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US Has Secret Tools To Force Internet On Dictatorships
4phun found a Wired story that talks about the military options when a dictatorship decides to cut off internet access to its population.
"The American military does have a second set of options if it ever wants to force connectivity on a country against its ruler’s wishes. There’s just one wrinkle. 'It could be considered an act of war.'"
Hopefully the same options will be available for us when our government gets around to implementing our own kill switch.
Anything to break the usual Comcast/whatever monopoly for ISP service would be welcomed.
I think he meant "internet is a right" in the same way that "freedom of the press" is a right. It doesn't mean the government has to give you a printing press.
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
Right to access internet seems to be merely the obvious conclusion of the fundamental rights. This doesn't mean that anyone has to provide you internet, just that they may not attempt to prevent you from accessing if you've got a means.
the american president is not going to cut off the internet and start goose stepping around the white house. this ranks right up there with other paranoid schizophrenic fantasies like rednecks with guns in the woods are going to save us from fascism. please stop mentioning the american internet kill switch in the same sentence as egypt, china, or iran. its just... dumb
we live in an abused, yes, compromised, yes, but still functioning democracy. meaning rule is by consent, not force and fear. any president who cuts off the internet is going to have to explain his or herself to the people who elected him or her. and the american people are still electing presidents (now comes the part where some genius complains about liberal media and propagandized morons or conservative media and propagandized morons... snore... thank you for thinking so lowly of your fellow citizens. oh where is your nonexistent utopia where every citizen is perfectly ideologically in tune with you as only an "educated" person would be?)
in egypt or china or iran the kill switch can be invoked, and then: you got a problem with that? there's no accountability to the people of those countries. if the people get angry, crack skulls until they cower again in fear (until blessedly, as the people in egypt show us, the people just aren't afraid anymore, and it is revealed to the world exactly why democracy, as messy as it is, is still so superior to despotism: its simply more stable because it manufactures legitimacy by consulting the people)
but fear is not how it works in the usa. really, mr. snarky teenager. do you feel afraid criticizing the us government on slashdot? oh, why not? maybe because you have that right AND THAT RIGHT IS RESPECTED. aka: you do not live in a society ruled by fear. want to test that? ok: try criticizing the chinese government in china or the iranian government in iran as vocally and as vociferously and as loudly and as repeatedly as some of you false equivalency geniuses, who think your democracy is just as bad as despotism. go ahead, go on with your bad self. what happens to squeaky wheels like you in iran, china, or egypt?
now that you understand the difference, please understand that the reasons for the use of an internet kill switch are for entirely different criteria in democracies versus despotic countries. a valid use: some armageddeon level ddos or a warhol virus, versus an invalid use: preventing the people from coordinating and rising up against their oppressors
look: there are many problems with the american government. i repeat: there are many problems with the american government. i am not an american apologist. but making snark about the american internet kill switch in the same breath as the policies of egypt, or iran, or china, governments clearly far, far worse in terms of the rights of its citizens, that doesn't advance any cause you believe in. it just makes you look stupid and either ungrateful for how well you have it, or simply naive and uneducated about how little rights people have in other countries
teenage level snark might get snickers from other snarky teenagers, but its not the path to valid commentary on your government or any other government in the world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So unilateral action and nation-building is ok when we use it to benefit the 'right' people?
Throwing Mubarek under the bus and openly supporting a revolution would have been disastrous for US relations with the middle east. It would have been perceived as yet another example of the US overthrowing an uncooperative government because that government was no longer convenient for us.
An act of war against a falling dictator that very well might have had a huge amount of pull with his very powerful military would have been extremely risky.
Or in other words: the problem isn't internet connectivity, the problem isn't dictators, the problem is governments.
The US government is better than a dictatorship, but only by degree. The US is not democracy: your vote in elections doesnt matter, and more importantly you have no voice in Congress, the executive, or the military. The US government is owned by the people who pay for it.
The solution isnt to get the government/military to protect the internet, it is to get the internet to overcome the need for governments/militaries.
The people who are building a peer-structure internet are in fact creating the foundation for a completely new form of governance. Just you watch.
Aren't the Egyptians telling you guys to stay out!? Maybe it's better if you don't get involved for once.
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
"may still has"
Ugh. Engrish fail. Need more caffeine.
English is a fault tolerant language, so don't sweat it. You can make all kinds of errors in English, and everyone will still understand what you meant to say, nonetheless. At a lab from my employer, in Austin, Texas, a guy from Taiwan was speaking English with a guy from India. Their English would have made my 7th grade English teacher commit Seppuku (aka, Harakiri), but they were able to communicate with it.
In my opinion this is why English is so dominant on the Internet: you don't need to know much to communicate. Unless some sesquipedalian like me starts using terms like obsequious and innocuous.
This is why dictators are scared of the Internet: Folks can get across what is going on in their country to a wide audience.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Nonsense. This is the 21st century!
Everything I want is a human right, guaranteed by that Constitution I read last week in high school. I can say anything to anybody, and they can't complain because I have free speech. Freedom of religion means that anything contradicting my religion should be prohibited from being within the same state as me, and right to bear arms means I can have keep a cruise missile in my bedroom.
There's some other stuff too, but I got bored reading. Lawyers ned 2 lern 2 rite, u no? I think that since the Constitution gets amendments, it gets new rights when new things happen. That's why I have a right to have my PS3 do what I want, no matter what that contract says. I have a right to listen to any music I want, even without paying anybody for it. I have a right to get paid without actually working, and a right to get the latest medical treatments even if I can't pay. I have a right to use the Internet, and a right to go to any website, and a right to post anything anywhere anytime. If I don't like what somebody else says or does, I have a right to protest however I want, even if it means breaking laws. I have a right to live a comfortable life, because I voted last election. Well, I didn't, but I'm sure somebody else did.
</painfulsarcasm>
Now that I've written that, I'm going to go cry a little...
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Throwing Mubarek under the bus and openly supporting a revolution would have been disastrous for US relations with the middle east. It would have been perceived as yet another example of the US overthrowing an uncooperative government because that government was no longer convenient for us.
What the fuck? Are you even reading the news?
We have given Mubarak and his jackbooted murderers 60 billion dollars over 30 years. We are one of the main reasons he's stayed in power. Helping to throw him out would have finally signaled that the United States gave a damn about democracy in the middle east, but it's the same old story that it's been for a hundred years: we don't want Arabs to be able to vote, because they might prefer using their resources for their own benefit instead of ours.
That's not meddling in the Middle East. It's stopping meddling in the Middle East.
That country has been a jack-booted dictatorship for 5,000+ years now. If you think it was the fault of the U.S. that they aren't a democracy, you don't know anything about history.
Would you have considered it "meddling" when the United States forced France and Britain to give the Suez Canal back to the Egyptians after Nassar nationalized it back in 1956?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Nope, that's still meddling.
The best the US can do is to simply leave Egypt alone. If they throw their weight on either side they are meddling with a country's internal affairs and simply planting the seed for the next revolution.
If the US drops support for Mubarak it will show to other supported dictators (Pakistan, SA etc) that US-support is limited when it comes to popular uprisings. Anti-government groups will use this weakness to topple their governments and dictators will have to choose between force or surrender.
If the US openly supports anti-government groups in Egypt this will bolster numerous groups even further and the US will be seen as a very untrustworthy ally at best. How would you see China if they openly backed revolutionary groups in the US? Even if those groups might be morally right, it still is meddling.
Alas, US interests are everywhere and not meddling will harm those interests. The reality is that Egypt is most likely a lose/lose/lose situation for the US.
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Any support of people would be seen as US meddling. Under no circumstances should we say 'Yeah, this guy would be a nice leader', or supply any specific people support.
Providing internet and cell service probably would be okay, though. Pressuring Mubarak to step down would probably be okay too, as long as we aren't attempting to replace him. (Which, sadly, we are, with our very own torturer.)
We have threatened to cut off military aid if the military is used against protesters, which a) helps keep protesters from being killed,and b) keeps open the possibility of some sort of orderly transition under the military. No matter how much we dislike military coups, a military coup is nicer than one with violence against the military, and the military is amazingly professional and seems willing to make sure that democracy 'returns'. (Or, rather, shows up in fact and not just fiction.)
We cannot choose the people leading the middle east, period, and we need to stop. If we want middle east countries to like us, we have to, you know, do things they like.
Of course, the elephant in the room at this point is Israel.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
That country has been a jack-booted dictatorship for 5,000+ years now. If you think it was the fault of the U.S. that they aren't a democracy, you don't know anything about history.
Nice strawman herring.
Would you have considered it "meddling" when the United States forced France and Britain to give the Suez Canal back to the Egyptians after Nassar nationalized it back in 1956?
Oh, back in the day when the United States wasn't an entirely hypocritical pile of shit. It's cool though. We have been holding it down for US business interests since we bribed Sadat with enough cash in the 70s to keep the Suez in operation, while aiding Israel with destroying Palestinian nationalism. Brilliant geopolitics with zero moral value, as usual.