Slashdot Mirror
Is Twitter Aiding and Abetting Terrorism?
wiredmikey writes with word (and the following extract from a CNN report) that "Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, sent a letter to Twitter on Thursday asserting that the company is violating U.S. law by allowing groups such as Hezbollah and al Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab to use its popular online network. ... In her letter, Darshan-Leitner noted that Hezbollah and al-Shabaab are officially designated as terrorist organizations under U.S. law. She also cited a 2010 Supreme Court case — Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project — which upheld a key provision of the Patriot Act prohibiting material support to groups designated as terrorist outfits."
*Can* argue wether that law is overly broad and vague though.
Terrorists use the air to transmit sound messages.
if the internet providers are aiding and abetting terrorism, or the phone system operators, or encrypted radio manufacturers, or SMS users etc etc
What, you mean like cell phones do?
I thought it was well known that Twitter support terrorist organizations.
Oh, wait, they don't mean that type of terrorist, they meant "Muslims?" Oh, sorry, my bad.
So the terrorists are broadcasting their messages on twitter.. and they maybe have followers or something? Do they maybe want a you tube channel also?
These guys are bright, I say let them be heard.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
But who enabled Twitter? The INTERNET. Who enabled the Internet? The government.
Ergo, the government is spreading terrorism. That's right. They planned it all starting four decades ago.
We're through the Looking Glass here people.
Now you'll have to check a box labeled "I am not a member of a terrorist organization" when you sign up.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Is a "civil right organization" in Israel, telling a US company that it is violating US law?
Phone companies and Internet companies and all companies that enable communications including paper manufacturers and pen manufacturers aid and abet terrorism.
To defeat terrorism, we /must/ defeat all forms of communication at all costs.
Please turn in your legal pads to the dean's bonfire pit right after chapel.
--
BMO
Whatever happened on that Israeli passport fraud? I remember they clones European and US passports, they went to Dubai, killed someone, Interpol was given the evidence to catch them, Mossad head practically confirmed it with a smug 'ooo-yeh' style comment but whatever happened to that?
It seems that Interpol should have had more success catching them by now?
And whatever happened to the attack by Israel against civilian ships in International waters killing 8 unarmed people? We should have them in court by now surely? If they're courts abide by the laws, we should be able to arrest the army commanders involved?
And the time they bombed a UN School? Any arrests?
Or when they shot a little girl in the head several times for walking on the road next to a border post? Prosecutions?
I don't know what this Israeli Law Center is, but perhaps they can help get these crimes (war crimes, piracy, murder, even extensive Israeli terrorism) prosecuted?
Terrorists use twitter? Okay. Easily solution. Just ban Twitter. I mean a smart person would let the 'terrorists' congregate in the open and see if any of those fish lead you to a bigger fish or a whale but I guess just shutting Twitter down saves a lot of paperwork.
Oh wait...terrorists are now using cell phones? Better ban those as well. Lord knows that we can't possibly let the terrorists win so we all must do our part and stop using phones of any kind. Anyone caught using a cell phone should of course be sent to Gitmo and heavily surfboarded*.
Hang on now...terrorists are driving cars and using roads? Better outlaw cars and remove the roads and transportation systems. If my memory serves me correctly, the 9/11 hijackers drove to the airport that day. So by security theater logic, if there were no roads or cars that....no 9/11 happens. If only we had been prepared that day.
Terrorists are using glasses to see better? Better create an entire government division to enforce and strictly regulate corrective vision dealers. Not a licensed corrective lens dealer? Then you're going to jail as part of the war on terror.
*alternate non-torture version of waterboarding where you just beat someone in the head with a surfboard.
I see no materials. I see them not limiting users except maybe Cuba and Iran per explicit rules, but a service not requiring too much personal information would have a hard time keeping any semianonymous group off. Slashdot would have the same problem for example.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Cell phone text messaging?
Classified ads?
Walkie-talkies?
Shortwave radio broadcasts
Spam?
Slashdot posts?
I was on a motorcycle trip through the Atlantic Provinces and the RCMP pulled me over and asked, "Are you a member of a criminal motorcycle gang?" "No." "Ok, you can go."
The odd thing about free social media is that -- from a commerce perspective -- they do not provide ANY services to us freeloading users. We are the product they sell to advertisers. is it a crime to sell Hezbollah eyeballs?
Ms. Darshan-Leitner, had such laws been in effect prior to the establishment of the state of Israel, it is rather likely that the organizations which requested American aid and support for the establishment of the state of Israel would have been forbidden from doing so. And perhaps, then, the state of Israel would not have been established. Now that it has, how about you stop trying to take away the American freedom which assisted your nation into coming into being.
(tl;dr: Go fuck yourself)
Since it would be difficult to convince terrorists to declare themselves a terrorist in some drop down menu, twitter would need to maintain some definition either created by twitter or given to them by the government.
Is starbucks aiding if they sell a terrorist a cup of coffee before he boards a plane, after the security check?
Let's suppose I have a web site that lets people post messages to a discussion. How would I go about discovering which of them are "terrorists" according to the US government's definition, so I can exclude them? None of the "terrorist" organizations seem to have posted their membership list online.
Unless I can determine who is a member of any organization, I'll have to consider such laws as "secret laws" designed to trick me into unknowingly committing a crime. And I'll have to consider the legislative body that passed such laws my clear enemy.
One obvious conjecture is that the intent of the law was to punish anyone who hosts a public forum on any topic. After all, it means that any organization can ask one member to join my forum, and then report me to the US government. I see no defense against this other than shutting down all public forums.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
that Muslims blow people up for being Jewish.
should also be banned from using Facebook.
No
-- listen to interesting music, support independent radio... WPRB
Just spreading their message is fine... once these Twitter users start infringing on copyrights, then they are supporting terrorism and will feel the full force of the US legal system!
No, actually ISPs are NOT common carriers (yet). They are defined as "information services". Apparently ISPs actually *want* not to be common carriers because it means they can grab more money from customers, shape, throttle and generally violate net neutrality in ways that a common carrier would not be allowed to do.
Apparently ISPs would rather take the risk and be exposed (liable) for what its customers do in exchange for the freedoms (and abuses) that come with NOT being common carriers. But all it might take is an actual terrorist event where an ISP *is* held accountable, for ISPs to retreat back to common carrier status. Of course, they probably figure that they have Congress in their pockets so that that would never happen (i.e. they want their cake and eat it too... they want the protections of common carrier status, its non-liable features, but without the constraints that would limit their revenue generating power)
the keyword here is SUPPORT. Phones, mail services, SMS, etc are all fee-for-service and therefore if a terrorist uses them, he/she pays. No special "support". However Twitter (and Facebook, Gmail, etc) are FREE services, which means that the service is GIVING them a service, hence SUPPORT. If the group is identifyable, then Twitter could be liable.
If Twitter wanted to argue this, they might have to show they the services aren't really free but just paid for by everyone (including the terrorists) in other ways, hence no "support" from Twitter. Still might not be enough, might not pass the test...
Right now in World of Warcraft or any other MMO there are terrorists plotting attacks in hidden areas of the world. Probably in the deep run tram. Any social medium they can get their hand on can be used to send messages. Twitter might be the easiest to use.
Nuke it from orbit... do it now!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As usual, Glenn Greenwald has covered 'twitter terrorism' and other parts of the never-ending war in all its absurdity: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/the_u_s_government_targets_twitter_terrorism/singleton/
no one said anything about banning twitter? way to warp reality to suit your desire to rant on some tinfoil hat shit.
go smoke your dinner and leave the discussion to those who care to think.
Problem: Terrorists don't want to identify themselves and their supporters to us in an easily parseble format along with pictures and data such as their hobbies and interests.
Solution: Encourage them to use social networks.
Spitting on an American girl? Dude, they ran over an American girl with a bulldozer for protesting the Israeli bulldozing of homes.
I mean spitting is b-a-d m-kay, but they killed thousands upon thousands of Gazan's and Lebanese, and the girl who was spat on may be American, but they've killed quite a few of those too.
But hey, yeh the spitting, yeh, bad.
A civil rights organization in Israel is violating US law. I suspect every body in the US is committing three felonies a day. And with megatons of righteous indignation we, the world's pre eminent extraterritorialists have expanded our writ to cover the globe. Everybody on the planet is in violation of US law.
Israel should also be a terrorist organization after all they invade sovereign nations and mistreat anyone who isn't jewish... there.
Go ahead call me a troll but you know it is true.
"We in Israel really MUST insist that you Americans institute a censorship regime!"
That has to be the single most amusing phrase ever to appear unironically in the Paper of Record: Twitter terrorism. And, of course, the authority cited for this menacing trend is that ubiquitous sham community calling itself âoeterrorism experts,â
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/the_u_s_government_targets_twitter_terrorism/singleton/?mobile.html
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"However Twitter (and Facebook, Gmail, etc) are FREE services"
No, you still have to pay for ISP usage and/or electricity usage and for a computer/laptop, etc...
Paper can be used to aid terrorism since they can use it to communicate, and paper is cheap too.
and what if a church gave food to the needy around its neighborhood and one of the people it was giving free food just so happens to be a terrorist.
What if some promotional band gave away free flashlights and a terrorist used it for the wrong reasons.
Just because something is given for free and is then misused doesn't mean the person who gave it away should be liable.
Apparently ISPs actually *want* not to be common carriers because it means they can grab more money from customers, shape, throttle and generally violate net neutrality in ways that a common carrier would not be allowed to do.
Even the ones that don't want to bone you probably don't want to be common carriers because they would have issues even running caching proxies.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It should be stamped out ASAP
So, you offer instead to block them from using this service, and drive them underground, where they would be harder to 'monitor'?
At least this way you have an idea what their arguments are for their cause, and can easily offer a counter-argument (to their current or would-be followers). Offering a counter-argument for something you have no knowledge of, and whose members / followers are not readily identified / reached is a challenge to say the least.
You have two ways of heading off potential problems -> allow an open forum where anyone can say whatever they want (no wiretapping necessary) but you have to put up with people saying things you disagree with / hate / consider morally objectionable, or have a closed one, where you have to wiretap the populace to ensure that the opinions / groups you disagree with aren't starting something. An open forum to air grievances / differing opinions, of course, tends to make a government last longer, and costs a lot less than wiretapping everything while providing better results.
Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter; strike the wrong shepherd, however, and a thousand shepherds will rise in his place. Suppression tends to work like that, like ablative armor. It works excellently at first, but through constant use begins to degrade and fail asymptotically. The US is over-quota for shepherds (they've reached their bag limit), so to speak, and are seeing the pendulum swing the other way. Yet, they insist on pushing even harder, apparently unaware of this trade-off effect.
I am John Hurt.
Quit screwing around. Arrest the Globalists and banksters.
No more freedom house, NED, United Nations Treaties, no more psychopathic unconstitutional bullshit, no more bailouts for the suicide banksters, no more FBI assisted terrorist false flags.
We've fucking SEEN SOMETHING, and SAID SOMETHING over and over and over, now fucking DO SOMETHING!
Sure looks like it here. An Israeli organization is telling the American legal system to crack down, through Twitter, on terrorist organizations which are only minor threats to the US (and in the case of Shabab, not even a threat to Israel).
It's routine for the Americans to insist on other countries to do things for them, but they're now tolerating a Israel telling them to do something for Israel's benefit?
(no slashdot filter thing, i don't have a comment long enough to need both a subject and a body)
who cares. would you rather be killed by aterrorist or see some damn fool thing posted or tweeted by a terorist? Jesus! The Stupidity!
Keep in mind that this was an Israeli think tank that started this. Israelis, the same folks that seem to think that terrorism isn't an acceptable response to their crimes against humanity, and aren't willing to accept any less radical responses either.
It's worth noting that they're dealing with the Second Intifada, as in not the first one. During which time they could have put this all the bed by behaving like adults and actually addressing the problems, and instead they opted to engage in some pretty sick acts.
Caches and proxies are minor matters of technical understanding and legalese. The bottom line is that we're long past the point where ISP's *should* be considered common carriers, with all that entails (less ability to screw with our access, and less liability for what we do with it). And for many practical purposes, the legal system does treat them like common carriers. Prosecutors rarely charge ISPs with aiding crimes, even though so many crimes are aided by the ISP just by the internet's pervasive nature. It's about time the letter of the law caught up with reality on this one.
Is anyone else tired of seeing the US jerk like a puppet to the various demands
of Israel ?
I sure as hell am.
The US needs to cut these pushy Jews loose and let them sink or swim
without US aid.
Oh by the way, most of the terrorism directed at the US is because the US helps Israel. Are they worth this price ?
I submit that they are decidedly not worth this price and never have been worth it.
I was helping my mother-in-law fill out the application for a US visa, and there's a hilarious section of questions of the form: Have you sold any children into sex slavery? Are you a Nazi? Have you forcibly harvested anybody's organs to sell on the black market? I'm sure the number of slave-trading kidney-stealing Nazis they catch makes up for completely wasting my (and hundreds of thousands of other people's) time.
That's because Zionists are born with their heads planted firmly in their asses. It's a miracle on the level of a burning bush that they can dress themselves and breathe with their heads that far up their rectum.
Maybe they really are the chosen people...
"However Twitter (and Facebook, Gmail, etc) are FREE services"
No, you still have to pay for ISP usage and/or electricity usage and for a computer/laptop, etc...
Paper can be used to aid terrorism since they can use it to communicate, and paper is cheap too.
and what if a church gave food to the needy around its neighborhood and one of the people it was giving free food just so happens to be a terrorist.
What if some promotional band gave away free flashlights and a terrorist used it for the wrong reasons.
Just because something is given for free and is then misused doesn't mean the person who gave it away should be liable.
Twitter etal is FREE as far as Twitter doesn't charge the user for that service. ISP costs are completely irrelevant to the issue, which concerns whether Twitter (not the ISP, power co. etc) is supporting terrorism.
Also you are say *should* (not be liable), what we are discussing is what the law says, not what should be. And yes, if a church is giving away free food, and terrorist happen to benefit, the church *could* be charged for supporting terrorism, UNDER the LAW. "should" is an entirely different issue... a fairly nuanced one, as is the definition of a "terrorist".
please note that I don't agree with this law, certainly not as written, but then I don't agree with a lot of the recent "anti-terrorist" laws as written, but I (mostly we the people), don't count...
Fuck it, ban sand. They live their lives in sand, it must do bad things for people. Hell, ban brown people, they persecute white people. Actually, last time I was in France I noticed a certain disdain, better ban all of the Romance language countries, obviously they hate us. Germanic languages apparently too, because they were anti-American. We had a world war over that.
The only thing left for me to say is: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
above post is proof that the terrorists are relaying messages over slashdot AC comments.
this post is too.
At most it's good for piling on a perjury charge.
Remember that they got capone on tax evasion, not racketeering.
I notice grand parent was voted down to -1. Can I suggest that one way the Israeli's are different from terrorist groups is that they try to censor criticism?
If you can't face discussion of what you've done Israel, then perhaps you shouldn't have done it in the first place!
So how does the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center suggest that Twitter prevent Hezbollah and al-Shabaab from using its service?
Should Twitter require verified identities and then ban anyone with a Muslim-sounding name? Or should Twitter delete any message that contains any criticism of Israeli policy? Maybe the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center believes that there should be a greater level of surveillance internet-wide? Or maybe the Internet should be a walled garden so as to assure Israel that its enemies are unable to communicate?
What steps exactly does Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center believe that Twitter should take?
Who wants to bet that Israel is looking into the kind of telecommunications technology that allows countries like China and Syria and Iran to limit the kind of communications it doesn't like? That the next embargo on the Palestinians will be on their ability to communicate with the outside world?
Maybe they believe they have to take this step in order to ensure Israel's security. But it would be nice if they just came out and said so instead of putting it on Twitter, as if the very existence of a service that allows people to post short comments online poses an existential threat. I'm not a fan of Twitter and I don't use it but Twitter is not the problem for Israel.
You are welcome on my lawn.
But all it might take is an actual terrorist event where an ISP *is* held accountable, for ISPs to retreat back to common carrier status.
Why wait for that? Copyright infringement works just as well.
I know that if I'm ever suing someone for piracy, I'll be sure to list their ISP as a co-defendant. I win either way - either they're forced to obey the rules of common carriership, or I get fat stacks of cash and opened the floodgates for a million more lawsuits.
Think of all those lawsuits MAFIAA files against downloaders. Now have them file that number again against Comcast, Verizon et cetera. Bam. We just fought evil with evil.
pun intended.
but really, in what way is twitter material?
Now have them file that number again against Comcast, Verizon et cetera. Bam. We just fought evil with evil.
Verizon and Comcast have in house attorneys and the ability to fight back. John Q. my-kid-ran-bittorrent-on-the-pc Public does not.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The antisemitism and antizionism (which, for the most part, is really just disguised antisemitism) here is sickening.
If it was any other country in the world (except N. Korea or China perhaps) who did this, the response would be to laugh at them and move on.
I hardly think you would be so harsh on Britain if they told twitter it was violating American laws for letting the IRA plan attacks on civilians.
But because it's Israel doing this, you need to vilify them for it.
Grow the fuck up.
The 1%er powers that be and their government minions are scared to death of the 99% being able to communicate freely.
Whats wrong with people? Where this world is going?
Israel gives radical fundamentalist Islamic terrorists a common cause around which to rally. Israel is an existential support to the extreme authoritarian regimes throughout the region. Israel's lightning rod behavior is materially supportive of the growth and expansion of terrorist organizations and ideology throughout the middle east. If Israel continues to flagrantly choose not to cease its existence of its own volition, it should be caused to cease to exist in the interest of eliminating the raison d'etre of so many terrorist organizations.
Look, Israel: How 'bout you stop fucking with the founding principles of this nation, and we don't complain too loudly about all the money and bombs we give you -- those come out of my goddamn paycheck. It's already tiresome enough to have to carry around a screaming brat prima donna who likes to taunt bullies and fixate on suicidal promises made by a fictional deity a few thousand years ago. The least you could do is not kick us in the kidneys while we're doing it.
Go Fuck Yourself,
Bob
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Of course the U.S. Government will latch onto this, it represents an ideal opportunity to invoke the name of anti-terrorism to actively censor; just in case they haven't completely covered their bases with SOPA/PIPA.
I keep finding it ironic that we are slowly slipping back into the Alien & Sedition Acts, which came immediately following our inception as a country. Perhaps a sign that our system of government is due for rebirth?
Although I will say, I have been reassured by the recent media reports that gun purchases have skyrocketed recently - hopefully this indicates that the rugged-individualist, American-spirited Americans out there will have a little sway over the outcome of this rebirth.
I heart anarcho-capitalism.
It's not piling on a perjury charge - perjury is the intended charge.
You see, if you (as a preventive measure) as a country don't want to import child sex slavers (and if you accidentally do, seek to lock them up as fast as possible) the fact that you know the visa applicant has sold children into sex slavery isn't going to do you any good in most cases, because of jurisdiction problems. But if the applicant then commits perjury by sending a form with (known) faulty data do a US government official on US soil (a US embassy is technically on US soil too) then you have 'm.
There actually is a reason for that part of the green form. It's so that if they dig up any of those things in your past, they can say you've committed a crime on US soil (signing a false declaration). They can prosecute or deport you for committing this crime in the US, while they may not be able to do anything about something you did in the dim past on another continent.
Let's also sue...
1) The postal service, because they help letter bombs and the like reach their destinations
2) Banks, since they store money and are responsible for the creation of new money, which might be used by a terrorist
3) Cellphone makes and service providers, because they help terrorists communicate
4) TV makes and news companies, since they report on terrorist attacks, which other terrorist can get ideas from
5) The TSA, FBI, CIA, and so forth, because they are aiding terrorists by not catching all of them before they attack
6) The parents of terrorists, for giving birth to them
Need I continue...?
Are spoons responsible for obesity?
Allows us to become terrorists. ;-) True free speech does not judge or rule. So anti and pro movements should be able to use the platform to spread their message.
Free Speech.
You know that that website you listed is a Mossad counter-play? Antisemitism has served Israel very well over the years, it's lets them silence criticism as antisemitism. That site is there to be upheld as an example of anti-semitism that Israeli leaders can then use as a poster-child.
It purports to be Islamic while actually being antisemitic, thus establishing the idea that Islam is antisemitic.
You may think Israel is against antisemitism, nothing could be further from the truth! You fell into the trap by quoting that site.
To the Right(tm), the world is split into two parts: "good guys" and "bad guys". Every person, every nation and every non-state actor in the world can be placed in one of these two categories. All issues of morality, foreign policy and so on can be answered by identifying who, in the alleged moral dilemma, is the "good guy" and who is the "bad guy".
To the Left(tm), the world is split into two parts: "oppressors" and "oppressed". Every person, every nation and every non-state actor in the world can be placed in one of these two categories. All issues of morality, foreign policy and so on can be answered by identifying who, in the alleged moral dilemma, is the "oppressor" and who is the "oppressed".
Israel is "good guys" and "oppressor", and Palestine is "bad guys" and "oppressed".
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Your argument is also valid for Muslims. I take it you agree then?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
It's not the nuclear missiles to blame for the threat of mutual assured destruction, it's all that the fault of Gene Hackman, Denzel Washington and the rest of that nuclear sub crew.
What about going after the very very root cause of terrorism?
The government?
Abolish that and all of a sudden there is no longer terrorism.
Government is root cause and the main generator of 99% of terrorism.
You can't handle the truth.
The bottom line is that if terrorist groups use Twitter, they are making their communications very easy for the USA to tap and monitor in real time.
And any legal action that would cause Twitter to block these groups, would be aiding and abetting terrorism.
The fact is that when you have any suspicions like this, you should not express them in public at all, ever. Instead you should express them in writing to the FBI and CIA. They will likely never reply to you other than, thank you for your letter, because they have to keep their actions secret, but there is an off chance that some day you will get an anonymous phone call suggesting that you watch the evening news tonight, and there will be a breaking bulletin that a half hour earlier a cruise missile destroyed a terrorist camp in the Pakistani mountains where the remnants of the al-Qaeda leadership were having a rare face to face meeting.
Of course, in the case of something as prominent as Twitter, I'm sure that the CIA is already monitoring the comms, but in something newer that is up and coming, your letters could make a material difference.
But, never, ever make these sorts of accusations in public because the only thing that will change, is that the terrorists will increase their secrecy and the CIA will lose an important info source.
Let me get this straight terrorists use a US based platform for communication and Isrealies have the audacity to fuck with what must be a CIA gold mine?
Number one recruiting tool for middle eastern terrorists is Isreal inability to settle their land disputes with the Palestiniens.
People use infrastructure. Terrorists are people. Therefore terrorists use infrastructure. Therefore we must destroy infrastructure.
You gotta love that kind of reasoning.
Pirates use infrastructure.
Illegal immigrants use infrastructure.
Yep, hawkish application of a scorched earth strategy also applies when it comes to your own GODDAM home. Let's outdo all of the above when it comes to damage done. It's like writing your name on the wall you built with other peoples poo.
20 minutes into the future
I know that if I'm ever suing someone for piracy, I'll be sure to list their ISP as a co-defendant.
In the US, the ISP would rely on the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, implemented by the DMCA as s512 of Title 17 USC - in particular, s512(a):
(a) Transitory Digital Network Communications. - A service provider shall not be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the provider's transmitting, routing, or providing connections for, material through a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, or by reason of the intermediate and transient storage of that material in the course of such transmitting, routing, or providing connections, if -
(1) the transmission of the material was initiated by or at the direction of a person other than the service provider;
(2) the transmission, routing, provision of connections, or storage is carried out through an automatic technical process without selection of the material by the service provider;
(3) the service provider does not select the recipients of the material except as an automatic response to the request of another person;
(4) no copy of the material made by the service provider in the course of such intermediate or transient storage is maintained on the system or network in a manner ordinarily accessible to anyone other than anticipated recipients, and no such copy is maintained on the system or network in a manner ordinarily accessible to such anticipated recipients for a longer period than is reasonably necessary for the transmission, routing, or provision of connections; and
(5) the material is transmitted through the system or network without modification of its content.
"Service provider" is defined (s512(k)(1)(A) as:
As used in subsection (a), the term ''service provider'' means an entity offering the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user's choosing, without modification to the content of the material as sent or received.
Whether this meets the US definition of "common carrier," I'm afraid I do not know - but a DSL access provider and the like would be aiming to rely on this to exempt them from liability for whatever the user might do.
In Europe, there is similar legislation - directive 2000/31/EC, Article 12:
1. Where an information society service is provided that consists of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, or the provision of access to a communication network, Member States shall ensure that the service provider is not liable for the information transmitted, on condition that the provider:
(a) does not initiate the transmission;
(b) does not select the receiver of the transmission; and
(c) does not select or modify the information contained in the transmission.
2. The acts of transmission and of provision of access referred to in paragraph 1 include the automatic, intermediate and transient storage of the information transmitted in so far as this takes place for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission in the communication network, and provided that the information is not stored for any period longer than is reasonably necessary for the transmission.
3. This Article shall not affect the possibility for a court or administrative authority, in accordance with Member States' legal systems, of requiring the service provider to terminate or prevent an infringement.
That's not to say that no remedy is possible, though - injunctions are flavour of the month at t
You know, actual Nazis and child molesters have been found out and had their US citizenship revoked by this method. But, it looks stupid to you, so let's all laugh at America one more time!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
They don't just want their cake and to eat it too. They want YOUR cake as well.
Balderdash!
This is very clearly stated. Thanks. I've tried to make a similar point before, and failed.
weinersmith
Apparently ISPs would rather take the risk and be exposed (liable) for what its customers do in exchange for the freedoms (and abuses) that come with NOT being common carriers.
Actually, they got that one covered under USC 17512. And being a common carrier doesn't really imply net neutrality - common carriers can absolutely charge different rates depending on destination, if you want that it should probably be explicitly applied to information services. In short, it's not really a great fit.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
+1 insightful if i didn't already comment earlier! But yea, the two faces of America see the Israeli/Palestinian situation from a skewed and opposing internal view that makes everyone in the media sound like they are contradicting themselves all day (as if they don't do enough of that).
Balderdash!
I see your funny side and raise you "sad but true". The question is to ban things. That won't happen. Logically we won't do anything at all. reality has learned us that they will do the second best thing: Attempting to be 100% sure that there are no terrorists on any of it.
The best they will come up with is controlling who goes on any of it. So people using twitter will be monitored. People using phones will be monitored and their location will be noted as well all the time.
Roads and cars will be subject to random searches. State crossings will require paperwork and if you are on the list, you won't be allowed to pass.
Stuff you buy will be data mined to see if there is no purchases that could make a bomb.
With all that, Soviet Russia would seem like a paradise. With all that, Big Brother would feel like a dream to live for because it is less evil.
Be prepared to fight against it now or be prepared for things to get much much worse. Start doing your part like this person here. Start in any legal way that you can think of. Write it on facebook. Yell it in the streets.
Because if you don't and things get worse (and they will) then change will be bloody. Unless you are fine about it. Then please just moan and do nothing.
Just don't say later "we didn't know." And if you are in the military or police, blindly following orders is no excuse. (Godwin's Law if you get it.)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
[...] ban Twitter [...] cell phones? Better ban those [...] outlaw cars and remove the roads [...] entire government division to enforce and strictly regulate corrective vision dealers [...]
That's an awful lot of work. Wouldn't it be much easier to just ban the terrorists?
Germanic languages apparently too, because they were anti-American.
I completely agree. Germanic languages such as American English should be banned. I'm sure that's what terrorists use to blend in when they have infiltrated us.
Even the ones that don't want to bone you probably don't want to be common carriers because they would have issues even running caching proxies.
If "they" have issues with dumb (as in not selective) transparent caching proxies, then they should also be against line filters, signal boosters and other common signal regeneration tools used by telcos which are explicitly common carriers. The only difference is the complexity of the system and the minimum technical level of those looking at it before they are confused. All common carriers use "boosters" of some kind, not unlike a normal carrier quality transparent caching proxy, and nobody has a problem with them. But somebody says "but they *could* use the proxy to screw with the delivery, so any proxy *can't* be in a common carrier network because we *can't* know for sure they aren't breaking things." When the same thing could be said about smart electrical meters, telco signal boosters, and other things like that in common carrier networks.
Learn to love Alaska
Twitter is not aiding and abetting terrorism. This needs an active act on the part of twitter. On the other hand, it is not unlikely that there exist terrorists that have used twitter in some sort of way to support their terrorist acts.
they may not be able to do anything about something you did in the dim past on another continent.
Hahahahahahahahahaha.
So if this law passes, next thing email will become illegal. Guns also will become illegal, airlines will get blamed for 9/11 and the internet will become illegal too?
All because terrorists make use of it? Ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as blaming Twitter.
It's time for some SERIOUS root cause analysis instead of this...
Privacy is terrorism.
Yeah I know, they can insist in one hand and sh*t in the other hand , then observe which hand fills up first.
They do have a point about twitter helping f*ckwads who want to do wrong things to the rest of us. ,texting and BBSs. Get rid of farmville and distractions and thats all you got anyway. ,al Qaeda ,Scientology , Democrat and Republican parties as they are some of the most profound threats to humanity.
Now if we can all just get past the FAD of "social media". It's just a BBS with fillagree and ads. We have damn phones, IRC
Unless they can lock their screens to farmville Twitter needs to shut out Hezbollah
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Aiding and abetting free speech - the government's worst nightmare.
That's the sad truth.
Just like Bush Sr's CIA put Saddam into power and then went on to train Osama to fight the USSR.
Who manufactures terrorists?
Governments do.
If you want to see something even sicker - the head of the IRA - the violent nail bomber of children turned out to be a deep cover UK operative organizing terrorist bombings against women and children from his own country.
Look up Operation Northwoods and other disgusting government plots.
Even something as random as the forest fires in Greece were recently admitted to be perpetrated by the Turkish intel services.
These crypto governments are your real enemies, not the average working people on the other side of the planet.
So it's OK to help terrorists so long as you profit directly from it?
Not that I agree with Darshan-Leitner, just pointing out what seems to be a very strange law, as least as you're interpreting it.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Is (NOUN - Person/Place/Thing you want to look bad) (VERB - questionable actions) (NOUN - Organization that is BAD, just bad, very, very bad)?
Using this form you can write headlines for MSNBC, Fox 'news' and now Slashdot!
Try this;
Is Newt Gingrich helping Obama?
Is Linux aiding China?
Is Slashdot publishing sensational headlines for profit?
Can we maybe alter the Law to include any Nation that carries out acts of terrorism on a minority population, like say, Israel herself maybe?
Then the entire internet is. Or human communication in general. I guess the only solution is to ban communication between 2 or more private citizens.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Well it wouldn't be that bad, luckily they are muslims so we could still drink.
Lets do a re-write: .01% Twitter users who are actual terrorists community, within the broader community of Twitter users. As far as I know, the behaviour to which you're referring is abhorred by a vast majority of Twitter users.
I think you're confusing a fraction of Twitter users. Less than
Now, didn't Mubarak think the people who wanted him out of power who were using Twitter to organise where terrorists? And wouldn't a thinking, sane and rational person WANT public organization so that security service would be able to be kept abreast of what is happening along with being able to track WHO is looking at the data?
A major problem is over population and over crowding in the region. They aren't just fighting over religion, they are fighting for land. The US needs to stop funding the Israeli army, why people don't speak up about this is beyond me. US citizens are too busy rolling over and taking the patriot act up there asses I guess.
Twitter is down anyway. But presumably, that has more to do with a lot of new-year well-wishers than with the hysterically overblown blame-the-messenger tactics of some media-horny fool in a tiny little state in the Mediterranean.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
FTFY.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
If we concede that every social network, every operating system, and every hardware and systems manufacturer, along with telecoms, cell providers, and a whole host of other communications providers are aiding and abetting terrorism. Oh, and lets not forget Bic, I'm sure terrorists probably used Bic pens at some point for some evil communications and Bic did nothing to stop them...
The real question is: Is Wall Street the source of all terrorism?
if you were riding a harley tractor then thats a crime against decent motorcycles
I really don't understand why the US kow tows to Israel, we send them billions of dollars a year, shouldn't they be doing what we say? What kind of dirt does Israel have on us for to say "how high" when they tell us to jump? Someone fill me in here.....
People use infrastructure. Terrorists are people. Therefore terrorists use infrastructure. Therefore we must destroy infrastructure.
You gotta love that kind of reasoning.
As of October, Twitter had 100,000,000 active users. Denying something like 5 accounts to continue using Twitter means that the other 999,999,995 users are still using Twitter, and none of Twitter's servers have been effected. That doesn't really constitute "destroying infrastructure". You've gone way off the tracks here with your "reasoning".
As I recall, the US didn't allow the Imperial Japanese or Nazi Germans to directly transmit from American radio stations in WW2. Did that constitute destroying the American radio infrastructure too?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
While I'm generally behind anything that does (they mostly prosecute terrorist for civil liability and compensate the victims from it - pro bono), I think this might end up actually helping the scumbags, when they transfer to chinese clone sites which will be only to happy to have them.
could it be?
Just so you can truly see how stupid this article is.. ie changes are in bold.
... In her letter, Darshan-Leitner noted that Hezbollah and al-Shabaab are officially designated as terrorist organizations under U.S. law. She also cited a 2010 Supreme Court case — Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project — which upheld a key provision of the Patriot Act prohibiting material support to groups designated as terrorist outfits."
"Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, sent a letter to all water purification companies on Thursday asserting that said companies are violating U.S. law by allowing groups such as Hezbollah and al Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab to use its water .
Pirates (in the copyright infringement sense) use infrastructure (the internet) and our elected government is trying to destroy it with absurd measures such as SOPA. The crazies aren't all abroad.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London)
Dear Sir,
I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or to the office. We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn will cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressed agricultural industry.
Yours faithfully,
Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J. P.
Sevenoaks
P.S.
Verily, I should hasten to mention that Twitter does aid and abet Terrorism.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
The DHS?
A jury of peers?
Who else will be silenced?
Who will be collateral damage when we give in to our fears?
As I recall, the US didn't allow the Imperial Japanese or Nazi Germans to directly transmit from American radio stations in WW2. Did that constitute destroying the American radio infrastructure too?
Nope.Anybody who remotely looked Asian was rounded up and locked away into camps.Indiscriminately. They weren't allowed to directly transmit from US radio stations. They damn well nearly weren't allowed to breathe US air. The public howled for their blood. That's a damn big pee stain on US history and nothing to be proud of.
20 minutes into the future
I'm not from America, and I have to fill out the form when I go to US for business, same as everyone else. Yes, it feels silly when I fill it in, but it's more silly in a snicker-inducing way than actually irritating. It takes less than a minute to fill out the form while you're on the plane, and the flight's a lot longer than that, anyway. The groping, body scanning, and insulting questions at immigration piss me off far more.
But you're missing the point. They don't expect to ever catch people giving the "wrong" answer on that form - they expect to occasionally dig up dirt from someone's past, and then be able to say, "Get out of my USA - you signed a false declaration, and are, therefore, a criminal." They probably think this is worth a couple of minutes of your and my time on the plane.
A terrorist is a freedom fighter who isn't on your side.
Casteism
Because selling potty paper to potential "terrists" could be construed as supporting them.. Or groceries.. letting them buy food encourages "acts of terrer".. or.. .. .. is there anything else i need add?
Read the Greenwald link. There are almost certainly no Al Shababi uses of Twitter - just intelligent and provacative LULZ.
There are - in fact - no terrorists at all. They are a statistically insignificant political fiction.
Read Escobar, and see how you've been played:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30108.htm
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
So enumerate the group so they can be policed and purged,
transported to another place and made impotent in a dark secret
place.
We are talking about a communication media, make a list:
Paper, pen, ink, photography, voice, lights, flags, semaphores,
bells, whistles, drums, tapping code on a water pipe, smoke,
one if by land and two if by sea.
In reality the speed and effectiveness of these communication
tools are generating changes at rates that boggle the mind.
The poll swings in the US Republican pres. preliminaries are
perhaps another example of a high gain un-dampened feed
back loop.
The law is interesting... Hezbollah and al Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab
do trigger some activity under the law. But the question of how
to act on this issue is unclear. More importantly these organizations
are bringing services including health services to people that
need them. These people are not likely to un-friend and un-follow
these positives.
A hammer is not the right tool here. Bring charges in a Sharia law
court perhaps, when and where it applies. The rule of law has become
separated from the government in places where corruption and
poverty rule. Law outside of the law is the issue and problem.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Israel invaded Lebonon, occupied their country, bombed the cities, killed civilians...the Lebanese fought back and that group became known as Hizbolla. A group that fights an invader, an occupier is using resistance, resisting their own destruction....this is not terrorism.
Anyone who reads about Zionism and the history of Israel knows whos who. The US is wrong to support Israel, but then you look at our history and we've been a bunch of genocidal racists monkeys too. I guess those are the value we share with Israel.