Clinton Calls For "Ground Rules" Protecting Internet

dbune writes "Hillary Clinton has called for ground rules to protect the World Wide Web against wrongdoing and harm after the world watched as Egyptian authorities cut Internet access during its recent political crisis. She said 'For the United States, the choice is clear; on the spectrum of Internet freedom, we place ourselves on the side of openness.'"

Comments

Talk to your boss

[sdo1]

Hillary,

Talk to your boss and let him know that a "kill switch" is a bad idea.

Thanks,
The Internet

Re:Talk to your boss

[thehostiles]

and while you're at it, could you talk to him about the whole Patriot Act thing?

Re:Talk to your boss

[Shikaku]

And DMCA?

Re:Talk to your boss

[Anonymous Coward]

And ACTA?

Re:Talk to your boss

[Moryath]

I think you all are making the mistake of thinking that what politicians say out of their ass while behind a podium has anything at all to do with what they are really up to...

Re:Talk to your boss

[MoonBuggy]

I was thinking about the absurd hypocrisy of this yesterday, and I came to a conclusion: politics is a lot like teaching. At the beginning, you get some intelligent, motivated people who think they can do good, and some incompetent, slimy asshats. After a short while, the stress, the petty arguments, the long hours and the excessive exposure to said asshats leaves the decent ones jaded and broken - they no longer have the wherewithal to keep fighting a losing battle and the asshats win. Those who somehow do manage to hold on to their motivation are such a small minority that they can only vary rarely effect worthwhile change.

Re:Talk to your boss

[0123456]

Those who somehow do manage to hold on to their motivation are such a small minority that they can only vary rarely effect worthwhile change.

It's worse than that. Democracy actively selects for lying asshats, so even if you are smart and have good ideas you'll be beaten by the charismatic psychopath promising bread and circuses paid for with your neighbour's money (or, these days, money borrowed from the Chinese).

Re:Talk to your boss

[The_Wilschon]

Which is why we need to reform our electoral system, making it easier for candidates not backed by a major party with deep pockets to win meaningful offices. The reason that this would help with burnout is that then regular people with other careers could hold an office for a term, then go back to their regular careers. By not being career politicians, they are much less susceptible to burnout.

openness

[crimperman]

> "For the United States, the choice is clear; on the spectrum of Internet freedom, we place ourselves on the side of openness"

Oh that's good - I'll let Julian Assange know.

Re:openness

[commodore6502]

This article deserves more than just a link:

QUOTE:

âoea false debate. Fundamentally, the WikiLeaks incident began with an act of theft. Government documents were stolen, just the same as if they had been smuggled out in a briefcase.â That is, WIkileaks isnâ(TM)t really about the internet, but about a crime. Clinton then goes on: "There were reports in the days following these leaks that the United States Government intervened to coerce private companies to deny service to WikiLeaks. That is not the case. Now, some politicians and pundits publicly called for companies to disassociate from WikiLeaks, while others criticized them for doing so. Public officials are part of our countryâ(TM)s public debates, but there is a line between expressing views and coercing conduct."

These comments constitute a remarkable series of lies and hypocrisies.
1 - The US Government has regularly harassed Wikileaks associate and internet activist and Tor founder Jacob Applebaum, subjecting him to extensive and, in the end, almost comical seaches of his electronic equipment whenever he returns to the United States.

2- In further contrast to Clintonâ(TM)s emphasis on âoeenforcing the rules transparentlyâ, the US Governmentâ(TM)s legal campaign against Wikileaks has been secret from the outset. Despite military officials admitting theyâ(TM)re unable to link Julian Assange to anything with which he could be charged, a secret grand jury process in Virginia continues against Wikileaks, aided by a secret Department of Justice subpoena. This was only revealed when Twitter took the commendable step of applying for confidentiality to be removed from a DoJ demand for an extraordinary range of information, including on Applebaumâ(TM)s Twitter account and everyone who is a Twitter follower of Wikileaks.

3- In addition to the Department of Justice attempt to conjure up a charge against Julian Assange, the FBI has undertaken an aggressive investigation of online group Anonymous in relation to its âoeOperation Paybackâ attacks on Visa, Mastercard and PayPal after their suspension of payments to Wikileaks, but there has been no action, indeed apparently no investigation, of the DDOS attacks undertaken on Wikileaks itself, from within the United States, for which an individual has claimed responsibility. Nor has there been any apparent law enforcement action in response to the plan developed by HB Gary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies for Hunton and Williams to attack Wikileaks and Salonâ(TM)s Glenn Greenwald.

4- Clintonâ(TM)s attempt to dissociate the Obama Administration from corporate decisions about Wikileaks is sophistry of the highest order.

5- Clintonâ(TM)s comments about the dangers of transparency in diplomacy â" which forms the guts of her straw-man comments on Wikileaks â" have already been refuted by her Cabinet colleague Robert Gates, who stated in December that Wikileaks would not do any âoeserious damageâ to US foreign policy, that its effect was merely to embarrass

Openness? Right . . .

[cusco]

we place ourselves on the side of openness

Horsepuckey. They're just jealous that the same shutdown ability doesn't exist here in the Untied States.

Hypocrisy

[tsa]

I read in the newspaper that the US will help the citicens of Iran to keep the internet running. Obama and Clinton promised that. I find that extremely hypocritic behaviour. Where was the US when Egypt's internet was shut down? Oh yeah, they liked Mubarak so they did nothing. But they don't like Ahmadinejad so now they help the Iranian people. And in the meantime Obama wants a kill switch so he can switch the internet off whenever he wants.

Re:The best way to protect the internet...

[unity100]

...is to allow the private entities which own the servers, networks, technology, and businesses to manage it themselves.

yes. so at&t can cut off all access to wikileaks, just like how amazon did with its cloud.

amazon also had an obligation to ensure the functional operation and security of their systems. yet they didnt see any problem in censoring a customer, when it was not to their liking.

had it been in the moronic, ayn rand believer way you wanted, at&t, comcast would ensure that no american saw any wikileaks document, thanks to the pressure the banks would put on them.

private does not mean 'good', or 'free'. private means, something is owned by a group of PRIVATE bunch, with no obligations to your freedom, but to their profit.

What are "ground rules" exactly?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

From Wikipedia:

In baseball, ground rules are special rules particular to each baseball park (grounds) in which the game is played. Unlike the well-defined playing field of most other sports, the playing area of a baseball field extends to an outfield fence in fair territory and the stadium seating in foul territory. The unique design of each ballpark, including fences, dugouts, bullpens, railings, stadium domes, photographer's wells and TV camera booths, requires that rules be defined to handle situations in which these objects may interact or interfere with the ball in play or with the players.

So a "ground rule" that warrants an Internet kill switch in my ballpark, doesn't necessarily mean that you can hit the kill switch in your ballpark.

In other words, the US is allowed to hit the Internet kill switch in their ballpark (ground rule). Egypt isn't (no ground rule).

Closing the internet caused the revolution

[goombah99]

I firmly believe the revolution in Egypt was aided by closing the internet. People walked away from their keyboards and got outside. If they wanted to see what was happening they had the Al jazeera sattelite at a freinds house. But without communncation their imaginations could soar a bit and they could look awayf from the screen.

Circuses are well known to keep the roman masses happy.