White House Pressuring Registrars To Block Sites

An anonymous reader writes "While the Senate is still debating a bill that would force registrars and ISPs to block access to sites deemed 'infringing,' it appears that the White House's IP Czar is already holding meetings with ISPs, registrars and payment processors to start voluntarily blocking access to sites it doesn't like. Initially, they're focused on online pharmacies, but does anyone think it will only be limited to such sites? ICANN apparently has refused to attend the meetings, pointing out that they're 'inappropriate.' Doesn't it seem wrong for the US government to be pushing private companies to censor the Internet without due process?"

Comments

Change we can believe in

[Anonymous Coward]

Meet the new boss, same (worse?) as the old boss.
Goddamn idealogues seeing everything in black/white terms. This is your fault.

Re:Change we can believe in

[MaskedSlacker]

Do you even know what socialism is? Because it isn't this.

Re:Change we can believe in

[Anonymous Coward]

When you grow up and get an education, you'll see that the "left" Dems are further to the "right" than the "right wing" parties found in Europe and elsewhere. But hey, keep deluding yourself into thinking any party gives a flying fuck about you.

Re:Change we can believe in

[Pojut]

keep deluding yourself into thinking any party gives a flying fuck about you.

I was having a conversation about just that earlier today with a co-worker. Both major parties have proven many times over that they can't be trusted...how anyone can still be a registered Democrat or Republican in this country defies belief.

Re:Change we can believe in

[uniquename72]

Nazi Germany was not at all socialist. Today's China is barely socialist.

Education is your friend.

Re:Change we can believe in

[MaskedSlacker]

Tyranny's a good word for it.

There's plenty of reasons not to like Obama. Socialism isn't one of them. Throwing words around meaninglessly does not help anything--it just helps to marginalize those with actual coherent complaints and causes more harm. That's my point.

Hate Obama's policies all you like. There's plenty to hate. But hate them for what they are, not for the bogeyman they aren't.

Re:Change we can believe in

[Kharny]

The fact that they called themselves socialist doesn't mean they were, they were fascists

Re:Change we can believe in

[hrvatska]

And the GDR was the German Democratic Republic, aka East Germany. There's frequently not much of a relationship between what political movements call themselves and what they actually are.

Re:Change we can believe in

[hairyfeet]

YOU might want to look up your history friend, like say Ernst Rohm who was executed along with the other socialists during "the night of the long knives" because Hitler had already gotten support of the major German businesses. What Hitler had was fascism, and he simply used socialism as a buzzword to gain power, just as what we are seeing here. Western Europe is socialist, what we are seeing is "by the corporation, for the corporation" which I'd say is an equal mix of totalitarianism, fascism, and oligarchy, but it has as much to do with socialism as the tea party has to do with which finger to hold up when you're sipping your Earl Gray.

Re:Change we can believe in

[MaskedSlacker]

That reality distortion field is mighty powerful. You don't know what socialism is.

We've had an oligarchical government propped up by a varyingly legal/extra-legal patronage system since the early 19th century (arguably even longer than that, but that's quibbling over irrelevant details at that point). Is that a long enough time? But it isn't a socialist one. It's worse than a socialist one in fact.

Denying it just lets the problem get worse and makes it less likely we'll be able to fix it.

And treating cancer with antiobiotics does nothing. Treating the problems we have as if they were 'socialist' will make things worse, because you're ignoring the real problem in favor of a bogeyman you think you know how to fight.

Re:Change we can believe in

[butalearner]

The fact that they called themselves socialist doesn't mean they were, they were fascists

Riiight, and next you're going to tell me that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea...oh those clever bastards!

Re:Change we can believe in

[fishexe]

The fact that they called themselves socialist doesn't mean they were, they were fascists

Exactly! Most people who claim Nazis were socialists because they called themselves socialists should be informed that the coalition of Marxists, Anarchists, Syndicalists, and Liberals who fought together in the Spanish Civil War called themselves...Republicans!

Re:Change we can believe in

[Maxo-Texas]

And on top of that, if your party gets any traction, the media starts running articles and news clips about how goofy your party is. Liberal or conservative- both sides.

Translation: Big Pharma is bleeding

[WillAffleckUW]

I wonder how many WH officials worked for or intend to work for Big Pharma companies that don't want Americans to pay the same CHEAP prices for medications that the REST OF THE WORLD pays?

I'm guessing most of them.

Single payer - what we should have done.

Re:Translation: Big Pharma is bleeding

[Maxo-Texas]

huh.

in my experience... not so much.

In fact, the guy they are busting in colorado was shipping real drugs.

There are plenty of scam sites, but once you get a site that gives you the real thing, you stayed with it.

Cost?

36 Viagra.. 25mg
$360 with a prescription legally...
Go to doctor every 3 months.

33 Viagra.. 100mg (so 132 uses when pill-cut to 25mg)
$100 - go to doctor once every six months.

Thyroid Medicine?
$105 with prescription & insurance
$180 with prescription & no insurance
$50 online.

Dirty secret?
Same medicine legally in Medicine? $20
Same medicine legally in India (by the same damn manufacturer)? $2.00

You can tell pretty quickly if viagra, thyroid medicine, or blood pressure medicine are fake.. you know, in 2 or 3 days your BP shoots back up to 175/100. You can tell pretty quickly if your thyroid medicine is fake, you get really tired and your hair starts falling out. And of course, you can tell within 30 minutes if your viagra/cealis, etc are not real.

---
Now some you can't- cholesterol medicine (Lipitor) for example. Your blood would change in a couple weeks but you'd have to take a test (available for $10 at Walgreens).

Fact is we are GROSSLY overcharged for pills in the U.S. And the government is doin everything it can not to stop bad pills but to stop good pills.

Doesn't it seem wrong...

[Androclese]

Doesn't it seem wrong for the US gov't to be pushing private companies to censor the internet without due process?"

Does it seem wrong? Yes.

Is it surprising with this Administration, coming from a made-up post that was not vetted by Congress and is not supposed to have any operational power? Not in the least.

Due Process?

[Akido37]

When the Obama Administration claims the right to ASSASSINATE CITIZENS without due process, I'm not surprised that a little thing like blocking websites doesn't merit due process either.

This all seems very wrong

[kaptink]

Is ICANN tied to the UN or the USA?

This all seems very bad and very wrong. Using online pharmacies as the primary reason just doesn’t wash with me. No one country should 'own' the internet. And without due process you have to really wonder what the hell is going on here. I thought the Australian government was going to far with mandatory censorship but this is pretty frightening.

No, not worse than the old boss

[Infonaut]

Meet the new boss, same (worse?) as the old boss.

I voted for Obama based on my belief that he would make better decisions than McCain. We tend to forget that the election was not a yea or nay vote for Obama. It was a contest between two contenders.

Has Obama done everything I want him to do? No. Has he made decisions (like this one) that I disagree with? Yes. Am I still happy that I voted for him rather than McCain, the guy who wanted to put the freak from Alaska a heartbeat away from the Presidency? Abso-freakin-lutely.

As for being worse than the old boss, your memory must be failing. Bush was the most corporate-friendly President we've seen. Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[electron sponge]

Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years.

I see President Obama is making great headway in undoing the damage President Bush did. Policies like this are sure-fire ways to improve the status of civil liberties in this country. Or not.

At least with Bush we could fall back on, "hey, the guy's a stooge for corporate interests, what did we expect?" Obama on the other hand is doing pretty much exactly what he promised not to do regarding liberties, transparency, and many other areas that made people want to vote for him.

Somehow we need to put a stop to this practice of appointing "Czars". Anyone who can't pass muster with the Senate shouldn't be calling shots in the Executive Branch.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[kalirion]

Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years.

Dunno about the environment, but the current administration is taking quite the opposite approach to undoing damage to civil liberties.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[biryokumaru]

Oh my fucking god. I am throwing away 5 mod points posted elsewhere for this. You, sir, are the problem.

It was a contest between two contenders.

No it fucking was not. There were 5, count them, 5 candidates who were registered on sufficient ballots to win the presidency. The fact that you are too fucking ignorant to be even dimly aware of what they show outside of CNN is utterly pathetic.

Stop being part of the problem.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[pete-classic]

It's too bad you don't have the courage to vote your conscience. If you did, we might get a candidate that you actually want, instead of the second-most-objectionable candidate.

To quote Penn Jillette, "Keep voting for the lesser of two evils and things will just keep getting more evil."

-Peter

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[Concerned Onlooker]

"Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years."

Especially at the rate Obama is going.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[FoolishOwl]

Voting for third-party candidates is actually a viable strategy.

The Democrats and Republicans usually craft their campaigns to differ from each other by the minimum possible for there to be a discernible difference. Presidential elections are frequently decided on the basis of a few percentage points.

This means a candidate that has little chance of being elected can actually have a significant influence on the election, if they can attract a few percentage points of votes -- that means one or the other major party candidates will have to adjust their platform to try to draw those voters, or lose the election. Ross Perot (not someone I admire, by the way) had this sort of influence on the Republicans, after he won 8% of the vote in 1996.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[Znork]

I used to vote along the 'realistic' least evil lines, but over the last decade I've come to regard voters in democracies as complicit in, and responsible for the policies of the ones we vote for. And so I cannot vote for any party whose actions I find unconscionable; I'd carry the stain of responsibility, no matter how small a part, for their actions on my conscience.

I might not get a candidate that wins these days, but at least I'm not getting betrayed by mine or made part of their crimes.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[a whoabot]

I'm fairly sure that if people started voting for those candidates, those votes would probably be counted, instant run-off or not. In Canada there are usually more than two candidates in any riding and no instant run-off voting. In my riding it was a close race between three different candidates -- Liberal, Conservative and NDP -- the NDP won.

I think I agree with the grandparent more -- as it relates to politics, the majority of people consume mainstream media almost exclusively (read: Viacom, National Amusements, Time Warner, Disney, News Corp.) and so, lo and behold, they vote for mainstream candidates (read: Democrats, Republicans).

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[ElectricTurtle]

And that's self defeating, a self-fulfilling prophecy, like all the other people who say 'I'm not wasting my vote on somebody who can't win!' And then they don't win... surprise... because people didn't vote for them.

I for one can say fuck em both, I voted for Barr.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[Hatta]

If that actually worked the Democrats would have taken a turn to the left after Nader cost them the election in 2000. But they decided to try to win over Bush voters instead of Nader voters.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[commodore64_love]

>>>Somehow we need to put a stop to this practice of appointing "Czars". Anyone who can't pass muster with the Senate shouldn't be calling shots in the Executive Branch.
>>>

Remember when I said Executive Orders should be unconstitutional? That includes executive orders from czars. It is Congresses' job to make laws, not the executive branch (which merely executes laws). Furthermore the whole of the US government, which includes all three branches, is forbidden from exercising powers never granted to it per the 10th Amendment. That is not just an optional piece of wording - it's the Law - ruling above even the president.

You want to put a stop to "czars"? Make the 10th Amendment supreme. Make "the appointing of czars" a reserved power of the States, never granted to the US. While Congress was given the power to regulate products on the internet (interstate commerce), nobody in the executive branch ever was.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[bonch]

I voted for Obama based on my belief that he would make better decisions than McCain.

Which were based on vague promises and TV speeches. Unlike Obama, McCain had a public promise to shrink the government and a record showing his history of reaching across the political aisle to work with Democrats. He even bashed the Republican Party at the Republican convention. But people got caught up in the culture of personality around Obama, acting on their emotions and the glowing media coverage where he made tons of promises that critics knew he would never keep.

You bought into another smooth-talking politican.

As for being worse than the old boss, your memory must be failing. Bush was the most corporate-friendly President we've seen. Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years.

What a stupid comment. Being corporate-friendly doesn't mean your civil liberties are damaged, and the environment claim is laughable. Perhaps the worst part, though, is that you voted for Obama knowing he was left-of-center and pro-government, as if governments and corporations are different in their damage. The important difference is that corporations can be punished or replaced easily. Have fun with your government-restricted internet.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[youngone]

So really it just comes down to Politicians lying to get into power, then doing whatever their corporate masters tell them to do once they get there. Bush is an idiot, and transparently a corporate shill. Obama is just a slicker, more authoritative one.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[Xylantiel]

Stop playing games. Your argument is one for why third-party candidates should RUN, not for us to vote for them. You are simply claiming that it defines a voter group that can be addressed in campaigns.

Until there is a rank-order voting system in place (which is what your arguments really point toward), sensible voters will continue to vote strategically. One of the problems of a winner-takes all system is that a third party candidate will always hurt the majority of his supporters more by taking relatively more away from their second choice candidate.

I suspect your whole line of reasoning as being disingenuous. The original point is that the general republican stance on this kind of speech issue is blatantly worse than that of the general democratic stance. So reacting to this with "nothing's changed" is disconnected from reality. The presence of third party candidates does not change this.

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[CynicTheHedgehog]

Write to your state legislature and request preferential voting ballots. The plurality system we have today causes people to vote for one of two candidates that is most likely to win and offends them the least. With preferential voting you can truly vote your conscience without "robbing" your second- or third-ranked candidate of a vote. Some states already have this; see:

http://instantrunoff.com/
http://www.fairvote.org/

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[im_thatoneguy]

Here's the trouble though:

Liberals are a bunch of disorganized, self defeating, introspective idealists. That means presented with 30 different ideas you'll get 30 different candidates who all divide the vote.

Conservatives are structured, team oriented cheerleaders. They stay on message. They circle the wagons. They read the talking points (which are actually catchy) and STICK to them.

Just based on personality the Conservatives would win just about every time. If you just took environmental protection you would end up with:
1) The Cap and Trade candidate
2) The Carbon Tax candidate
3) The nuclear subsidy candidate
4) The green tech tax credit candidate.

On the conservative side you would get:
1) The 'Global Warming is a con to steal your freedom.' candidate

Re:No, not worse than the old boss

[Culture20]

I voted nay for Obama which meant I had to vote for McCain, but the only reason I voted for McCain was because I may as well abstain rather then vote for a third party.

If even 10% vote for a 3rd party, that's potentially 10% less that a winner has to claim they have a clear mandate to steamroller their agenda.

Story summary bias

[slapout]

"Doesn't it seem wrong for the US gov't to be pushing private companies to censor the internet without due process?"

If Bush had been president, this headline would have read: "Doesn't it seem wrong for the Bush Whitehouse to be pushing private companies to censor the internet without due process?" But the Slashdot editors voted for Obama, so they can't make him look bad, even if they disagree with him

Damn straight that's wrong

[overshoot]

Doesn't it seem wrong for the US gov't to be pushing private companies to censor the internet without due process?

Yes, it's wrong. Those powers should only be used to kidnap American citizens and ship them off to be tortured and killed in secret.

Besides, why not just have Cyber Command hack their domain registration accounts? Much simpler.

It's His Fault

[dugn]

Down with Bush Hitler! Wait...

You are defined by your hatreds...

[TiggertheMad]

Do you even know what socialism is? Because it isn't this.

Socialism - Anything political that is disliked by a conservative.

Fascism - Anything political that is disliked by a liberal.

Re:Why are we censoring at all?

[electron sponge]

How long do you think it will take our leaders to demand a system by which THEY can add sites or domains to the blacklist directly?

Not very long.

Said this before, I'll say it again...

[thestudio_bob]

I've said this before and I'll keep saying it...

If you are in the U.S. and you want change, and I really mean serious change, then you have the power to make a difference. All it takes is for you to do a little bit of research and maybe 30 minutes of your time to VOTE. The biggest problem is that we have these two parties who are totally out of touch and/or basically just don't give a rats ass, about the citizens.

Make a change and do the following:

• Don't just vote for the republicans and just don't vote for the democrats, this time try to find some independant candidates (Trust me, they are out there. Big media just doesn't want you to know about them)
• Don't be fooled by the parties marketing. It's marketing, it's supposed to razzle-dazzle you, it's not real.
• Find an independant candidate who you can relate with and vote for them.
• Don't buy into the hype that a vote against the Republican/Democratic party is akin to throwing away your vote.
• Research your candidates, if they have money, then ask where did they get that money from?
• Try to persuade your friends and family to do the same.

Sure, your guy might not make it in, but hopefully you can sleep better at night and send a message to these scummy politicians that we are fed up.

Re:Said this before, I'll say it again...

[wizkid]

I've been voting for non-democrap/republishit candidates since the patriot act, which violates the constitution.

If republican's are for a smaller government, why did the federal gov balloon during their era.

If Democraps are for a socialist government, why do the give in to every corporate request that they make?

Why are people so clueless that they can't figure out what these a$$holes are up to?

FreeDNS, AltDNS, or equivalent?

[Nom du Keyboard]

This seems to be blocking by obscurity -- i.e. removing DNS listings, but IP addresses persist and would still reach the site if you knew which one to type in. How long before OpenDNS morphs into FreeDNS (or AltDNS) or some other service that you can apply to in order to be listed in a manner free of government interference? There is, to my belief, no technical reason why one can't subscribe to the DNS listing service of one's choice. We all use the standard DNS system at the moment just because it gets us to everywhere we want to go. When it stops doing that then an alternate DNS systems becomes viable and attractive. Can the government ban that?

Can they ban a local to your machine (hey, hard drives are LARGE these days) DNS database that distributes listings by P2P for "banned sites"? I may be wrong, but it is a truism that the Internet routs around damage, including censorship.

Just glad I didn't vote for this idiot

[pavera]

Second verse same as the first, if this is the "Change" everyone wanted... wow... I'd rather have had bush for another 8 years, started 2 more wars (North Korea and Iran) than have a censored internet, be forced to buy something by the federal government (I have health insurance already, but being FORCED to pay money for something, anything besides taxes, by the government is a step WAY BEYOND the freedoms this country is supposed to stand for).

And he hasn't even rolled back any of the Bush "secret" stuff, or closed Guantanamo. Instead as soon as he was in office he decided all that stuff was great!

Never been a worse president than Obama.

Civil Rights For Friends Only

[anorlunda]

Does the Obama Administration Hate Free Speech?

It started with a half-hearted campaign against Fox News. They couldn't censor them so they tried to discredit them. Next the White House called liberal commentary on MSNBC and invaluable public service.

Then comes the Citizens United case. They hate the idea of first amendment rights being given to corporations, but they love it for non-profits and labor unions.

Next, Obama couldn't bring himself to criticize the backers of the ground zero mosque but he couldn't resist trying to prevent a preacher in Florida from exercising his first amendment rights.

Now we come to web sites. Time to try to eliminate the ones we don't like.

Never before have we had such a thin-skinned president, nor an administration so openly contemptuous of rights for those who disagree with them. I suppose tha't not really true, America once passed the Alien and Sedition Act.

This hostility to free speech is a far greater threat to your and my civil rights than the Patriot Act ever was. The current White House threatens freedom more than Dick Cheney and Karl Rove ever imagined. Where is the outcry? Where are the demonstrators? Where are the media campaigns? WTF?

Sure I'll blow all my mod points for daring to post anti-Obama stuff. So be it.

Re:Civil Rights For Friends Only

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

Burning Qurans is not "free speech" --- it's hate speech, and you fucking know it.

The protections of the First Amendment apply to unpopular, distasteful, and disgusting speech just as to any other. Popular speech doesn't need protection.