talking about. In Sweden, around 12% of the population are first generation immigrants, of which around 75% are from non-Western countries.
That's much higher than the average for Europe, with around 6% immigrants, and about the same as in the US (38 million first generation immigrants out of 307 million in 2009).

Looking at the largest Scandinavian cities, Oslo and Stockholm both have around 25% immigrants, most of whom are from non-Western countries. Compared to where I live in the US, I am the one living in a racially homogeneous area, with more than 96% crackers.