Some Countries Want To Ban 'Information Weapons'

DrgnDancer sends in an NPR piece on recent efforts to control so-called "information weapons" on the Internet. What's interesting is that the term "information weapon," as defined by many of the countries trying to limit them, doesn't mean what you would think. It's closer to the old Soviet term "ideological aggression." "At a UN disarmament conference in 2008, Sergei Korotkov of the Russian Defense Ministry argued that anytime a government promotes ideas on the Internet with the goal of subverting another country's government — even in the name of democratic reform — it should qualify as 'aggression.' And that, in turn, would make it illegal under the UN Charter. 'Practically any information operation conducted by a state or a number of states against another state would be qualified as an interference into internal affairs,' Korotkov said through an interpreter. 'So any good cause, like [the] promotion of democracy, cannot be used as a justification for such actions.' The Russians, and a lot of other countries such as Iran and China, apparently consider the free exchange of information to be an information technology threat. One that must be managed by treaty."

Comments

Re:Why would the US / EU want to broadcast Democra

[Wyatt Earp]

So Germany isn't reunited, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic don't have free multiparty elections now?

The pushing of democracy in the Cold War, along with a healthy cultural push from film, tv, radio and music helped spur the end of one party rule in Eastern Europe.

So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression.

Re:Wow... so everything is aggression then

[gstoddart]

So saying "The Russian government is wrong on this issue" could be considered an attack. Maybe that is taking it to the extreme, but what if it's "The Russian government is wrong and the Russian people shouldn't stand for it". And then there is the slightly more blunt "...and the Russian people should rise up against it". So at what point does that become aggression? I ask in all honesty, I feel like this could have a major chilling effect on negotiations between nations where legitimate arguments could be construed as aggression.

Yes, and the UN is also contemplating a ban on Defamation of Religion.

Sadly ever ass-hat oppressive regime who doesn't like to be criticized, and every stupid idiot who believes in the tooth fairy wants to remove my right to criticize them or point out that they're idiots. People who embrace living in the stone age want to make it illegal for me to say that they're stupid for doing so.

So, allow me to preemptively say ... your country sucks if it takes away people's freedoms, your religion sucks if it confers an obligation on those of us who don't believe, your government sucks ... well, your government probably sucks no matter where you are. I retain my right to give offense, and if you don't like it, too damned bad.

Any religion or government which can't stand some criticism should be banned.

I'm all for the UN, but increasingly the backwards and the stupid are pushing an agenda that wants to wipe out the last thousand years of progress in human endeavors.

Many in eastern europe did turn to democracy

[perpenso]

Yeah, it's not like they turned into a Democracy when the government finally collapsed.

Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Georgia, etc did.

The cold war was not waged exclusively against the soviet union. It was also waged against the soviet "client" states throughout eastern europe, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact. Much of the info campaign was directed at these states.

Ain't freedom a bitch?

[singingjim1]

Just goes to show you that some societies (and apparently their "leaders" more so) just can't wrap their minds around the concept of freedom after so many years of oppression and state-sponsored censorship. I even hear some Russian ex-pats speak of how the people there have just come to expect oppressive government and even go so far as to embrace it now. As an American I can't wrap my mind around that, but I guess I understand the underlying reasons for it. Despite what some think about my government and some of it's people, I feel so very fortunate to have been born in the US and I remind myself - and stories like this also remind me - how truly fortunate I am to live in a free society. And dumb comments about how the US isn't really a free society will fall on deaf eyes. I love my country for better or worse, and not just out of blind patriotism, but because the ideals set forth to create this country are the best we've come up with yet. I truly feel for the people of oppressive regimes and hope that one day they get to bask in the warmth that is freedom of thought and expression.

Re:Why would the US / EU want to broadcast Democra

[Wyatt Earp]

Air America, the radio network, was a left-wing radio network in the US.

It was a CIA fronted aviation company in the 1960s.

I think you are looking for Voice of America.

And the US state after the same amount of time?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Lets see, in the decades after the US became a democracy, it had no votes for women. Had legal slavery based on color of the skin. Denied citizenship to asians and the natives. Slaughtered millions of the natives and deported the survivors to concentration camps where they were expected to slowly die with no natural or mineral resources.

The former USSR nations are not doing great, but most have NOT yet slipped as low as the past of the US of A.

Why do you compare the US after 2 centuries of freedom with newly freed states?