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Nokia Siemens Sued For Providing Monitoring Equipment To Iran
Just over a year ago, we found out that Nokia Siemens provided internet monitoring equipment to Iran. Now, reader Tootech sends in news that the company is being sued by an Iranian journalist who was captured with the help of that equipment. From El Reg:
"Isa Saharkhiz went into hiding following Iran's 2009 presidential elections, after publishing an article branding the Grand Ayatollah as a hypocrite who was primarily responsible for vote tallies widely regarded as being fraudulent. According to a complaint filed in federal court in Virginia, officials with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Iran tracked him down with the help of cellphone-monitoring devices and other eavesdropping gear provided by Nokia Siemens. 'Defendants knowingly and willingly delivered very capable and sophisticated equipment for unlawful intercepting, monitoring, and filtering of electronic communications ("Intelligence Solutions") to Iranian officials,' the complaint alleged. ... According to the document, Saharkhiz has been severely tortured since his arrest. He was held in solitary confinement for more than 80 days, and his ribs were broken in a struggle during his arrest. The complaint said it may be amended to add as many as 1,500 other political prisoners who are being held under similar circumstances. Additional defendants may also be added."
The problem with attitudes like the grandparent post that is that they mean -in practice- support for the theocratic gay-killers.
I can't understand how you can be against, say, the KKK, but defend the "right" of Iran to do things like this. For any reason. Why the double standard ?
Iran once imported millions of black slaves, not even that long ago. Trust me, you don't want to read the stories of what happened to them before lunch.
I mean the KKK is bad, I fully agree, very, very bad. But they're better than Iran, and the US is udoubtedly better than both of them. "Collaboration" with the NSA is almost a virtue, as whatever else, it will raise the world to a better ethical standard.
Even if that raising means bombing Iran to the stone age, such an act would still raise both quality of life, both ours and the large majority of people in the region and morality, again both in the region and world-wide.
Very easy discussion. Both countries had quite a bit of viking presence. Vikings were people who taught their kids how to be inherently cruel by forcing them to rip wigs off live birds at the age of three.
You can imagine how they treated their victims as adults. Actually scratch that, most modern people lack imagination to be able to. Being a viking thrall was probably one of the worst fates one could have across all times.
So yes, grand parent is completely correct in spite of that retarded flamebait mod. We really need a "I disagree does not equal flamebait/overrated/troll" - notice every time people get mod points.
Please feel free to pick another country to move to and let us know when you get there. Try North Korea. I hear that they are really just misunderstood.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Those are way too easy
A hard one.
US vs North Korea.
Actually it does. Countries, or more accurately cultures tend to be cyclic. At a phase where one is liberal, other can be extremely conservative, and vice versa. Iran makes a brilliant example of this, during the dark ages in Europe, when people were literally being raped en masse by feudal lords, science was nonexistent and christianity was a horrifying religion focused around death and destruction, Persia was flourishing, being the center of culture, science, mathematics, literature, and islam was actually a refined modern religion that mandated rights for weaker groups like women or those of minority religions - something unheard of at the time in Europe.
Now we have the exact opposite end of the cycle. West is highly liberal, with relatively free science, rights for minorities, and so on. In fact you can already see on macro level that we probably passed the peak and are into the downward path back to concervative-dominated realm.
In general, when comparing two countries on a scale as major as "good-evil", if you try to take a snapshot of a short time, you can paint anyone a saint or a devil. Easily. Which is why history is important, why slavery and such was compared, and why snapshot comparison is indeed apples vs oranges, while comparison over long time is more of an apples vs apples.