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Norwegian Police, Seeking Info On 2 Bloggers, Take Data From 7,000 Accounts
xiando writes "Norwegian police were asked by officials in Italy to get personal information about two bloggers who were using a server in Oslo. The police decided the best thing to do would be to take the server's hard drive, along with personal information from about 7,000 other users (Google translation of Norwegian original). Other ISPs say this is standard operating procedure in Norway these days."
If you think that only "socialists" do these things, you are desperately naive. Unless of course you're using the definition of socialism which seems to be quite popular among so-called conservatives these days, "any policy I currently don't like."
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Could this happen? Will it happen?
Yes and yes, of course. In particular, invoke any of the magic words "terrorism," "national security," "child pornography," "drug dealing," or "intellectual property," and the Constitution no longer applies. The kind of large-scale fishing expedition you describe is entirely in keeping with this policy.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
What can you say except welcome to Socialism at work? Trust us, we're the government, we know what's best.
Actually it sounds like fascism to me.
One of socialism's (purported) goals is to reduce levels of government and government power overall in place of individual or collective power.
Did the Op also denounce capitalism when it was discovered that America was viciously torturing prisoners at Guantanamo?
It is trivial to point out that to explore socialism one must also explore political theory. No one suggested otherwise. However, it is wrong to view it as a model of government. Governments have people in power. "Socialism" does has no comment here. Perhaps the state is a socialist oligarchy, or a monarchy, or a democracy, or a dictatorship, or even a communist state!
Governments work to expand their powers regardless of the economic model being applied. Conflating the two is dangerous because people end up thinking like the OP: that socialism results in police grabbing power.
Socialism has no causal force here beyond the fore common to all such systems. The problem is that people are willing to trade liberty for security, which results in police forces being granted far more power than is necessary or safe.
all across the Eastern Bloc. If you do not know this, *you* are hopelessly naive. The difference between Socialists and others is that under Socialism the overwhelming power of the State (which it supposedly wields for the "public good" and in the "defense of the commons") rightfully supersedes individual rights, which are presumed to proceed from the "society" anyway. Other theories of government recognize other sources of rights, such as natural rights of the individual.
I'm not sure what you are getting at here. Is it the Bush era and legacy of expanding government and trampling on rights of the individual in the name of "public good" (war on terrorism). Was he socialist?
Government always seeks to expand and entrench itself. Socialist policies are a means of accomplishing this. If the people come to depend on social programs, they will invariably depend on the government as well.
Conservativism today means: I take any govermental service as long as my boss doesn't have to pay taxes.
It's the completely fucked up idea that one has to protect the rich and the powerful, because one could one day be rich and powerful too, and then one might not like to pay taxes. But the idea that one day one could be poor and unable to help oneself gets refused because if that is something that only happens to other people.
The problem with socialism in America is this: It only applies to the rich. Socialism is allowed and indeed encouraged for the rich with "too big to fail" bailouts, TARP, lowering the "burden" on the top 1% through both tax breaks and the looking the other way at tax dodges like the "double dutch". But socialism for the poor such as free or low cost medical care, ensuring that all have adequate food, shelter, and clothing, help for the indigent, these things are frowned upon and looked upon as somehow bad or evil. Personally after seeing how bad the corporatist mindset has run this country into the ground I'd be all for socialism of the second sort.
As for TFA, cops do what they want, film (and excuses) at 11. Here in the USA we have ICE and the FBI used as a private "copyright police" while being paid for by the taxpayers, we have cops that do truly heinous crimes (just look up "police abuse" on Youtube to see how prevalent it is) and walk away with a slap on the wrist if they get anything at all, and thanks to 9/11 we now have Constitution-Free Zones that cover 2/3rds of all US citizens.
News flash: All cops WILL abuse their authority if left unchecked, full stop. For every decent cop you probably have 4 "bully with a badge" types that thanks to the code of silence will be protected by their fellow cops no matter what they do. Until we demand of our elected officials and the MSM that police have to follow the constitution and laws we citizens have to abide by along with REAL punishment for those that run roughshod over peoples' rights then stories like this will sadly be all too common.
Too many have been allowed to get away with too much for too long and it is time to start reining in their power or ALL of us in the west will end up in police states.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.