Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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.
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.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
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.
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.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
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:
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.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
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.
The fact that they called themselves socialist doesn't mean they were, they were fascists
Make a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
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.
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.