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Senate Panel Approves Website Shut-Down Bill
itwbennett writes "The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted 19-0 in favor of a bill that would allow the Department of Justice to seek court orders to shut down websites offering materials believed to infringe copyright. 'Rogue websites are essentially digital stores selling illegal and sometimes dangerous products,' Senator Patrick Leahy, the main sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. 'If they existed in the physical world, the store would be shuttered immediately and the proprietors would be arrested. We cannot excuse the behavior because it happens online and the owners operate overseas. The Internet needs to be free — not lawless.' However, the internet will likely remain 'lawless' for a while longer, as there are only a few working days left in the congressional session and the bill is unlikely to pass through the House of Representatives in that short amount of time."
Dear U.S. Government,
Remember when the shit hit the fan over the U.S. Government's control over the root DNS servers a few years back?
Welcome to part 2.
Sincerely,
The Rest of the World
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
It is amazing how often people rail against the lack of democracy in the modern world, and how few are willing to do anything about it.
"What can we, mere peons, do?" you might ask. Well, you can start by working on the one and only hope you have: open sourcing governance.
There probably were folks who thought it was a bad bill, but voted for it anyway because it bought them leverage on (what they felt were) more important issues.
I'm a bit of a state house watcher, and I've heard politicians stand up and speak against bills five minutes before voting for them. Basically, if the chairman of the committee favors something and you don't, but it's going to pass anyway, you curry favor with the chairman by letting him submit the bill to the floor with 'unanimous approval', thereby increasing the chances of getting your own issue heard by the now appeased chairman in the future. In the end, you get the same result you would have if you opposed the thing, but the next time you need something, you're more likely to get it.
That or the HVAC might have been out. Our state legislature seems to decide completely on-the-fly that 'today is going to be the last day of session'. They typically suspend public hearings and pass 300 pieces of legislation that night. Why would you suspend public hearings and do 80% of your work on one coffee-fueled all-nighter? Well, the committee rooms don't have air conditioning, suits are really hot, and most of the legislature is a bit portly. Once the summer heat starts penetrating the marble walls, there's no stopping it until late October, so they 'go Nike' on democracy's ass and Just Do It.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
You refer to technology such as "(linux, truecrypt, ipsec vpns, etc etc etc)", implying that this is the technology that levels the field??? The vast, and I mean the overwhelmingly vast majority of Americans don't know what these things are, let alone how to use them. Let alone how to use them effectively. So, the peons are more literate than ever before, and have access to vast "stores of knowledge" via the internet? Internet access wasn't the level of technology to which I was referring. The dominant, powerful people in this nation, people who control the majority of wealth and power, have exclusive access to technology that goes a bit beyond this.
Several examples come to mind, but one with which I have direct experience is easiest to talk about- Last year I ended a contract completing enhancements for a high-frequency trading package for a mid-sized trading house. The use of this technology, which incidentally makes use of your great equalizer, Linux, has been pulling in an incredible, I mean a whole shit load, of cash for the firm... and this is a mid-sized firm, and the software probably isn't as good as what I've heard the bigger guys use. I talk to the traders now and then- You simply would not believe how much money is being siphoned off for the benefit of a -very- small group of people. I made decent coin on this contract, but not what they make using the system. No regrets- My point is that this is just one type of very profitable manipulation made possible by -technology-, technology to which you and I do not have, and will never have, access. I know the principles and could write my own system, but would never make it out of the legal system before I was too old to use it. This type of technology alone effects an unprecedented transfer of wealth. There are many other examples, examples that are more directly malevolent that involve data gathering and surveillance on a large scale, among others.
You "rethink" it.