US Threatens Spain For Not Implementing SOPA-Like Law

SharkLaser writes "In a leaked letter sent to Spain's outgoing President, the US ambassador warned that if Spain didn't pass SOPA-like file-sharing site blocking law, Spain would risk being put into United States trade blocklist. United States government interference in Spain's intellectual property laws have been suspected for a long time, and now the recent leaks of diplomatic cables confirm this. Apart from the cables leaked earlier, now another cable dated December 12th says U.S. expresses 'deep concern' over the failure to implement SOPA-style censorship law in the country. 'The government has unfortunately failed to finish the job for political reasons, to the detriment of the reputation and economy of Spain,' read the letter. Racing against the clock in the final days of the government, Solomont had one last push. 'I encourage the Government of Spain to implement the Sinde Law immediately to safeguard the reputation of Spain as an innovative country that does what it says it will, and as a country that breeds confidence,' he wrote."

Comments

correct response: "OK, put me on the list."

[Anonymous Coward]

All it needs is one domino to fall.

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[L4t3r4lu5]

Spain is bankrupt. Putting them on an international trade blacklist is like refusing to serve homeless people in Harrod's.

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[DCTech]

It would be fun to see U.S. threaten China about blacklisting them. Oh, wait, they can't because U.S. is so dependent on China that it would hurt U.S. more than it would hurt China.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Spain is only bankrupt if it can't provide all the necessities for its own people. If they can manage to self-sustain, all the blacklists in the world will have no effect on its economy.

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[Nadaka]

Not really, the US represents a huge buyer of inexpensive cheap plastic crap from china and would devastate their economy if we stopped trading with them. The US would suffer because we would have to buy locally produced expensive cheap plastic crap, at least until we have had time to ramp up the cheap plastic crap industry at home and solve the unemployment problem.

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[Asic Eng]

I really don't get this - is SOPA so important to US interests that it would risk a trade war with an EU country? I get that it's in the interests of some media companies, but they are puny in comparison with other US industries. Don't these industries have lobbies, too?

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[rickb928]

1. SOPA is so important to U.S. corporate interests that they are exerting enormous pressure on our Legislature.

2. Our Legislature, being so dependent on corporate insider trading, is willing to do their will.

3. Our Executive branch, being utterly bereft of ethical standards, is willing to threaten Spain with actual economic damages for no more reason than to support U.S. corporate interests, which uktimately serve to enrich the Legislature (and other insiders) to the disadvantage of the general population.

4. There are virtually NO U.S. corporations that would not benefit from the enactment of SOPA, in some way. Virtually none would suffer any damages from enactment of SOPA. Even Internet-based corporations would benefit from having clear rules to follow. Ambiguity is not always profitable.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Germany has twice as external debt than Spain, same the UK, France... even the US has much more external debt than Spain proportionally, in case you think the US is not bankrupt. Spain's problem is a very high rate of unemployement, their debt is relatively small. Amazed of how easy is to be absolutely misinformed nowadays.

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[pulse2600]

Other US industries are backing the legislation. SOPA is intended to block distributors of ALL pirated/counterfeit goods...so clothing manufacturers, for example, like it because they want to be able to block sites selling cheap knockoffs of designer clothing, bags, sneakers, etc.

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[JackieBrown]

That's not a real comparison.

I have less on my credit cards than Bill Gates, but he is not more bankrupted or in debt (in comparison to what he brings in) than me.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And to prove point #4 EVERY entity listed on the SOPA & PIPA supporters list will receive daily copyright infringement takedown notices for all their non-US websites.

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[poetmatt]

what makes you think this doesn't apply to any trade blacklist globally?

The market is no longer "us centric", so any trade blacklist just makes it worse for us. Who would do business by choice with a country that is blacklisting (and blackmailing) countries into being the same kind of failure they are becoming?

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[Anthony Mouse]

4. There are virtually NO U.S. corporations that would not benefit from the enactment of SOPA, in some way. Virtually none would suffer any damages from enactment of SOPA. Even Internet-based corporations would benefit from having clear rules to follow. Ambiguity is not always profitable.

This is just ridiculous. First of all, what about the existing law is supposed to be so ambiguous? New laws almost always produce more ambiguity because there has to be a period of years before the courts have a chance to write decisions interpreting them where any number of the new provisions remain uncertain. This is especially true of SOPA because parts of it are so obviously subject to a constitutional challenge, which means companies won't know whether they have to follow them until it goes to court -- which is the worst kind of uncertainty; the kind that leads to expensive protracted litigation.

In addition to that, if SOPA will have no negative effects on them, why have they all come out against it? Why are they running full page ads in the New York Times?

I think you'll find that the US Trade Representative's positions are set not based on what US companies want, but rather based on what US companies that do the most lobbying want. The RIAA and MPAA have long been prolific in their employment of lobbyists; tech companies less so until very recently and even there they lack the sort of experience necessary to be as effective as would be expected from their size and economic importance. One can hope that they get it right before it's too late, but I prefer to hope that Americans come to their senses and make it a defense to murder that the victim was an entertainment/fossil fuel/defense/telecommunications industry lobbyist.

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[thisnamestoolong]

My friend, you are sorely mistaken if you think that money is the only card on the table in the SOPA debate. If it was only about money, Google and Facebook would lobby the **AA's into oblivion, as their pockets are so much deeper that it wouldn't even be a contest. SOPA is not even about copyright; it's about control. By writing such an overly broad rule, the government assures that all sites on the web are in violation of the law at all times. While the vast majority of sites would be assumed to be acting in good faith to prevent infringement, anyone who steps out of line can immediately be wiped out with no due process. Wikileaks and the Occupy movement have showed the Congress critters that an unregulated Internet will eventually bring all of their greed and corruption into the light of day, and that people will only tolerate it for so long. They NEED something like SOPA to reign it back and, so that they can continue fucking the people without worry of being taken to task for it.

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[Anonymous Coward]

It's been a long time since a country have been self-sustainable on all point. The entire planet economy is linked, most countries aren't agriculturally self-sustaining and industrial production often require primary resource not available locally.

I highly doubt however that the US would blacklist spain, it would risk a row with the entire EU (if it can't bully or buy the whole EU into SOPA).

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[Bob9113]

4. There are virtually NO U.S. corporations that would not benefit from the enactment of SOPA, in some way. Virtually none would suffer any damages from enactment of SOPA. Even Internet-based corporations would benefit from having clear rules to follow. Ambiguity is not always profitable.

3.5% of the US GDP is media, in the broadest sense. The other 96.5% benefits from an unrestricted Internet. "Having clear rules to follow" means having to hire people and build systems to enact those rules.

SOPA will be as costly to US corporations as the DMCA was. it's a giant extra bit of friction that only helps a tiny corner of the economy. Either you know nothing about economics or you are a shill.

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[dthx1138]

It would be fun to see U.S. threaten China about blacklisting them. Oh, wait, they can't because U.S. is so dependent on China that it would hurt U.S. more than it would hurt China.

Surprise, China is already on the Priority Watch List in the "Special 301" report: http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/2849

Other nations you may have heard of that are already on this list include: Canada, India, Israel, and Pakistan. Being named in this list, as the ambassador suggested might happen to Spain, does not mean that the U.S. is starting some kind of trade blockade or economic war with Spain.

Does the Sinde law sound bad? Yes. But the ultimate responsibility and/or blame lies with the Spanish government. Insinuating that the only reason the law was created and passed is that the U.S. threatened Spain with an act of war is silly hyperbole.

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[arkane1234]

You know, big boys were having big boy conversation until you came in saying that.

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[jd2112]

That's not a real comparison.

I have less on my credit cards than Bill Gates, but he is not more bankrupted or in debt (in comparison to what he brings in) than me.

I would bet that his American Express bill is enormous, but he pays off the balance every month.

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[blind biker]

Not really, the US represents a huge buyer of inexpensive cheap plastic crap from china and would devastate their economy if we stopped trading with them. The US would suffer because we would have to buy locally produced expensive cheap plastic crap, at least until we have had time to ramp up the cheap plastic crap industry at home and solve the unemployment problem.

Cheap plastic crap such as laptops and tablet computers almost all produced in China in Taiwanese-owned plants

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[theskipper]

Exactly. Let's not forget how Allison Halataei and Lauren Pastarnak whored themselves out to the RIAA/MPAA straight out of Lamar Smith's office. No waiting period to dispel any appearance of impropriety. They know it doesn't matter, just follow the money because the corruption is so ingrained.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70149.html

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[tokul]

It would be fun to see U.S. threaten China about blacklisting them.

Chinese have WMDs, Spaniards don't have them.

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[ricklow]

What he was doing (rightly or wrongly) was paraphrasing the old saying "When you owe the bank a thousand dollars, you have a problem, but when you owe the bank a million dollars, the bank has a problem."

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[SlovakWakko]

Your comment presumes that there is a difference between the corporate environment and the government; well, there isn't, and hasn't been for a long time. The government is just a front, and its members are well aware of it.

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[Anonymous Coward]

My GOD! Where would we get the iPhone's from!

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[duguk]

All it needs is one domino to fall.

Too late; they already gave in.

Website Blocking Law Implemented By New Spanish Government

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[operagost]

Their economy is a WMD.

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[AngryDeuce]

Exactly, because the only options one would have is to sue the government or some multi-billion dollar corporation. Neither is economically feasible to anyone that is not a government or multi-billion dollar corporation themselves, so in effect, no one else has any rights at all regarding this.

The assholes in government and corporate America would love nothing better than for all of us to shut the fuck up, come out and vote for the guy they tell us to every couple years, and buy their price-inflated shit on credit. Hell, with all the game playing going on with voter-ID laws and other disenfranchisement methods, it probably won't be long before the "vote for the guy they tell us to" isn't even an issue any more. They'll just make sure that only the people that support that guy get the opportunity to vote in the first place. People openly say things like "only property owners should be allowed to vote since they're the only ones with a vested interest in the economy anyway" nowadays. How long will it be until we start seeing these ideas gain traction in actual government? As long as the economy stays in the shitter (and with companies sitting on record amounts of cash, hiding it overseas without penalty, it will be) people will believe almost anything they're told out of desperation.

It's time to start taking a page out of our Founding Fathers book and arming ourselves. The government won't hesitate in pulling out all the stops in making sure they remain in power.

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[hitmark]

At some point during the 90s, some braniac coined the "knowledge economy". Basically the idea that one could come up with ideas and designs, and then rent those idea to others that would actually produce them.

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[rev0lt]

Actually, China is one of the (non-american) biggest USA debt buyer, and their interest in american economy is quite simple to grasp - they need to keep the dollar strong,so they can make a ton of money by dollar-yuan exchanges, but keeping their international selling prices the same. As an added bonus, the commodities market also frequently trade in dollars, so it's a win-win situation.
In the day the dollar stops being a priority for the chinese, probably it won't worth the paper is printed on. A considerable devaluation of the currency would lead all those countries that also negotiate in dollars (officially or unofficially) to exchange them as fast as they can. Given the amount of forged currency in circulation, it would have a catastrophic effect - not only for the USA, but for every other 1st world country whose financial sector is backed by dollar investments.

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[characterZer0]

If we were willing to cut off trade with mainland China we could support Taiwan independence.

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[Tsingi]

Whoa!

The AC's are getting restless. Here we have a burn thread of anon posters calling each other names. LOL, but we don't KNOW their names. It's kinda like swearing at the TV.

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[wganz]

Always follow the money. The Hollywood studios are helping to finance 0bama's re-election. This is his payback for their campaign donations. And who cares about the free exchange of information when everything has to go through media controlled routers? Hope that you enjoy the same restrictions on your 1A rights that I've had to suffer on my 2A.

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[Tsingi]

It would be fun to see U.S. threaten China about blacklisting them.

Chinese have WMDs, Spaniards don't have them.

They're still reeling from the inquisition. They didn't expect that. But they are ready for whatever comes next.

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[GameboyRMH]

They get a lot of tourists from Canada and other places where people are looking for an American-free vacation destination :-P

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[517714]

Yes, I am proud to own a phone built in the USA ... by Western Electric ... in 1974.

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[Tsingi]

And just to be perfectly clear, by "Our Executive branch" what you really mean is the Obama Administration.

It seems pretty clear that it doesn't matter who sits in the Whitehouse. Corporations run the country. If you don't back corporations, you don't get elected, it's that simple.

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[rev0lt]

Actually, you are wrong. Spain has a GDP foreign debt of 284% and Germany has a GDP foreign debt of 176%. The US have 101%, and they are in much better finantial shape than many strong countries in EU.
Spain also has a complex, almost non-regulated, mutualist banking system (Caixas), and very poor performance in the EU stress tests. The only reason Spain has no interest to the IMF/European Fund is because most of the foreign debt is held by Germany and the UK, and a rescue operation would imply much more money than what the European Fund had avaliable, and would cause a direct hit in both UK's and Germany's banking companies. I used as reference the following infographic: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15748696

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[517714]

Yeah, Cuba doesn't get any aid from Venezuela.

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[ShieldW0lf]

Not really, the US represents a huge buyer of inexpensive cheap plastic crap from china and would devastate their economy if we stopped trading with them. The US would suffer because we would have to buy locally produced expensive cheap plastic crap, at least until we have had time to ramp up the cheap plastic crap industry at home and solve the unemployment problem.

Cheap plastic crap such as laptops and tablet computers almost all produced in China in Taiwanese-owned plants

China gets squat in exchange for the goods they ship to the US. The reason they continue is to keep their productive infrastructure operational and their people industrious. They could dump manufactured goods into the sea and be no worse off.

As for being blacklisted by the Americans... the US got where they are on the basis of trade. The reason they got that way is because people who trade with them usually end up getting the short end of the stick. This being the case, any rational person would see that doing business with the US is a bad idea. This isn't a secret. It's not even a controversial statement. The problem is, Americans are extremely good at corrupting representatives into screwing over those they represent by continuing to do business with them.
 

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[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, China is one of the (non-american) biggest USA debt buyer,

That is like saying that a 4 ft tall person is the tallest person in a room full of midgets. The amount of US debt owned by China is only 8% of all US public debt. Their interest in the US economy is solely as a potential market to sell goods. And soon they won't even be worried about that as their middle class keeps growing. But right now the US is the larget market out there, with no real replacement.

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[dbet]

This is what I'm hoping for. The rest of the world finally says "enough" and puts the U.S. on a trade blacklist. We face the possibility of 100 million deaths because we don't produce any food anymore. We go to war to secure stations in food-producing countries. Both the EU and China join forces to stop us. The U.S. military is completely destroyed. The U.S. signs treaties. We go back to a "normal" country again and start putting money into infrastructure and education instead of bombing the shit out of the backwoods tiny nation du jour.

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[cayenne8]

Exactly. Let's not forget how Allison Halataei and Lauren Pastarnak whored themselves out to the RIAA/MPAA straight out of Lamar Smith's office.

Yeah...but for the amounts of $$ they're likely getting....who wouldn't??

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[aintnostranger]

right, cause the chinese selling their trillion dollars for cheap wouldn't do a thing to the US?!??!?! No, right now its economic mutually assured destruction that keeps the US-China relationship oiled.

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[steelfood]

I've been reading more about SOPA recently, and the list of opponents is actually relatively small. Most of them are internet-based service companies, without tangible products. Google's the biggest of the bunch, followed by Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo, and AOL. Everyone else is tiny--miniscule even--compared to the list of SOPA supporters.

On the other hand, everybody from cosmetics to media support SOPA. Every industry that involves a tangible product has at least one company or lobbying group within it supporting SOPA.

Tech giants like Microsoft and Apple are staying quiet, though I suspect the BSA's stated reservations are close to their official position. Collectively, they're neutral at best.

But everyone else is in favor of SOPA. Everyone. Except the ones whom the government is supposed to represent.

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[spongman]

we'd have to lower the minimum wage first, though.

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[suutar]

I think SarbOx may be a better comparison (or perhaps just a more widely known comparison)... I remember lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth at the expense of adjusting to Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, but not so many for DCMA.

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[jasen666]

What products? All of our products are shipped in from China.
Unless we've bottled and are selling arrogance now. We have plenty of that.

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[DCTech]

China owns 8% of dollar. If they sold all their dollars, dollar would drop 8%. And they would get thousands of billions of dollars. They don't need to keep it strong - they're exactly at the fine point where they can cash it while dollar doesn't drop too much while they are selling.

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[maple_shaft]

It's been a long time since a country have been self-sustainable on all point. The entire planet economy is linked, most countries aren't agriculturally self-sustaining and industrial production often require primary resource not available locally.

I highly doubt however that the US would blacklist spain, it would risk a row with the entire EU (if it can't bully or buy the whole EU into SOPA).

The only reason that self-sustainable countries are rare is because the US backed IMF and World Bank actively seek to subvert entire nations that ever achieve economic independence from the US-Centric Global Economy. The last one in recent memory was the Soviet Union and they fell because of outside economic forces not because of military conquest. The other independent non-capitalist nations that are still around have a deadly link keeping them in line, Venezuela needs to sell oil, North Korea is dependent on South Korea for food, etc...

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[Gr8Apes]

For a real world example, see Donald Trump.

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[Gr8Apes]

Exactly. Let's not forget how Allison Halataei and Lauren Pastarnak whored themselves out to the RIAA/MPAA straight out of Lamar Smith's office.

Yeah...but for the amounts of $$ they're likely getting....who wouldn't??

You have this wrong... they "whored themselves out to the RIAA/MPAA while in Lamar Smith's office". The amounts of money granted were for work already performed.

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[tragedy]

DCTech wrote:

China owns 8% of dollar. If they sold all their dollars, dollar would drop 8%.

Really? Is that the way it works? Sorry if I'm completely ignorant of the way this market works. Why would one large player completely selling out of the market only affect the price by the amount that player holds? I'm just asking because in just about any other market I've heard of, that kind of move would trigger a huge drop as other players struggle to be the first to abandon what they see as a sinking ship (even if their intention is just to sell high and then buy low later). Why would it be different in this market?

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[tragedy]

You do realize that the vast majority of the executive branch doesn't change when the President changes, right? For that matter, most of them carry on doing the same things they've always done, in the same ways they've always done them, often with no real guiding influence from above and sometimes contrary to instructions from above. Not to say that the Obama administration is doing a good job or that it's not plainly corrupt like most presidential administrations, but there's a lot of entrenched, non-elected people working in the executive branch.

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[Thing 1]

I wouldn't.

Your question reminds me of the old joke about the guy asking the lady in a bar, "Would you sleep with me for a billion dollars?" to which she says "Yes"; then he asks "For a hundred?" and she responds "What kind of lady do you think I am?"; his answer: "We've already determined that. Now we're negotiating the price."

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[KingMotley]

You must be kidding. Probably one of the very best things for the US would be to completely stop trade with China. It would immediately cut the trade deficit, and at the same time, cause a need for local goods, causing unemployment to drop almost over night.

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[Super_Z]

Actually, you are wrong. Spain has a GDP foreign debt of 284% and Germany has a GDP foreign debt of 176%. The US have 101%, and they are in much better finantial shape than many strong countries in EU.

The "Foreign debt to GDP" numbers reflects the relative size of the countries financial systems and should not be seen as liabilities as this debt is collateralized. The better numbers to compare for "financial shape" are the "Govt debt to GDP" levels, respectively 67%, 83% and 100%. Additionally one should look at the current account for the countries in question. This shows a why Spain is in trouble even if its debt to GDP ratio is relatively small (67%).

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[shiftless]

It wouldn't be the US that starves as we have no issues with any food product that can be produced in the country

The problem isn't producing it. The problem is transporting it. And the other looming problem is, how do people buy food if their money is worthless?

Don't be so smug as to think a worldwide interruption in trade (due to, I don't know... World War III perhaps?) wouldn't hurt us. It could hurt us pretty bad.

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[TimothyDavis]

You are correct, the value would not simply drop by 8%. In order to sell the money, they will need to convert it to something else (since it is not backed by anything such as gold). The means that China will need to find a buyer for the currency - which they won't be able to do if the buyers see the market flooded with the product.

This does, however, give them a pretty powerful lever to screw with the US dollar.

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[X86Daddy]

With that verb choice, you insult hard-working courtesans all over the world. These disgusting creatures are selling other people's rights rather than their own labor.

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[ProfBooty]

You are aware that the US in the top three exporting countries in the world? The US is behind china and germany. The US still exports steel, airplanes, arms, automobiles, and agricultural products. There are also "soft products" like software, and financial services.

The US no longer makes lots of consumer goods. that is likely to flow to wherever it is cheapest.

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[Grishnakh]

The US still exports steel, airplanes, arms, automobiles, and agricultural products.

I call bullshit on this. No one outside the US buys US-made automobiles in significant quantities. How many Chevies and Fords do you see driving around Europe or Japan? Moreover, while American automakers do own several European automakers (like Opal), those cars are all made in Europe, not in America.

There are also "soft products" like software, and financial services.

Shuffling fake money around is what caused the crash of 2008. The way it's practiced here in the US, it's not a real product or service with any value.

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[Grishnakh]

And we'd be completely screwed for IT products, since we don't have the capability of making things like hard drives, motherboards, or LCD screens ourselves.

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[Grishnakh]

You do realize that the vast majority of the executive branch doesn't change when the President changes, right? For that matter, most of them carry on doing the same things they've always done, in the same ways they've always done them, often with no real guiding influence from above and sometimes contrary to instructions from above.

The President is their boss. If he isn't keeping them in line with his policies, then he's a failure as a President.

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[rtb61]

The US should watch out it could shoot itself in foot and end up shoving the bloody stump in it's own mouth. China is in a position to dump US dent back on the US by using it to buy up US copyright content and taking it back to China and rent it back to the US to further load it into debt.

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[alantus]

It is a real comparison, hence the word "proportionally", which means the debt per inhabitant, the rest is presuming that microsoft, no matter what, is going to keep on making money forever so Bill Gates, no matter how many money he owes, is going to be able to pay back: these are assumptions made by rating agencies as Moody's, where the same experts who could not foresee at all a quite predictable recession work for, btw.

For a real comparison it should be based on debt / GDP ratio, not on inhabitant.

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[Anthony Mouse]

I've been reading more about SOPA recently, and the list of opponents is actually relatively small. Most of them are internet-based service companies, without tangible products. Google's the biggest of the bunch, followed by Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo, and AOL. Everyone else is tiny--miniscule even--compared to the list of SOPA supporters.

Well who do you expect to oppose it? Chrysler and Home Depot, or some other companies in almost entirely unrelated industries?

Not only that, you're just blatantly wrong that there are only five major companies against it. Is Facebook "miniscule" now? Twitter? Wikipedia? It's basically every "internet-based service company" not in bed with Hollywood plus any company that significantly relies on the internet for their business.

On the other hand, everybody from cosmetics to media support SOPA. Every industry that involves a tangible product has at least one company or lobbying group within it supporting SOPA.

Major legacy media companies support SOPA. It is their stupid bill, is it not? The "cosmetics" industry or whatever you're talking about is providing nominal support if any.

But everyone else is in favor of SOPA. Everyone.

Don't be ridiculous. Most industries have no reason to care about it one way or the other. The only industry putting any resources behind trying to pass it is the legacy entertainment industry; anything else is just Hollywood lobbyists collecting signatures in exchange for a political quid pro quo.

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[HiThere]

That's a paraphrase of a historical incident involving George Bernard Shaw. (Don't remember the detials, but you could look it up if you're interested.)

And it was at a party, not in a bar...though I presume that alcohol was being served. (I believe that there were a few intermediate figures, also. And I don't remember what the original figure was, but it was in pounds, not in dollars.)

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[tragedy]

Apologies to you if you are unemployed, self-employed, or you work for a small company, but the President of the US is their boss in the same way that the president or CEO of the company you work for is your boss. In other words, the President is the theoretical big boss of the executive branch, but he's not actually expected to stop by each employee's desk every day to see how their projects are coming along. The President certainly isn't absolved of responsibility by this token, but neither is he directly responsible for every action of every employee of the Executive branch.

The "Executive Branch" of government consists of pretty much everyone who works directly or indirectly for the government who isn't part of the legislative or judicial branches, which means pretty much everyone. That includes people at state and municipal levels. It includes all the soldiers and the firemen and the police officers and the park rangers, etc. It's millions and millions of people. The President would barely have enough working hours during an entire term to read all of their names out loud. Do you think your typical RMV worker even notices much when the President changes?

All that said, I think that the Obama administration does pander to the interest of media industries in a corrupt manner. But this kind of copyright law strong-arming by the US went on during the previous administration too. Obama might be slightly more in the pocket of Hollywood than the last guy, but they all care a lot more about their corporate buddies than they do their actual citizens (and justify it to themselves and others using "trickle down economics"-style rhetoric).

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[EricScott]

If only I had mod points and could assign them all to one post. Sigh.

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[Grishnakh]

The President certainly isn't absolved of responsibility by this token, but neither is he directly responsible for every action of every employee of the Executive branch.

Wrong. Ever heard "the buck stops here"? A far superior President once had a sign on his desk that had this inscribed on it.

Now obviously, you can't expect the President to be involved in every single Executive branch employee's problems, like if there's some discipline problem or whatever. However, the President is responsible for setting policy, and if his underlings are setting their own policy in contradiction to his policy, then that President is completely ineffectual. He has the power to fire any underling under him, and in any normal organization, that usually means the person directly under him who isn't keeping his department in line. You talk of CEOs; do you think a CEO would stand for it if one of his department heads was running around making press releases contradicting the CEO's own statements to the press, and making the CEO look like a moron? Or do you think a CEO would stand for it if a bunch of employees in his company were doing things making the company look bad, getting them bad press, and the department head over those people refused to do anything about it? Of course not; the CEO would direct his department head(s) to correct the problem, and if they don't do it to his satisfaction, he fires their asses and puts someone else in their place. The whole purpose of an executive officer is to get things done.

The "Executive Branch" of government consists of pretty much everyone who works directly or indirectly for the government who isn't part of the legislative or judicial branches, which means pretty much everyone. That includes people at state and municipal levels. It includes all the soldiers and the firemen and the police officers and the park rangers, etc. It's millions and millions of people.

Absolutely wrong. Obviously, you're completely clueless about basic civics. The Federal government is distinct from State and local governments, and the Federal government has very limited authority over state and local governments (basically they threaten to withhold highway funds if States don't comply). So NO, the President is not the boss for police officers, any more than he's the boss for some random Securitas employee. If the Pres doesn't like some cop, the only thing he can do is use political pressure to remove him, and that's it. Why do you think Joe Arpaio is still in power even though Obama hates him?

However, the TSA is absolutely Obama's responsibility, as it's part of the Federal government and the Executive branch. So if TSA agents are molesting people, that's Obama's fault for not keeping a tighter leash on them (or appointing a Homeland Security head who will).

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[Bob9113]

Nice -- I love the comparison to Sarbanes Oxley. It puts the costs of DMCA or SOPA in a mental frame that most companies can grasp, because most companies experienced the transition from pre-SOX to post-SOX.

I worked on the SOX team at a Fortune 500, and it as horrifying. Out of every dollar we spent, we got ten cents of real value, twenty-five cents of something between numb step-following and malicious compliance, and maybe thirty cents worth of PWC checking our work to make sure the numb step-following was sufficiently pedantic. The other thirty-five cents seemed to disappear in little puffs of acrid smoke during the interminable thirty person meetings with no agenda.

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[sr180]

And I will sell you Australian Hard Drives, just to get around your trade issues.

"Packed in Australia from local and imported goods."

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[KingMotley]

Most of those things are made in Taiwan, not China proper.

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[Grishnakh]

Motherboards seem to mostly come from Taiwan, but hard drives are all made in Thailand and China these days. LCDs I believe are mostly Chinese now. What's really bad here is that America is perfectly capable of building motherboards: we have lots of PCB manufacturing and assembling companies here (though many seem to cater to the defense industry and have very high prices), and that could easily be repurposed to make computer equipment if necessary. However, building HDs and LCDs is different; our military even gets LCD screens from China for military hardware because there's no US suppliers. We probably couldn't make them even if we wanted to; we just don't know how, as all the manufacturing expertise is overseas, with foreign-owned companies like Samsung. It'd take us many years to figure out how to make screens like the typical LED-backlit 24" screens that are commonplace these days. It's probably not too different for hard drives; we don't have any factories here that do that kind of thing, as it's rather specialized. And HDs and LCDs are mandatory to build a computer. This still ignores all the other electronic components made in China (and other Asian countries) that are necessary for a computer or just about anything electronic: capacitors, resistors, various ICs, etc are all made in Asia now, and we don't have anything even resembling the manufacturing capacity to build such things. So even if we started making computer motherboards here, we wouldn't even have the components, including dirt-simple components like MLCC capacitors, to assemble them.

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[tragedy]

The President certainly isn't absolved of responsibility by this token, but neither is he directly responsible for every action of every employee of the Executive branch.

Wrong. Ever heard "the buck stops here"? A far superior President once had a sign on his desk that had this inscribed on it.

There are some tables you should look at in the wikipedia article on capital punishment by the United States military. You should note a number of executions for crimes such as rape and murder, including those from the year 1945 to the year 1953, during which time Harry S. Truman, the President you mentioned (unless you meant Carter, who apparently either had the original sign or a copy on his desk), was President of the United States. Despite the sign, Truman wasn't hanged or shot, nor did he experience any punishment or censure for these crimes. I'm not suggesting that he should, of course.

Now obviously, you can't expect the President to be involved in every single Executive branch employee's problems, like if there's some discipline problem or whatever. However, the President is responsible for setting policy, and if his underlings are setting their own policy in contradiction to his policy, then that President is completely ineffectual. He has the power to fire any underling under him, and in any normal organization, that usually means the person directly under him who isn't keeping his department in line. You talk of CEOs; do you think a CEO would stand for it if one of his department heads was running around making press releases contradicting the CEO's own statements to the press, and making the CEO look like a moron? Or do you think a CEO would stand for it if a bunch of employees in his company were doing things making the company look bad, getting them bad press, and the department head over those people refused to do anything about it? Of course not; the CEO would direct his department head(s) to correct the problem, and if they don't do it to his satisfaction, he fires their asses and puts someone else in their place. The whole purpose of an executive officer is to get things done.

Generally, in most large organizations, people who aren't at the top levels get on with their jobs the way they've always done them and only pay token respect to policies set by some ephemeral overboss. Top-level guys get fired (ok, they 'resign') all the time, but it's still generally business as usual for most of the organization. The lobbying groups manage to capture most of the important people and positions in these organizations as well as the elected politicians.

The "Executive Branch" of government consists of pretty much everyone who works directly or indirectly for the government who isn't part of the legislative or judicial branches, which means pretty much everyone. That includes people at state and municipal levels. It includes all the soldiers and the firemen and the police officers and the park rangers, etc. It's millions and millions of people.

Absolutely wrong. Obviously, you're completely clueless about basic civics. The Federal government is distinct from State and local governments, and the Federal government has very limited authority over state and local governments (basically they threaten to withhold highway funds if States don't comply). So NO, the President is not the boss for police officers, any more than he's the boss for some random Securitas employee. If the Pres doesn't like some cop, the only thing he can do is use political pressure to remove him, and that's it. Why do you think Joe Arpaio is still in power even though Obama hates him?

I know there's a distinction between state executive branches and the federal one, but it's not a bright line. Which executive branch are the various states National

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[Gr8Apes]

The problem is transporting it. And the other looming problem is, how do people buy food if their money is worthless?

Don't be so smug as to think a worldwide interruption in trade (due to, I don't know... World War III perhaps?) wouldn't hurt us. It could hurt us pretty bad.

You are incorrect - there is no internal problem with food production in the US. Additionally, the value of money is relative, and it's worth something to those in the country. If it truly becomes worthless compared to other world currencies, we won't be able buy anything external. However, since money has no intrinsic value, internally a dollar is still worth a dollar, the only difference is what it will buy. So we'll still be able to buy whatever that cob of corn costs.

WW3 won't end the world unless it's nuclear. Then all bets are off.

Re:correct response: "OK, put me on the list."

[msobkow]

Not to US interests in the sense of the entire nation or it's people, but US interests in the sense of an incredibly well funded and connected copyright enforcement and extension lobby that has seen millions of works illegally controlled by perpetually extending the terms of copyright. If you have enough money, you CAN buy government anywhere in the world -- no system is proof against corruption by determined interests with big budgets.

Besides, what's the harm in the US interfering in the legislation and rights of foreign nations? It won't create any new Taliban, an outraged Iran, a fearful North Korea, etc.

Canadians aren't pissed at the Americans for interfering with our drug management policies or proposed changes to them. We don't mind that they label us one of the worst pirate nations on the planet. No worries about the demands that we turn our selves into a police state so we, too, can pursue the chicken little terrorist threat.

*sigh*

The only ones who need to wake up are the Americans. Much as they hate it, fundamental human rights means that they do NOT get to impose their will, policy, law, or dogmatic beliefs on the rest of the world.

May Spain stick by their guns and tell the US to shove it.

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[chadenright]

So you're saying they're more like pimps. At least the work is easier on their backs.

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[dave87656]

Spain is bankrupt.

The US's financial situation isn't much better, actually.

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[dave87656]

Yes, I am proud to own a phone built in the USA ... by Western Electric ... in 1974.

I believe that may have been that last phone to have been manufactured in the US.

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[dave87656]

From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#Ownership_of_debt

As of January 2011, foreigners owned $4.45 trillion of U.S. debt, or approximately 47% of the debt held by the public of $9.49 trillion and 32% of the total debt of $14.1 trillion.[48] The largest holders were the central banks of China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Brazil.[50] The share held by foreign governments has grown over time, rising from 13% of the public debt in 1988[51] to 25% in 2007.[52]

As of May 2011 the largest single holder of U.S. government debt was China, with 26 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities (8% of total US public debt).[53] China's holdings of government debt, as a percentage of all foreign-held government debt, have decreased a bit over the last year, but are up significantly since 2000 (when China held just 6 percent of all foreign-held U.S. Treasury securities)

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[Grishnakh]

I'll admit they're getting better and better, but where was your car manufactured? An American nameplate doesn't mean that much; I have an HP printer next to me that was made in Japan (it's an older model), and HP's no Japanese name. Lots of American-name cars are made in Mexico or Canada, or in Europe. Fords all seem to be made in Mexico these days. I'm pretty sure the Aveos you mention aren't American at all, but Korean.

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[Chrisq]

It would be fun to see U.S. threaten China about blacklisting them. Oh, wait, they can't because U.S. is so dependent on China that it would hurt U.S. more than it would hurt China.

That would be like putting your bank manager on a black list knowing that you will need to renew your overdraft soon.

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[sg_oneill]

For all the jingoistic tea-party dumbfuckery of such a statement, theres actuallly sliver of truth in the idea that China owns a fair chunk of the US pie.

The chinese are a shrewd people, very frugal and clever and I admire them for that. A huge amount of the money that the chinese make are sunk into US investments in the private sector and loans to the US govt.

If the chinese ever decided to cash in those loans, or stop making them, the US would be in deep trouble.

So in a sort of way they do , in the same sort of way your bank owns your house.

Re:correct response: "OK, put me on the list."

[shiftless]

You are incorrect - there is no internal problem with food production in the US. Additionally, the value of money is relative, and it's worth something to those in the country. If it truly becomes worthless compared to other world currencies, we won't be able buy anything external. However, since money has no intrinsic value, internally a dollar is still worth a dollar, the only difference is what it will buy. So we'll still be able to buy whatever that cob of corn costs.

You obviously don't understand how the economy works. Read up on the Weimar Republic. Fiat currency is based on trust. When the public loses trust in it, it's de facto worthless. Runaway inflation occurs, just like in the Weimar Republic when people were pushing wheelbarrels full of cash into stores to come out with a loaf of bread.

You think everything is going to be just fine and peachy if/when that happens? Right now that's the course we're on.

Sure, we got plenty of food in the midwest. How the fuck is a truck driver going to buy a tank of gas to carry food from Kansas to your home, if you live anywhere out of state? Do you think he's going to be on the road at all, concerned about you eating, instead of going home to take care of HIS family when shit comes crashing down? All that abundant food you see in the supermarket? GONE in 2-3 days, if not resupplied. There are no stockpiles anywhere.

WW3 won't end the world unless it's nuclear. Then all bets are off.

The world didn't end after World War II. So then it's totally cool if we drag this world into World War III and end up getting blown to pieces, and possibly conquered by China and Russia? Yeah, that totally sounds like the bright, sunny future we should continue working towards. And if you think it can't happen, then you are in serious need of a reality check and wake up call.

Re:correct response: "OK, put me on the list."

[Gr8Apes]

You obviously don't understand how the economy works. Read up on the Weimar Republic. Fiat currency is based on trust. When the public loses trust in it, it's de facto worthless.

The world didn't end after World War II. So then it's totally cool if we drag this world into World War III and end up getting blown to pieces, and possibly conquered by China and Russia? Yeah, that totally sounds like the bright, sunny future we should continue working towards. And if you think it can't happen, then you are in serious need of a reality check and wake up call.

You must be using your "Jump to Conclusions" mat. Why refer to the Weimar Republic? Why not Zimbabwe which is current? But just because we stop trading with the rest of the world doesn't mean that our currency necessarily becomes worthless. You could see South Africa prior to the ending of Apartheid, the PRC before they decided to enter world trade, Vietnam after 72, N Korea, despite the people being poor, the country's currency internally is stable. The US has the largest gold stockpile in the world. It could go back to the gold standard if it wanted to or was forced to, which would mean the money had intrinsic value. So apparently you don't have a clue what you're talking about, or more to the point, you're arguing for a specific outcome based on insufficient facts and wishful thinking.

As for WW3, if you think we'd get blow to bits and/or being conquered by China and Russia, you have no understanding of reality, world politics, military logistics nor US policy. What's left of Russia's non-nuclear military might could be taken out by the US on a Sunday while throwing a picnic. China would be the one to worry about with conventional forces, but there's this problem known as the Pacific. The US is the only country in history to have successfully deployed large conventional forces overseas since the 1800s, and has done it multiple times. So being conquered is out. And just in case you are proposing that conventional air power can be brought to bear, witness every military action the US has been involved in since Vietnam. In the air, like on the sea, the US military has no equal. It would take decades to achieve parity.

Being blown to bits? Since we've established that conventional forces are out you're essentially stating that there would be a nuclear first strike. You are aware of MAD? You don't think that the end result would not occur if the US were nuked? Let's just suppose that every system in N America failed, and a nuke attack was successful with no counterstrike. There are still a rather large number of nuclear subs with a hundred or more warheads each that would launch right after. And no, they are not easy to find and destroy.

As a last note, I'm not the one arguing for war, you are. I don't believe we're heading there at all.

So rather than running around spouting random FUD, get a story together with some rational thought behind it backed by some facts instead of "Truth by Blatant Assertion". TBBA is as valid now as it ever was (ie, not, just in case you're unclear on the statement)

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[rev0lt]

Given that most governments would opt to assume a part or the whole sum of the finantial institutions debt in case of default (as it already happened in USA, Ireland, Belgium and Portugal), the government debt can actually change at any time. The link you provided has current account absolute values, and not in proportion to GDP, so it can't be used for direct comparison between countries without some math.

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[digitalsolo]

The Chinese buy a HUGE amount of Buicks. A few models of BMW are built exclusively in the US and exported. Those are just two quick examples.

Perhaps some research before you spout off would be in order.

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[cayenne8]

Well, there's not much anyone won't do if the price is right....self included.

And what they're doing....wasn't embarrassing or apparently, illegal.

If I was presented with the same opportunity as those ladies in the story, I'd have jumped on it too.....much like anyone else in the world.

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[rev0lt]

The dimensions of a country aren't in proportion with their economic power. But, if you think China will keep growing 9% per year focusing on USA as a market, and considering that 37% of their GDP comes directly from exports, you are mistaken. In fact, the chinese are investing a lot in both Africa and South America (specially Brazil) as a means to reduce US influence over their political and economic affairs.

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[rev0lt]

I never said they would "kill the dollar", and in fact I've mentioned how catastrophic it would be for the entire world. But the truth is that there is pressure by the US to increase yuan value, and that in the last 2 years they have been heavily expanding to ermerging markers, such as Brazil and Angola, so what is true today may not be in a couple of years.

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[jythie]

8% might not be a majority, but it is still a huge amount.

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[Grishnakh]

The Chinese buy a HUGE amount of Buicks.

Chinese-made or American-made? Just because it has a "Buick" nameplate doesn't mean it's made in the USA. "Ford" sounds like an American name but good luck finding a Ford that isn't made in Mexico.

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[digitalsolo]

Both, to be honest, but a great deal of them are in fact exported to China.

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[shiftless]

As I pointed out in another sub-thread, the problem isn't having enough of it. The problem is today our economy is completely based on Just In Time logistics. In an effort to cut costs, there is very little warehousing and stockpiling going on. Product is shipped on an as-needed basis, across country from producer to market.

Well what happens when the Euro crashes as it's about to, resulting in the collapse of all the world's fiat currencies and busted economies one by one, including the US? Or a sudden huge shock to the oil market (caused by, I don't know, over-aggressiveness against Iran?) which sends prices skyrocketing and people into mass panic?

When the trucks stop running because the truck drivers don't have enough room in the truck to haul all the cash required to pay for a tank of gas (due to runaway inflation, a la Weimar Republic, which is exactly where our current monetary policies are leading us), how are they going to stock those grocery stores? The shelves will be empty in three days.

What are the inner city people going to do? There will be mass rioting, complete chaos, and a lot of violence and death. And yes, leagues of people in New York City will starve to death, while tractors in Kansas stand idle for want of fuel, and millions of bushels of grain rots in the fields.

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[Thing 1]

As already mentioned, it's good to know the principles of the actors involved.

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[Thing 1]

Thanks!

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[Paracelcus]

You won't foreclose on a house that even the rats will avoid!

Besides without the US of WalMart who would buy all the cheap substandard shit that they produce?

Freedom

[alphatel]

Blackmail: you're doing it right.

Re:Freedom

[Synerg1y]

Not right at all, SOPA can still be worked around.

Re:Freedom

[SniperJoe]

Actually, this is more along the lines of extortion. "Nice country you've got here. It would be a shame if someone blacklisted it from trading with other countries..."

Re:Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, SOPA will make work for the police a lot harder.

As of now, it is easy to sit back and monitor connections, because people will do their business directly from their IP addresses.

Come SOPA, there will be a distributed, encrypted name system, and more people will move to offshore proxies. This will completely lock out passive spying, forcing LEOs to have to take an active role, either by blocking proxies by IP address, demanding endpoints have monitoring on them, or passing harsh, unenforceable laws, and then vacuuming up a script kiddy to throw a life sentence at as an example.

SOPA will just get P2P people to have to download an updated client. Law enforcement will be stuck out in the cold when all connections go dark as people start using VPNs as a matter of routine.

Re:Freedom

[danomac]

99% of the population would not understand what you are talking about. Yes, people will wind up updating their clients to get some sort of encryption which will be traceable back to their IP.

I can tell you if I ask teenagers today most won't even know what a VPN is.

It will affect casual piracy as people are thrown in jail to make an example. Hardcore pirates will use workarounds such as VPNs. The average Joe won't and will see people being thrown in jail and stop.

That's all they want.

Re:Freedom

[Synerg1y]

Don't you think the RIAA lawsuits have done something to this effect?

There's actual tangible value in piracy, it's not just a convenience feature of the internet. Robbing banks is illegal and they have spent hundreds of millions in securing them in that industry, but guess what I hear on the news a few months ago? Yep, bank STILL got robbed.

I imagine a serious increase in wifi hacking and a lot of misdirected finger pointing.

Re:Freedom

[Pi1grim]

It won't affect piracy. The only thing this is going to achieve is torrent client with built in i2p or something like that. It's enough for people to be scared enough that software developers of popular bittorrent clients (say uTorrent, for example) implement this feature in a user-friendly fashion (click here not to be traced on-line). And there you have it folks, stealth network that just got a great deal bigger and you have no idea what is moving along those "pipes" and where. Good job.

Re:Freedom

[LordLimecat]

Irrelevant, this isnt SOPA.

It looks, from this mini article (since noone seems willing to link to either the letter, or the law), like its more akin to the DMCA takedown provision. A content holder feels like their content is being illegally shared, they pass that on to a commission which determines if the case is actionable; if so, that is passed onto a judge.

Which, to my mind, sounds about right. Im not clear on why the commission is necessary, except perhaps to weed out unnecessary cases; but regardless it sounds like the courts do get involved.

Can someone explain to me how this is remotely similar to SOPA?

Re:Freedom

[Azuaron]

Disclaimer: I don't support SOPA. I want SOPA to die in a fire three times over.

That being said, this is not blackmail or extortion; it's economics, standard world trade policy, and foreign policy. If one country disagrees with the economic policies of another (and SOPA is an economic policy), then they apply economic sanctions on the other country. This is how countries relate to each other.

It's like, if I hated Walmart policies, I wouldn't shop at Walmart. I'm not blackmailing or extorting Walmart, I'm disagreeing with them and taking my business elsewhere.

I didn't see this kind of language when the EU said they wouldn't buy oil from Iran. Jeez.

Re:Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

The average Joe will see people being thrown in jail and stop, the same way that the war on drug was won, people stopped to buy drugs because the prisons where full of drug addicts and drug dealers.

Oups, wrong reality ....

But you are right, all they want is an excuse for more police state, it does not matter if SOPA works or not against conterfeiting, it will work at providing jobs to hight tech companies (to catch people) and low tech companies (prisons).

In conclusion, if you are a male less than 30 year old, the only really usefull "fight" is against prison rape and police brutality, because you "ARE GUILTY" (of something) and "WILL BE" subjected to some combination of these two (do not bet too much on the none and none combination).

Good luck, you'll need it....

Re:Freedom

[Nursie]

You miss one point - it's possible to make more sophisticated P2P programs.

I don't (personally) want to get involved in it due to prevalence of child porn, but tru darknets like freenet start to look more appealing.

It would also be perfectly possible to set up an encrypted multi-bounce net that connects friends to each other to share data. Direct connections need go no further than friends-of-friends, each one trusted because a direct friend has signed for them. Each person shares a list of media they can 'see' with their connections, the kevin-bacon effect ensures that the net eventually encompasses a whole heap of people who can now trade data across the world but appear only to be connected to local folks.

Traffic disguising algorithms like those used by WASTE can hide or at least randomise a lot of traffic and... well. There are attempts in this direction already with projects like OneSwarm.

And as pipes get faster all the time this sort of thing just gets more feasible.

(no, I haven't got the search algorithm worked out yet)

Re:Freedom

[Vectormatic]

There is a difference between US companies individually saying "we dont like how spain doesnt support SOPA, we wont do our business there", which your analogy would be like, and the US imposing nationwide sanctions on trading with spain.

Re:Freedom

[CCarrot]

Hardcore pirates will use workarounds such as VPNs. The average Joe won't and will see people being thrown in jail and stop.

Oh, I don't know. Five years ago, 'Average Joe' still thought a torrent was something you found at a waterfall, yet look at today. I look at the ever-expanding range of 'Average Joe' friendly clients, and wonder how those clients will evolve in reaction to this latest scare tactic.

In five years, VPN (or something similar) might even become the norm, and unencrypted systems will probably be something only your granny would use, because she doesn't know any better. Speed might take a bit of a hit if that comes to pass, but looking at the steady increases in processing power over the last 30 years, probably not.

Re:Freedom

[SniperJoe]

Would coercion seem more appropriate to you?

Coercion: Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats or intimidation or some other form of pressure or force. In law, coercion is codified as the duress crime. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way. Coercion may involve the actual infliction of physical pain/injury or psychological harm in order to enhance the credibility of a threat. The threat of further harm may lead to the cooperation or obedience of the person being coerced. Torture is one of the most extreme examples of coercion i.e. severe pain is inflicted until the victim provides the desired information.

Keep in mind that coercion is an integral part of extortion:

Extortion: Extortion (also called shakedown, outwresting, and exaction) is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups. The actual obtainment of money or property is not required to commit the offense. Making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit the offense. Exaction refers not only to extortion or the unlawful demanding and obtaining of something through force,[1] but additionally, in its formal definition, means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or making somebody endure something unpleasant.

Re:Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

standard world trade policy, and foreign policy

Just because it's "standard policy" doesn't make it just.

If one country disagrees with the economic policies of another (and SOPA is an economic policy), then they apply economic sanctions on the other country. This is how countries relate to each other.

Except this isn't about establishing mutually fair trading terms, it's telling Spain and it's citizens how to conduct their internal affairs. It's bullying, plain and simple.

Re:Freedom

[Anthony Mouse]

I can tell you if I ask teenagers today most won't even know what a VPN is.

You don't have to know how a thing works or even what it is in order to use it. If it comes automatically when you click the link that says "a new version is available, click here to install" then it's the sort of thing "most teenagers" can figure out.

In addition to that, people are talking VPNs because it's the existing technology known to be effective in circumventing SOPA. You can't honestly think that it's the only or even best way to do so once an economic incentive is created to produce one purpose-built to the task. Think about how P2P works for crying out loud: The pirate goes to Pirate Bay to get a 10KB file that provides information about a 4GB file. You don't think that could be modified with no noticeable increase in overhead so that the 10KB file comes through the same way as the rest of the 4GB, by seamlessly using something like onion routing through a non-censoring country for just the .torrent file in the event it can't be accessed directly? (Naturally you could prohibit such software from being distributed, which we all learned was so effective with DeCSS.)

The average Joe won't and will see people being thrown in jail and stop.

Just like the average Joe stopped when they started throwing around $2M fines, right? Right?

Re:Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point, and under the newly expanded definition of terrorism in the NDAA, that might constitute the ambassador being a possible terrorist.
 
On a different note, I wish articles would start to distinguish between Federals and the US as a whole. After all, it could have been either the Federals or just the US ambassador acting on his own behalf to influence Spain's government.

Re:Freedom

[Joce640k]

Hardcore pirates will use workarounds such as VPNs. The average Joe won't and will see people being thrown in jail and stop.

Nah, so long as it's easy to download/install people will do it.

Doesn't matter if they understand why they need it or not, if that what it takes to continue downloading then they'll learn to do it.

Re:Freedom

[forkfail]

99% of the population doesn't understand dns, http, tcp/ip - yet they use a web browser.

If it can be coded at all, it can be given a point and click interface.

Re:Freedom

[next_ghost]

Believe me that they will figure out what we've been talking about very quickly when the first SOPA victims go to jail. The harder the government stomps on file sharing, the easier it will get to avoid detection because software developers will come up with better privacy measures.

Re:Freedom

[AngryDeuce]

That 99% of the population will just go to the 1% that knows how to pirate shit. The cat and mouse game will continue. There are already informal "clubs" springing up just to share media. As it is now, many people in our circle carry their huge external hard drives around with them everywhere they go, explicitly so we can share media with each other. I'm the music guy, another is the movie/tv guy, another is the windows software guy, then there's the Apple software guy...hell, I even know someone that has almost any ebook I would ever want, plus thousands of comic books in a variety of formats.

The irony in all of this is, they'll spend or otherwise forego billions of dollars fighting piracy when they could put that money into providing a better product with more value and sell more than they ever did. The RIAA has been fighting music piracy for over a decade and what did they gain? Nothing. How many billions did they waste?

Piracy is like the hydra, you cut off one head and two more grow in it's place. Wiping out Napster just moved everyone to Kazaa and Limewire. Fighting Limewire just moved everyone to P2P. Fighting P2P just moved everyone to digital locker sites, and SOPA will just move everyone to encrypt their traffic and give rise to the sneakernet once again, and the only way they're going to police that is to start searching people...and once that comes to pass the U.S. Government might as well start putting it's affairs in order, because it will not last long after that...

Re:Freedom

[Ofloo]

Never heard of sopa, but i think i saw something like it, .. called acta, .. by law they would ban encryption, also who says goverment can't already decrypt your shit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_bERAf5KAg

Re:Freedom

[GameboyRMH]

It's enough for people to be scared enough that software developers of popular bittorrent clients (say uTorrent, for example) implement this feature in a user-friendly fashion (click here not to be traced on-line).

If switching to i2p torrents were that simple it would have been done long ago. No, all torrents have to be re-seeded on the darknet, all trackers have to be moved onto the darknet too. It's comparable to the switch from IPv4 to IPv6. And this may provide the incentive to put in the work.

Re:Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

99% of Napster users back in the day didn't give a flying fuck how it worked. All they needed to know: 1. Download this program. 2. Get free shit.

Most users of torrents only superficially understand how it works and don't have a problem using it. Click the torrent file, get free shit.

It's only a matter of time before any new file sharing tech becomes newb friendly. Why? Because the big-timers need lots newbs so they can be lost in the crowd.

Re:Freedom

[brit74]

Out of curiosity, aren't all trade conflicts categorized as "coercion" and "extortion"? For example, the US and Brazil had problems a few years back where the US was subsidizing US farmers, which caused low crop prices, which lead to difficulty for Brazilian farmers. Brazil started putting all kinds of tariffs on a variety of US products (I think I remember US computer equipment being part of the tariff). By your definitions, isn't that also an example of coercion and extortion on the part of Brazil against the US?

I'm not actually coming down on Brazil, by the way. I understand why they did what they did when they imposed or threatened to impose tariffs. I'm just saying that if we're going to be consistent, we can't go around calling US actions "coercion" and then look the other way when the same tools are used by everyone else in trade disputes. Afterall, this is standard procedure.

Re:Freedom

[SniperJoe]

I am not a foreign relations expert, but in my mind the difference between the two are that tariffs and commodity subsidies have long been tools in foreign relations, as they directly impact the prices of goods that are traded at the international level. While it is at least slightly coercive to attempt to manipulate the price of your goods as well as those of your trading partners, what the US is trying to do in this case is completely different. The US is attempting to force Spain to modify their national laws to take away rights from Spanish citizens by threatening to impact the trading relationship between the two countries. As the article put it "this serious step would mean that Spain was in breach of trade agreements and could be subjected to a range of 'retaliatory actions'."

If the US ambassador wrote to the Spanish government and said "If you don't make your country's laws mirror the US drug laws, we're not trading with you any more," would it be any different?

Re:Freedom

[maple_shaft]

... and that will work until corporations lobby to pass a law making it illegal to communicate with offshore proxies that do not keep logs. How easy it would be for law enforcement to keep a blacklist of IP's and then based on ISP logs serve arrest warrants to people in this country who have communicated with these.

Re:Freedom

[Bucky24]

99% of the population aren't really concerned with SOPA anyway.

Re:Freedom

[danomac]

99% of the population aren't really concerned with SOPA anyway.

They should be concerned... or rather they will be crying foul when they get sent to jail. Amazing how people just don't see this stuff coming.

Re:Freedom

[DeadboltX]

Until VPN clients get built into torrent programs, and companies start creating vpn services marketed directly at torrent users.

Re:Freedom

[Synerg1y]

Lol, I completely agree, there will come a day (when we can't escape having information critical to our lives on our computers) when encryption will become the norm and an unencrypted hard drive is the equivalent of an unprotected wifi network. Until then, the internet is much like the US west of yore, and unfortunately, the marshals are starting to move in, but gambling, prostitution, and whiskey still prevail metaphorically. I'm too young for usenet though, that was the west prior to the marshals, I don't think I missed out though.

Re:Freedom

[aaaaaaargh!]

99% of the population would not understand what you are talking about.

However, most users are able to download and click on an installer. It will only take one smart guy who wraps the software in a foolproof one-click "fire and forget" installer for Windows and suddenly the p2p darknet whatever software will be everywhere. The technology is already there, it only has to be made more convenient for the end user. Not so hard, really.

Re:Freedom

[Azuaron]

I'm not talking about companies, I'm talking about countries. Countries make trade agreements and trade embargoes with/against each other all the time. For example, the US has had all kinds of trade disagreements with Japan concerning various products that often resulted in sanctions, including:

1. Motorcycles
2. Cars
3. Textiles
4. Color TVs

This is the most basic way in which countries interact with each other. I'll tax you this much if you tax me that much. I'll let you sell motorcycle engines, but only the small ones so you aren't competing with our domestic manufacturers. Take a harder stance on copyright infringement or we won't trade with you. Stop killing millions of your own people (seriously, we mean it this time)! This is not blackmail/extortion, this is the capitalist free market at work on the international level. The US government is free to disallow business with any country it wants, just like any country is free to disallow business with the US.

If you dislike the sanctions your politicians are imposing, change your politicians minds (or, change your politicians; the MPAA/RIAA certainly do). But don't use incorrect language to describe their legal actions.

Re:Freedom

[brit74]

If the US ambassador wrote to the Spanish government and said "If you don't make your country's laws mirror the US drug laws, we're not trading with you any more," would it be any different?

Yes, I think that would be different. In the case of copyright, the US is concerned about people in Spain using material produced by US creators without paying them - hence, Spain's laws affect US creators - it's a trade issue. It's hard to come up with ways that liberal Spanish drug laws affect people in the US (with the possible exception that if a lot of drugs are going through Spain and into the US, then it makes law enforcement of drug laws in the US more difficult). But, other than that case, if the Spanish had fully legalized drugs, that's an issue that affects the Spanish. Copyright is more of a trade issue. (I recall an issue a few years ago, where a piece of hardware would allow the Nintendo DS to use pirated cartridges, and Nintendo saw their game sales cut in half in Spain - so this isn't a theoretical issue - http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201004190412.html ) If, on the other hand, Spain said that Spanish citizens are allowed to pirate everything they want from Spanish creators - that would be an internal affair.

And, it makes sense that smaller countries would benefit from eliminating copyright: being small, they aren't producing much, but because the big producers are outside their territory, they get other people's work for free without needing to send dollars overseas. The best possible situation is to declare yourself a sovereign nation, then you can pirate everything and you can still have other people (outside "your territory") obey copyright law because it's in effect where they live. Of course, I think the whole piracy thing is selfish and unfair to creators. This ultimately cuts to the heart of laws and fairness. Things aren't fair or unfair because the law says so. Pirates are apt to point out that "just because there's a law (copyright) doesn't mean it's a just law that we should follow". Of course, the whole issue comes back to haunt them because it also means the converse: "just because something is legalized in your country doesn't mean it's fair or right".

It's easy to fall back on "they should be allowed to do create whatever laws they want in their country", but I don't actually believe that's true as a general principle. For example, I hate when Saudi Arabia gives a woman 80 lashes for being in a car with a man, makes it illegal for women to drive, or Afghanistan or Pakistan have laws that prescribe the death penalty for converting away from Islam. But, I'm digressing away from issues of copyright and piracy. Or, to use another example, a few years ago, some people discovered a Disney World in China - but it had no affiliation with the actual Disney company. (http://www.japanprobe.com/2007/05/02/disneyland-in-china/) Some Chinese just copied the whole thing. Is this right? Is this wrong? Are the Chinese allowed to do whatever they want in their own country? What if a country allowed for-profit piracy? I don't agree with that either, and some pirates would also disagree with countries allowing "for profit piracy", but if were going to talk about national sovereignty, then I don't see how anybody can complain - it's just a country doing what it's allowed to do by it's own laws, and it the national laws allow for "for profit" piracy, then nobody has a right to complain?

I don't agree with Spain needing a SOPA law, but Spain has been pretty liberal with copyright/piracy in the past (Spain has previously said that non-commercial piracy is legal), so it's not surprising that the US would put pressure on them for that issue. I think a lot of people here are starting with how they feel about copyright and piracy and then arriving at a conclusion - as in: "I think piracy should be legal, therefore, the US should stop meddling in Spain's internal affairs." Perhaps an appropriate

Re:Freedom

[Nursie]

This is absolutely true, which is why you only connect to friends or people they have vouched for, limiting the damage to those who know idiots!

Re:Freedom

[bonbonne]

Don't know for average Joes in US, but here in France the week after they put the "3 strikes and you're out" laws in place, everyone was subscribing to VPN or Usenet services.
They start monitoring: everyone goes deeper to avoid detection. They then lose all kind of control/visibility they might have had before.
A bit like what is described here :http://wikileaks.org/wiki/An_insight_into_child_porn

Then you get to see fake VPN services, built by labels/movie studios. Not to mention those created by mafia groups to harvest private data...

So, SOPA (or whatever name your local government uses) might provide more control/visibility, but not for a long time.
What's next ? We'll be required to install a mandatory government spyware on our endpoints to be allowed access to the Internet ?

Re:Freedom

[badkarmadayaccount]

Suits me fine. I'm not the one keeping the Orwell brigade in office, hell, I'm not even in the same country, and I still say, suits me fine.

Re:Freedom

[badkarmadayaccount]

I'm probably younger than you (born '93), and I think I missed out...

Dear US of A

[Krneki]

Fuck off!

Re:Dear US of A

[toetagger]

The questions is: Will the people living int he US finally elect a competent set of leaders, or will this worsening problem require an external solution? I guess another alternative would be a revolution? How many more years like this?

Re:Dear US of A

[DC2088]

There's none on the ballot this year.

Re:Dear US of A

[ByOhTek]

Problem is, we get the same garbage up to the point where we are given a choice, so the question is not so much which candidate is good, as which maggot is the least rancid.

Re:Dear US of A

[jimmerz28]

We can't elect anyone who is competent until we somehow fix the lobby-centric corporate buyout principal the political environment is built on here.

People (like Obama) seem competent to voters and then turn around and act just like (or worse than) the previous administration due to their corporate entrenchment.

Re:Dear US of A

[Darfeld]

Yeah right, because American Joe understand it much better... Ho wait! Are you trying to say USA is now a third world hell hole?

Re:Dear US of A

[g0bshiTe]

That's not a question, it's not like we get to actually choose who to vote for. It's like you coming over to my house for dinner and I offer you your choice of tripe or haggis. Which is the better choice?

Re:Dear US of A

[gfxguy]

Of course there is... but he won't win because the MSM considers him "crazy." So much so they don't even like to talk about him.

Re:Dear US of A

[Anonymous Coward]

The questions is: Will the people living int he US finally elect a competent set of leaders, or will this worsening problem require an external solution? I guess another alternative would be a revolution? How many more years like this?

Many of us in the U.S. don't dare answer you the way we'd like to, because we're all being tracked and recorded. Hell, I'm worried about posting this.

Re:Dear US of A

[DC2088]

I don't like HIM, either.

Re:Dear US of A

[LordLimecat]

In all fairness, he is a little crazy. Hes principled, and might fix some things, all true, but still a little crazy.

Re:Dear US of A

[LordLimecat]

Lobbying is basically people banding together and expressing their opinion with promises of campaign money. Im not sure how you intend to get rid of that without curtailing people's right to vote, or to speech, or to the press.

Re:Dear US of A

[Anonymous Coward]

Lobbying by the people is one thing, Lobbying by the corporations is quite another. The problem is the Government does not listen to the lobbying by the people anymore and only listens to the lobbying by the corporations who are donating millions to the elected officials re-election funds. Until lobbying by governments is outlawed (never going to happen short of a revolution) we are stuck with this group of scum running the country and bending us over to the will of there corporate overlords..

Re:Dear US of A

[Man Eating Duck]

That's not a question, it's not like we get to actually choose who to vote for. It's like you coming over to my house for dinner and I offer you your choice of tripe or haggis. Which is the better choice?

Easy choice. Haggis is quite tasty, tripe... not so much. So, haggis :)

Re:Dear US of A

[ceoyoyo]

I guess we could start with trade sanctions. It's what we do to all the other obnoxiously aggressive countries in the world. It usually doesn't work so well though. Although in this case, it might, and even if it doesn't change the US's behaviour, it would force the rest of the world to become more independent of the last major imperialist power.

Re:Dear US of A

[Charliemopps]

Despite what many people here and abroad think, we don't really have a choice in who we vote for. Our political leaders work with our media to hype an issue that will get certain special interest groups making a fuss... like abortion, or welfare, or sexed. None of these issues are even remotely important but it gives our "two parties" something to argue about. On all of the real issues, that actually matter like tax reform, military spending, forign policy, trade, etc... Both parties almost agree entirely. Yes, they may sometimes pretend like they'd do things different. But in truth, the democrats start just as many wars as republicans and usually over the same issues like oil and "Freedom" We have a 1 party system, that parties sole interest is in staying in power. Anything that gets in the way of them staying in power, like angry copyright owners, gets their attention.

Re:Dear US of A

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's the corporations are a person / corporate lobbying, in particular, that's really hurtful.

Re:Dear US of A

[CCarrot]

Fuck off!

I think you meant: "Que te jodan!", or perhaps "Ándate a la chucha!" :o)

Re:Dear US of A

[jimmerz28]

I'm not sure what people you mean? Do the majority of voters band together to contribute money to campaigns?

No the majority uses (or fails to use) his/her vote. Don't you think the vote should constitute that? Why should the people have to explicitly pay to elect officials? Shouldn't that be part of how a democratic entity uses its funds?

The ones contributing money (at least the large bulk of it) are rich individuals or corporations which is why we see such large disparities between what people want and what corporations want.

Sometimes I wonder for how horrible it was how true Mutant Chronicles corporate states will become.

Re:Dear US of A

[thisnamestoolong]

With the amount of money that it takes to be a viable candidate for the office of the president of the United States, you can be sure that anyone you see on the ballot was bought and payed for long before you had any say in the matter. Couple this with the corporate collusion in media ownership to take care of 'outliers' (not that I agree with everything he says, but look at the time Ron Paul was given in debates in relation to his poll numbers), and you have a system where we really don't get a choice at all.

Re:Dear US of A

[jahudabudy]

Im not sure how you intend to get rid of that without curtailing people's right to vote, or to speech, or to the press.

Get rid of campaign donations, or severely limit them? If you believe donations deserve the same protections as political speech, please explain why. If possible, explain why that protection for giving someone money doesn't equate to speech in any other aspect of life, either in the legal or common sense.

Re:Dear US of A

[houghi]

They are politicians. What did you expect?
Power corrupts: News at 11.

Even if you are the best willed person and set up the best government (or even company). At a later date it will become corrupt and will look not at all the people, but at some of the people. So even if you start a 0% evil it will evolved towards 100% evil.

Revolutions are there for a reason. They are there to do a reboot to 0% and the the whole process starts over again.

I am not saying that a revolution is what would help. Not yet anyway, but it will come. No idea in what form or when.

Re:Dear US of A

[arkane1234]

Are we going on about Ron Paul?

Re:Dear US of A

[arkane1234]

Amen. Any "person" with the power of a multitude of people is obviously too powerful to be considered a person.

Re:Dear US of A

[jimmerz28]

Yep I just wish the citizens of foreign nations would understand that. Short of a revolt democratic change is slow and uneventful.

And I fear because of our sheer geographic size and population disbursement (in that groups who share the same ideas/ideals are geographically disconnected) we would really never get a good hold on a proper revolt.

Re:Dear US of A

[SteveFoerster]

Yes, although it kind of says something when someone refers to "that supposedly crazy person running for president" and disambiguation is needed.

Re:Dear US of A

[Sockatume]

Another: if world policy is to be forcibly harmonised with the US, should the world have a say in US policy?

Re:Dear US of A

[jamstar7]

Let's see. 140 million jobs in the US, from part time flipping burgers & delivering phone books, to CEO of $MEGACORP, and about 280 million people possible for the job market. I'm thinking, once you're locked out of the job market, you might as well be living in the Third World.

Re:Dear US of A

[forkfail]

Here's how you get rid of it: you demonitize elections.

This means that you force TV and the 'net to provide certain free services: specifically, access for candidates to air time and a certain amount of bandwidth for their websites. You force the ad placement companies to put political ads into their rotation. Then you make it illegal to give money to a candidate if you're a corporation, and cap individual contributions.

Of course, the Roberts court basically made this practically impossible at this point, but there are systems that would work. Perhaps not perfectly, but well enough to massively diminish the legalized institutionalized bribery system that we call lobbying.

Re:Dear US of A

[GameboyRMH]

Paultard persecution complex, ENGAGE!

Re:Dear US of A

[GameboyRMH]

Simple, you speak with your speech, not with your dollars. Problem solved, zero collateral damage.

Re:Dear US of A

[gfxguy]

But HE would be different and would not abuse the government the way establishment politicians in both parties have proven they do, whether you like him or not, he's the only one that really would change things.

Re:Dear US of A

[GameboyRMH]

Yes those call centers that aren't in the USA contributing jobs and tax revenue to the local economy. You win Mr. American, your penis so big!

Re:Dear US of A

[Nocturnal Deviant]

I don't understand why people blame "The US" dont blame us for our large population's relative idiocy. when you say "the US" you are blaming every single one of us. Personally I am an American and I feel as though our country would be better off sticking a bunch of homeless people in congress and the senate. I absolutely mean that...not to say they are less corruptable, but as it stands now I would trust a crackhead with my wallet more than a politician.

To give a good example I got some Politician sending me stuff in the mail(see: propaganda), and 90% of this 2 foot long bulletin he sent(in color and graphic design abound) was all a about the BUDGET and how we are so much in deficit. Then i noticed on the cover of this thing..in REALLY fine print..."The Design, Publishing, and Mailing of this was paid for by taxpayers." hmm...who are these taxpayers paying for this paper trying to get you re-elected....oh yeah...that would be me. So you are paying for all of this crap...with my money....I would love to see what he would say if i recommended him to pay for it himself...actually...I am going to call him now and tlak about it with him...or you know ill call his thousands of staff who will ignore the message...becuase he surely cant be bothered to answer his phone...the lobbyists pay him far too much for that.

Re:Dear US of A

[cheekyjohnson]

Lobbying is basically people banding together and expressing their opinion with promises of campaign money.

Well, I guess saying that they're going to give them campaign money would be speech. But I don't think that actually giving them money is speech (just like punching someone in the face probably isn't speech).

Re:Dear US of A

[DC2088]

Let the registered Repubs know and we'll see.

Re:Dear US of A

[Tokolosh]

This is like saying McMurphy is crazy, while everyone around him is sane.

Ratched is played by K Street.

[For those who don't get the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo's_Nest_(film) ]

Re:Dear US of A

[LordLimecat]

Joe CEO of MegaCorp wants to express his support of Candidate Bill Democrat He has written to Bill, indicating how he is mostly in line with Bills values, but thinks Bill needs to pay more attention to the needs of large corporations by reducing red tape. He has indicated that he has a desire to sponsor a campaign to get Bill elected.

Now tell me, is Joe not a person? Can you fix the lobbying "problem" without severely curtailing Joes rights simply because he happens to be successful?

We already have laws which limit the amount of money a single individual can contribute (which-- while I recognize has positive merit, still makes me uneasy because of the principle of telling people what they can do with their money); do you have a suggestion which would better address the issue?

Re:Dear US of A

[LordLimecat]

So, an individual is free to contribute to a candidate, only so long as they are not an executive of a corporation. Is that how it works? What youre talking about really is class warfare.

Re:Dear US of A

[LordLimecat]

That sounds great in theory, but what if I want to spend my money on advertising? What if I want to get on camera, tell the public that Im Bill Gates, and I support Joe Blow for president? You going to have congress create a law that outlaws that, and hope it is never expanded to include other types of speech?

Re:Dear US of A

[Krokus]

Elect Canada for President.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrhA0sEkuaM

Re:Dear US of A

[MrL0G1C]

If you keep voting for rancid maggots then you'll keep getting rancid maggots, so why vote for them?

Better to not vote at all, to the point potential good candidates will see a low turnout and think maybe they have a chance of winning if they enter the race.

Re:Dear US of A

[jimmerz28]

This: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2605666&cid=38599136

Like I said the vote should constitute our endorsement not our (ever failing) dollar.

Re:Dear US of A

[maple_shaft]

Lobbying is basically people banding together and expressing their opinion with promises of campaign money. Im not sure how you intend to get rid of that without curtailing people's right to vote, or to speech, or to the press.

As you describe it is perfectly legitimate and legal, where it involves private citizens.

Where it involves, public officials, foreign governments, foreign individuals and entities of ANY kind, or private entities that are granted special privilege by US law (ya know, like Corporations), it should be completely and irrevocably illegal.

Re:Dear US of A

[g0bshiTe]

It assumes that the guest would enjoy neither, but I have to agree I'd rather have the haggis.

Re:Dear US of A

[glodime]

I think that this is a good base:

Joe CEO can only spend X amount on Political Campaigning for Bill.
Joe can't use MegaCorp or its subsidiaries to fund campaigns.
Joe can't give in total more than X combined to Bill's campaign organization and any PACs that endorse or campaign in favor for Bill.
Donations to PACs & campaign organizations must disclose all sources of funds.
PACs & campaign organizations can only accept funds from individuals who are all subject to the total combined maximum donation rules explained above.
All funds not used in campaign organizations after an election must be donated to the government.

Any candidate receiving more than Y funds in their campaign organization receive some guarantee of Z (possibly $, TV air time, and/or Web server with minimum bandwidth and data transfer guarantees).

Candidates cannot accept total combined compensation above W from individual financial supporters or associated corporations of financial supporters for V years after an election or end of term in elected federal office.

Re:Dear US of A

[Kalriath]

Since the US appears to be writing laws for everyone now, can I ask when the rest of us will be permitted to vote in US elections?

Re:Dear US of A

[LordLimecat]

Your suggestion doesnt realyl say where the money comes from to provide access, nor does it say what bar is set before you get that access. Who is paying the media to provide this platform? Tell me youre not about to compel them to provide a service for free.

And what if Joe CEO wants to print his own 50,000 flyers for Bill Democrat? Is that now illegal?

Re:Dear US of A

[LordLimecat]

Arent a lot of those already in place? Disclosure, contribution limits, etc?

Re:Dear US of A

[zdammit]

Other countries manage it just fine.

Re:Dear US of A

[glodime]

Not exactly. Joe can currently use unlimited Megacorp funds and personal funds (but why use your own money if you don't have to) to fund PACs that do the campaign work on behalf of Bill and his Campaign organization with no disclosure beyond corporation xyz gave $X (where xyz's ownership is not disclosed).

Re:Dear US of A

[Trogre]

You had the right idea of what to curtail when you mentioned campaign money.

Re:Dear US of A

[HiThere]

I don't think he's crazy.

OTOH, I sure don't trust him. And if I did I wouldn't want his proposals written into law. He appears to want to remove all government control over what corporations and powerful individuals do to the rest of us. The governent is, indeed, far from perfect, or even mildly decent, but it's a lot better than the past history of uncontrolled corporations and "robber barons". That's faint praise indeed, but given the alternatives, it's the best I can do.

Re:Dear US of A

[HiThere]

You aren't going to get a better selection as long as you have only two candidates to choose between. Instant Runoff or Condorcet would quickly improve things, as it would be nearly impossible to buy off the entire slate ahead of time.

Re:Dear US of A

[jonwil]

The money to fund this access would come from the Federal Election Commission who would give every candidate a fixed amount of cash to buy whatever media options they think will get them elected (newspaper ads, radio ads, letterbox drops, TV ads, billboards, whatever)

Re:Dear US of A

[ByOhTek]

It doesn't work like that here :-(

Re:Dear US of A

[ByOhTek]

Your logic requires a minimum number of votes to get someone in.

All someone needs is "the most votes". So if there are three votes (each candidate votes once, and one of their spouses votes, for example), then you will have a winner.

Not voting does nothing. The best you can do is vote for "the best available" and hope that they see what works, and move in that direction to try to get votes. Unfortunately, since there is no consensus (a lot of people LOVE these rancid maggots), there isn't a unified direction to "improve towards".

Re:Dear US of A

[SteveFoerster]

It's a common misconception that libertarians love corporations. Corporate welfare is off the table -- in fact the whole concept of limited liability for one's actions that is at the heart of the modern corporation is contrary to libertarianism. I don't know about Ron Paul's specific positions on this, but when people think that less government means more powerful corporations, it means they've forgotten that it's usually collaboration between corporate executives and government decision makers that allows the most malignant corporations to become so powerful in the first place.

Re:Dear US of A

[MrL0G1C]

The best you can do is vote for "the best available" and hope that they see what works

This is why I hate first past the post voting systems, at least with proportional representation your vote for an alternative voice can be heard. Western voting systems are strongly weighted towards the largest parties.

In the UK the three main parties would all go to war at the drop of a hat, There's no way I will vote for them, I'd rather vote Monster Raving Looney (yes that's a party).

I wonder what America's next war will be, there's an war machine/economy to support, America's really dug itself into a hole with that one.

Re:Dear US of A

[ByOhTek]

I'm not arguing, our voting system sucks.

I'll take Germany's legislative system which allows (and encourages) more variety of opinion, and France's executive system of voting any day.

Next war? Who knows? I doubt it would be anything but a retaliatory thing (albeit, possibly very loosely logiced out, like Iraq), or the defense of an allie.

Re:Dear US of A

[HiThere]

I'm not talking about libertarians. I'm talking about Ron Paul. I've been reading his book. (To be fair, he frequently makes me so angry that I need to stop reading for awhile, so I'm only up to page 22.) So far he has addressed only the government as the enemy of liberty.

P.S.: I didn't limit my comment to corporations, and my intention was to list them as only one example of entities stronger than most humans in a legal context. Before corporations were powerful, there were the "robber barons". The crucial factor is that some individuals or groups were so much more powerful than the individual that the individual had effectively no chance to defend themselves against abuse.

P.P.S.: The introduction and the first 5 pages of the first chapter are so full of rhetorical tricks that I don't think I could EVER bring myself to trust him, even if I became convinced that what he was proposing was the correct approach. After that he has, so far, lowered his level of rhetoric to something more acceptable, but not only is it hard to forget that first part, I don't want to.

Re:Dear US of A

[SteveFoerster]

Fair enough. I haven't read any of his books, so I was responding simply as a libertarian. I'm aware that while a majority of Ron Paul's positions are what I would call libertarian, not all are.

Re:Dear US of A

[Magius_AR]

OTOH, I sure don't trust him. And if I did I wouldn't want his proposals written into law.

None of his crazy would ever see the light of day -- you do realize we have checks and balances in a Congress? All putting Ron Paul into office would do is change the political focus from "bought politicians accepting handouts from corporations to do their bidding" to "shrinking government to a more sensible size". That is a win if I've ever heard of one -- maybe our government would finally work for us for once.

Re:Dear US of A

[Keybounce]

That's not a question, it's not like we get to actually choose who to vote for. It's like you coming over to my house for dinner and I offer you your choice of tripe or haggis. Which is the better choice?

Well, Scooby and Shaggy won't eat haggis, so ...

Innovative ?

[Jimpqfly]

"the reputation of Spain as an innovative country" An *innovation* would be not to vote this kind of law ...

Re:Innovative ?

[Delusion_]

Agreed. The intellectual property cartel is supporting laws like SOPA, PROTECT-IP and the OPEN Act not because they are innovators, but because they have failed to innovate, and are looking for legal means to protect them from the failure of their increasingly irrelevant business models.

Dear Ambassador Solomont

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Fuck You, you miserable conscience free tool of the MPAA and the RIAA. May the fleas of a thousand badgers infest your brain, after all, you're not using it.

Re:Dear Ambassador Solomont

[Anonymous Coward]

Or may one honey badger rip his testicles off.

In about a 20 years...

[Anonymous Coward]

America will be the new China... everybody will hate your government, including the people who live there...

Re:In about a 20 years...

[g0bshiTe]

Your "in about 20 years" is more like now. I live in the US am a US citizen and I'm fed up with the way my government governs. What's worse is about all I can do to stop it is storm the capital.

Re:In about a 20 years...

[PhxBlue]

The difference between the U.S. and China is that (for the time being) Americans are still allowed to talk about how they hate their government. Whether the system prevents them from doing anything is a different story, but we can at least talk.

Re:In about a 20 years...

[Windwraith]

I am Spanish, and I love the US. Got a lot of friends from there, and I find them to be really good people in general terms.

The "people in charge", however, is something else entirely. But the same can be said of most countries. The worst of the worst is always governing over others.

Problem is, I am biased because I know people from the US...people who doesn't will possibly misunderstand government as people, and that's why we have wars and stuff like that in our world.

Now do you understand

[OzPeter]

Why a large part of the world considers the USA to be a big bully?

And yes .. mod me to hell for that.

Re:Now do you understand

[SniperJoe]

Being a big bully is one thing. It's one thing if we're a big bully on things like human rights. What's more distressing to me is that we're basically allowing the media companies to push the US into being a big bully for things that even our own citizens think is ridiculous.

Re:Now do you understand

[g0bshiTe]

I'd mod you up had I the points.

This is the reason I can't go to a foreign country to visit. I'm American and evil even though I have no control over my government. It's those assholes that are so disconnected with the population that make us all look like tools.

Re:Now do you understand

[OzPeter]

Being a big bully is one thing. It's one thing if we're a big bully on things like human rights. What's more distressing to me is that we're basically allowing the media companies to push the US into being a big bully for things that even our own citizens think is ridiculous.

Before the media companies there were other commercial interests that pushed the US government to do their bidding. Go back to 1893 and you'll find that sugar interests were responsible for Hawaii being taken over by the US. And that is just one example.

Re:Now do you understand

[marcosdumay]

If you only threatened countries to do things that are good for their populations, those populations wouldn't think you are a bully, and would laugh every time their media or government claims so.

The reality is that rarely the US gets involved on the internals of another country to make its people better. But they get involved daily in things that makes other country's people worse.

Re:Now do you understand

[Anonymous Coward]

USA only seems like a bigger bully because it has bigger economic muscles. You can see France and Germany throwing their economic weight around to the detriment of smaller EU neighbors. You see China throwing its economic weight around to the detriment of the SEA neighbors. You see Russia throwing its economic weight around to the detriment of its former satellites. Yet these other bullies are rarely the focus of internet moralists, many of whom live in or are more affected by their proximity to those countries.

Re:Now do you understand

[inviolet]

Being a big bully is one thing. It's one thing if we're a big bully on things like human rights. What's more distressing to me is that we're basically allowing the media companies to push the US into being a big bully for things that even our own citizens think is ridiculous.

Before the media companies there were other commercial interests that pushed the US government to do their bidding. Go back to 1893 and you'll find that sugar interests were responsible for Hawaii being taken over by the US. And that is just one example.

Yep. Not to mention all of the banana republics in South America, who had their approximately-democratic governments violently toppled by the CIA acting on behalf of American produce companies.

America has never been The Good Guy, it has just been a typical state out to get ahead at any cost... any cost, that is, short of allowing its citizens to discover that it is not The Good Guy.

That's why the diplomatic cable leaks are such a Big Deal, and the reason why Bradley Manning will get no popular sympathy. His revelations cause American citizens to feel cognitive dissonance ("We aren't the Good Guy? Really?")... and people deeply hate those who cause them cognitive dissonance.

I'm an American citizen and I feel ashamed about the degree to which my country has fallen to regulatory capture.

Re:Now do you understand

[DCTech]

I'd mod you up had I the points.

This is the reason I can't go to a foreign country to visit. I'm American and evil even though I have no control over my government. It's those assholes that are so disconnected with the population that make us all look like tools.

Yeah, this is actually funny thing. I'm European and I can travel to anywhere in the world and people will be happy to meet me and talk to me.

Then, I once met an ex-pat guy from U.S. that said he always has to tell people that he is from Canada because they would hate him otherwise, and that he rather does that than tell them he is from U.S.

Re:Now do you understand

[Roogna]

Actually, assuming from your statement you're not in the USA you might be surprised to find out that a whole lot of people who live here also think we're a big bully and should stop. The catch is, like most countries the majority is basically apathetic at best. Which makes it difficult for those of us who -don't- like the way our government is acting to change things. Now I happily look forward to Spain hopefully having the balls to continue to stand up and -not- enact a SOPA style law. Good for them. I also challenge anyone to find -any- country in the world where the people of the country don't have to deal with any corruption in the politics of the country. If you find one let us know, because I'm sure a whole lot of people would love to move there.

Re:Now do you understand

[poity]

Wait, you can't go to a foreign country because you assume they harbor group prejudice? I'd say firstly you need to stop insulting those countries, and give their people some credit (only the ignorant hate people based on nationality), and secondly you need to grow a backbone and realize you are defined by your own personal actions and not by those of your government.

Re:Now do you understand

[aintnostranger]

For a good example of that look at US "foreign policy" on Latin America on the 20th century. We've been a playground of tactics, social and not so social experiments, etc... School of americas used some of the French guys that had tortured people in Algeria as teachers for latin american army officers. Those army officers went on to run the dictatorships that kidnapped/killed thousands. It seems US citizens are now questioning the basic goodness of their government. We stopped believing in it decades ago.

Re:Now do you understand

[Andy Dodd]

I'm really hoping that Google, Facebook, etc. pursue the "nuclear option" that has been discussed. It will kill SOPA almost instantly, making SOPA politically untouchable. It will also serve as a wakeup call to politicians that they were meant to serve the people, not lobbyists.

At this point, we'll have serious egg on our face for implying that another country is a "bad country" because their politicians didn't want to commit political suicide.

Re:Now do you understand

[Captain Hook]

Or maybe their internet moralists are just not writing in English very much and so don't get picked up as readily in the US/Canada/UK

Re:Now do you understand

[HWguy]

America has never been The Good Guy, it has just been a typical state out to get ahead at any cost... any cost, that is, short of allowing its citizens to discover that it is not The Good Guy.

That's why the diplomatic cable leaks are such a Big Deal, and the reason why Bradley Manning will get no popular sympathy. His revelations cause American citizens to feel cognitive dissonance ("We aren't the Good Guy? Really?")... and people deeply hate those who cause them cognitive dissonance.

I wish I had mod points because this is just about the most concise description of American reality I've seen in a while.

Re:Now do you understand

[TubeSteak]

I'm an American citizen and I feel ashamed about the degree to which my country has fallen to regulatory capture.

Stop calling it regulatory capture and start calling it corruption.
Just because it is legal does not mean it isn't a corruption of the government's duty to the people.

Re:Now do you understand

[inviolet]

I'm an American citizen and I feel ashamed about the degree to which my country has fallen to regulatory capture.

Stop calling it regulatory capture and start calling it corruption. Just because it is legal does not mean it isn't a corruption of the government's duty to the people.

I used "regulatory capture" because it points to a solution, at least in principle. Whereas for the more general problem of "corruption", no one has any idea how to fix it. Religion used to be the answer ("The invisible old man in the sky who loves you will torture you forever!!!11!"), but that has lost all credibility these days. And with the college curriculum passionately certain that certainty is impossible (i.e. Skepticism), there is no alternative in sight.

Re:Now do you understand

[avatar4d]

Not that I think it is a bad idea that Google, Facebook, et al. do this, but how exactly is corporate "lobbying" going to:

... serve as a wakeup call to politicians that they were meant to serve the people, not lobbyists.

Re:Now do you understand

[hoggoth]

Wait... you mean we are the baddies?
That must explain the skulls on our hats.

Re:Now do you understand

[Anonymous Coward]

America was one of the Good Guys circa 1941-1945. And even that is debatable. I'm not gonna argue about whether or not the nukes were necessary (I think they probably were), but you don't get to be called a Good Guy for using them.

Re:Now do you understand

[Daetrin]

It's funny how when the story about the "nuclear option" was posted a few days ago people were questioning why/if it should be an international outage, rather than just for the US users. Sadly(?) it didn't take long for evidence to surface of why this is something that affects everyone in the world.

Re:Now do you understand

[GameboyRMH]

Exactly. It's just lucky coincidence that on one issue the interests of the common man align with the interests of some tech megacorps.

Re:Now do you understand

[Andy Dodd]

Because unlike corporate lobbyists, whose power stems from monetary campaign contributions, companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc have power that comes directly from their users.

Viacom, etc. could shutter operations for a week and people might just get slightly annoyed.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, if they coordinated efforts as discussed, could incite massive rage from the populace with only a 12-hour shutdown - and while some of that rage might go towards the people doing the shutdown, most of it would be directed at the politicians. Name a few direct SOPA supporters in your shutdown page and you've almost guaranteed they won't get reelected. I don't think any other organization on the planet has the power to completely destroy a United States politician's career in a matter of hours based SOLELY on what legislation they support (e.g. no dirt/scandals).

Obviously, that particular tactic can't be used often - but even if used once it will permanently alter the perceptions of many politicians.

Continuing the "nuclear" comparison - look at the effect nuclear weapons have had on global politics for decades, even though they have only been used twice as an offensive weapon in their entire history of existence.

Politicians have not been respecting the likes of Google because Google hasn't been a major player in the domestic political game. Use a weapon like this just once and that all changes - Google gets respect and power as long as they use it responsibly. (If they don't, that provides an opportunity for a competitor.)

Re:Now do you understand

[g0bshiTe]

You've a valid point, but consider those Germans during the Nazi regime that didn't want that group in power yet still had to live with the stigmata. I do realize it's stretching more than a bit to draw a parallel between the two examples, it's not the general populace that I would fear, it's those ignorant people you mentioned. Otherwise there's more than a few countries I'd absolutely love to visit.

Re:Now do you understand

[Trogre]

It's not just the media companies. Monsanto (you know, *that* seed company) seems to be buying legislation offshore now too. Take a look at what they're trying to push through in New Zealand, not to mention what they're doing in third world countries.

This kind of nonsense should mean jail time for the BoD that authorized this.

Re:Blocklisting allies over SOPA

[firex726]

Except by not passing the law Spain is not seen as an Ally.

Far too often in recent history the US seems to be taking a "With us or Against us" stance when it comes to other countries internal dealings. They either do as we tell them, or else...

I think its time

[future assassin]

to overthrow the US gov and burn down Hollywood. The two greatest threats to freedom since Hitler. Fuck em.....

Re:I think its time

[b4dc0d3r]

NDAA says you are a thread to the country, citizen or not, and can now be detained indefinitely. And no one is going to be able to counter the massive firepower, including automated drones, to make this happen.

Maybe 11 years ago it might have been remotely possible, but the republic is here to stay until people start starving in the streets (no citizens to tax) or another country takes over violently.

Re:I think its time

[caseih]

Yeah! Just as soon as I'm finished watching the latest Mission Impossible installment. Oh wait you said Hollywood?

Re:I think its time

[jvkjvk]

Nope.

The government would have to outsource the military action to another country.

They have the tech, but not the Will of enough people behind them to have predators shooting at people in downtown Peoria.

Re:I think its time

[currently_awake]

History is full of the poor having a revolution. And 99% of the time the only result is many dead poor people. Historically the only revolutions that work are when the supporters of the government change sides. For the USA that means when enough soldiers see their families thrown out in the streets and starving that they turn the guns inward and overthrow the gov.

Re:I think its time

[b4dc0d3r]

Historically that's true. But with automated and unmanned drones, it doesn't take that many soldiers willing to protect their country to supress a revolution. And with the firepower available, the willing soldiers will have the advantage over the people who don't get to take their airplanes or tanks home with them. It would take an incredibly organized bunch of rogue soldiers who gain access to military equipment and then turn on their leaders. I don't see that happening, do you?

The USA has already detained unconstitutionally one of its citizens (Padilla), and assassinated with a drone another (Al-Awlaki).

Fuck America ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so fucking tired of hearing how America is bullying the world into being forced into implementing legislation that is utterly flawed and is only there to serve the interests of the *AAs.

America can go fuck themselves if this is the best they've got.

Things like fair use are legal rights in other countries, but the USA is working to be sure that we all have the same lowest common denominator -- them.

I think someone should start passing laws holding the US accountable for the financial melt-down they caused, and for charging them for the implementation of the laws they've been ramming down everyone else's throats.

America has become a bunch of pathetic, whining cowards who are only worried about copyright, and making sure they can buy cheap oil.

Re:Fuck America ...

[spire3661]

We, the People, DO NOT WANT THIS. Politicians and businessmen do. We are as powerless as you concerning these matters.

Re:Fuck America ...

[NatasRevol]

Well, not AS powerless. But we'd have to group together, in VERY large groups, to do anything about it.

Re:Fuck America ...

[aintnostranger]

Powerless? You are not. Come back and tell me that after you get a big chunk of population marching on the streets and getting shot for it. In Syria people are powerless. So the government officials you guys elected don't act like they should?? Mass protest / strike till they are out of office. Until you try such things and fail you ARE NOT POWERLESS.

Re:Fuck America ...

[Andy Dodd]

The problem is that democratic process has become so broken down thanks to crap like Super-PACs (basically, eliminating what remaining restrictions there were on campaign funding) that the politicians no longer serve the people.

Re:Fuck America ...

[twotacocombo]

I am so fucking tired of hearing how America is bullying the world into being forced into implementing legislation that is utterly flawed and is only there to serve the interests of the *AAs.

Yeah, me too. Because it's not "America" that's doing it. I'm American, my friends are American, and I don't know a single person who supports this. Please stop lumping all of my countrymen in with this small handful of scumbags who are raping the world. Building negative sentiment against an entire country over the actions of a few really isn't going to do anybody any favors.

Re:Fuck America ...

[roman_mir]

POWERLESS?

The second amendment is not there for you to shoot at pheasants and burglars.

In any case, before that time comes, I think there is one step that can be taken to prevent the inevitable civil war in the country.

Ron Paul 2012.

Re:Fuck America ...

[Vectormatic]

Dont hide behind that though, do whatever you can to change things. Go vote in the primaries (both rep and dem if you can), vote in every election you can, vote out the incumbent scumbags you have in congress, and if you can, run for congress yourself! Change does not come from complaining about how powerless you are.

I never thought i'd say this (about a "republican" candidate anyway), but i hope you guys are succesfull in getting Ron Paul in the white house. I might not agree with him on all points, but he seems to have a modicum of common sense in his policies, and stands by his principles. Also, he seems to be the only republican whose first act wouldnt be nuking Iran.

Re:Fuck America ...

[FunkyLich]

This so true. I mean, there have been now several years (to put it mildly) that in my mind there is a downward and backward push that the USA is imposing on the World. I'm sure they have many good things, they have brilliant minds at work there, state of the art technology is produced there... these are what give it an edge. But damn it, all these don't justify this fervor to push others down when they try to improve themselves. Summing it up: You innovate? Fill this patent application form please, it's cheap, several billions. You produce raw product? Not without us protecting your factories from theft, for a fee. You have natural reserves? Can't sell em around, we have created a global legislation for that, it says you need to use our currency only. You have an idea? You bloody anarchist who wants to experiment with well established routine. You fell head down and now are seeing stars? Not without the stripes. You are an atheist? We shunned Bertrand Russell once, so shut up, you nazi communist materialist ethicless immoral piece of sh!t. Really, I don't like to generalise, but it is in moments like this when from the depths of my being comes roaring: Who do you think you are, you prime thief of the entire World? Live and let live, you idiotic cowboy!

Re:Fuck America ...

[JasterBobaMereel]

Your second amendment rights give you a gun, unfortunately the US government has a large and well equipped Army that will quite happily shoot you before you even draw your gun ...

the second amendment has been moot for years, and simply allows people to have a personal firearm that would be no use what so ever in any possible uprising that did not have the army on it's side (just like every other country...)

Ron Paul : 2/3 of the US population will never even consider voting for him since he is not a Democrat or a Republican, and only a small percentage of the rest would consider him a viable alternative them ...so unfortunately he hasn't got a hope ...

Re:Fuck America ...

[yabos]

Part of the US politician's plans is making the public lazy and complacent. It's working. In general, the USA population is getting dumber, lazier and fatter. Good luck getting all those dumb lazy people to get up off the couch and do anything about their failing country. You all know it's the truth

Re:Fuck America ...

[arkane1234]

You're not watching the news, I take it.

Re:Fuck America ...

[englishknnigits]

Yeah, America should learn to be fiscally responsible and not cause financial melt downs like Greece, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. They should be free and open like China. They should have a compassionate government that respects individual freedom like governments in the Middle East. They should not worry about natural resources so much like Russia. Oh wait, every country in the world does this shit, the US just has more power so it can get away with doing more of it. Give the US power/wealth to any other country in the world and they will be just as bad or worse. I'm not justifying anything the US is doing but they aren't much different than 99% of the other countries in the world. This "holier than thou" attitude you have is exactly what you are condemning in the US.

Re:Fuck America ...

[arkane1234]

The second amendment is there but so many laws dilute it to the point you can only own non-military weaponry essentially.

Yes, I consider an semi-auto AK/47 non-military.

Re:Fuck America ...

[bendodge]

He is a Republican, much to the party's chagrin. We had our first primary caucus two days ago, and Paul did well:

Mitt Romney ----- 30,015 - 24.6%
Rick Santorum --- 30,007 - 24.5%
Ron Paul -------- 26,219 - 21.4%
Newt Gingrich --- 16,251 - 13.3%
Rick Perry ------ 12,604 - 10.3%

He might be our last best hope, if he's doesn't have an "accident."

Re:Fuck America ...

[englishknnigits]

No, the problem is that the government wields enough power to justify things like Super-PACs. All the welfare cases and gimmie gimmies elect politicians that give handouts and kickbacks because they like "free" stuff. Then, they get upset when businesses also say "gimmie gimmie" and the politicians give them "free" stuff as well. Said another way, the problem isn't money in politics, the problem is power in politics.

Re:Fuck America ...

[stewbee]

I think apathetic would be a bit of an understatement. But have you seen who the Republicans are putting up? You run the gambit from crazy (Bachman, who is now out), homophobic (Santorum) to sleazy politicians that you know are just slimy (Romney, Perry).

Admittedly, I wouldn't mind someone who is more like Huntsman (the only one that I know of who actually supported scientists during one of the debates), or even Buddy Roemer (after seeing him on the Colbert Report who is at least showing some principle by not taking money from Super PACs and limiting individual contributions to $100). Now these two who might actually be sane and good for the country have no chance in winning the Republican nomination because they don't pander to the crazy.

Then let's look at Obama. He is pretty much right of center, and he is supposedly for the part that is from the left. It humors me to no end how people from the right actually think that he is 'socialist'. He might talk like he is from the left, but his actions have shown otherwise.

And yet one of these guys is going to be the next president. Pardon me while I don't get excited about my options.

Re:Fuck America ...

[lexman098]

Why do you have to get shot to make a statement? People are/were marching in the streets and getting arrested en-masse.

Re:Fuck America ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're right. The people are not being shot in the streets in America. They are having chemical weapons, banned under the Geneva convention, deployed against them at peaceful protests. That's much better.

Speaking as someone who was pepper-sprayed, beaten, and detained for a legal, peaceful demonstration, I'd say we've got a few problems here.

Re:Fuck America ...

[GameboyRMH]

Yeah like electing that guy who gave everyone HOPE and promised to CHANGE all this crap!

Re:Fuck America ...

[NatasRevol]

He hasn't changed anything. Left it basically the same as the previous guy/party. So what's your suggestion for actual change?

Re:Fuck America ...

[GameboyRMH]

That was sort of my point...

Re:Fuck America ...

[aintnostranger]

I am. Occupy is a good start. It needs more people.

Re:Fuck America ...

[aintnostranger]

Ok, to clarify my point a bit. The idea is not to get shot. Totally the opposite, use the freedoms and advantages you have (like not getting shot for protesting) and do *mass* protests. Tahrir square, that was mass protests. Colombia a few years ago had protests against FARC: 5 million people on the streets, that's mass protests. I sincerely admire everyone who protests on streets, like the ocuppy guys, but for protests to be real political power you need *quantity*.

Re:Fuck America ...

[jvkjvk]

Sorry, the US government does NOT have a large army that would "happily shoot you" on a mass scale.

At least if you are an American, on American soil.

Such a government might just be forced out by the military and protesters if it came to that.

Perhaps you lack any contact with people in the military and that is why you try to dehumanize them?

Re:Fuck America ...

[Agent0013]

Yeah, but grouping together gets you labeled as a terrorist. I even heard they were calling the Occupy Wall Street protesters terrorists. And with the current laws that you can be locked up indeffinately without a trial if you are a terrorist, then you don't even have the power to group together to protest what the government is doing any more.

When the ballot box is useless, and the soap box is illeagal, then the only option left is the ammo box!

Re:Fuck America ...

[misexistentialist]

Future of America: Ron Paul, 77 years old!

Re:Fuck America ...

[NatasRevol]

Sorry, I didn't see any suggestions for actual change.

Re:Fuck America ...

[g0bshiTe]

They all promise change.

Re:Fuck America ...

[currently_awake]

If you don't like the options then run yourself. There are millions of people that think like you, and even if you don't win you can use your votes to nudge the government in the direction you like.

Re:Fuck America ...

[Kalriath]

Ron Paul advocates a shift back to the Gold Standard, a move that benefits no-one... except the 1%. He's the biggest enemy of the common people that you have.

Re:Fuck America ...

[Trogre]

s/powerless/apathetic

Re:Fuck America ...

[Elaugaufein]

I can't be the only one who parsed that first sentence as the US causing the financial meltdown of Greece,Ireland, Italy and Spain. Especially since that wouldn't be completely untrue.

Re:Fuck America ...

[englishknnigits]

Yes, the US forced those countries to spend significantly more than they take in and forced their banks to make bad investments. Not saying the US didn't do those things too, just saying the US isn't the only one.

Re:Fuck America ...

[Magius_AR]

Why do people focus on the crazy and ignore the general message? That's like people throwing "the 99%" under the bus because there's a few nazis and police car defilers in the group. Ron Paul's more extreme agendas would NEVER make it into policy, so they're irrelevant. Congress would balance Ron Paul nicely -- all putting him in office would do is shift the general agenda from "big government, corporate shills, warmongers" to "smaller government, state-focus, isolationists" -- yes, it's not ideal, but it's a FAR CRY better than any of the alternatives -- both Romney AND Obama and already bought and paid for.

Re:Fuck America ...

[Intrinsic]

Voting in the primaries isnt going to do any good. Our political system is rigged towards special interests. Democrat and repuplican are playing the same game, the only way to get things to change is to change the political system not to allow campaign contributions from corporations and start shifting toward a 3rd party. But nobody is going to do that because they are locked into a state of fear that if either side wins it will just get worse. The first thing you need to remember is that things are always going to get worse before they get better, so it doesnt matter. Dont vote for candidates out of fear, vote your conscience.

Re:Fuck America ...

[roman_mir]

What do you mean "a move that benefits no-one except the 1%'?

It's the exact opposite - while the country was ON gold (never mind 'standard'), the economy was growing, USA was an attractive place for innovative entrepreneurial people who came from everywhere to try and do something that they couldn't do in their places of birth. Instead the gold was replaced with paper, which allowed enormous growth of government and gov't power, which destroyed any possibility to do business in USA and simultaneously gave rise to insane speculations fueled by the Federal reserve and various agencies, from FDIC to FHA, HUD, Freddie/Fannie and this insane gambling fueled by UNCHECKED CREDIT was the main reason for the debt crisis and that's what will kill US economy at the end.

Gold standard IS the 'regulation' that prevents this from happening - prevents banks and gov't from destroying the money, setting price of money, destroying private credit, growing uncontrollably and trading with non-existing money, causing massive leverage that will take down USD and bonds.

Gold standard is gov't politician and bankers' worst nightmare and it's the best thing for the 99%.

Re:Fuck America ...

[Kalriath]

What happens to the price of gold if the country is shifted back to gold standard? If you guessed "it goes up", you'd be right. So, basically people with gold see massive gains in the value of their holdings, and people without gold are further bankrupted. So, basically, the 99% get screwed and the 1% make bank. Again.

Gold standard is fine, brilliant even - unless you change off it. A shift from gold standard is one way.

I'm absolutely sick of it...

[g0bshiTe]

First I'm an American, I live in the US always have. I'm am just fed up with my government. How in the hell can they be so disconnected, and how in the hell do they expect to impose their will on other nations. Fucking hell isn't that what the initial settlers came over here to get away from?

Re:I'm absolutely sick of it...

[na1led]

The world's ruling class are taking over. They don't represent America, and their goal is to reshape the world to their idiology.

Re:I'm absolutely sick of it...

[L4t3r4lu5]

No. The initial settlers came over to get away from the oppression of their own religious ideals, but ended up oppressing the ideals of the nation they were settling. It's the same throughout history.

Re:I'm absolutely sick of it...

[Botia]

It's not even our will. It's the governments grab at power. Taxing and censoring the Internet becomes much easier when you can shut sites down at will. We'll see who's going to get voted out next election.

Re:I'm absolutely sick of it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. It's a nice story, but it's wrong.

The Pilgrims came to the New World to escape the religious freedom they had in the Netherlands. Seriously. They had left England and gone to the Netherlands, but discovered that their children, in the presence of a free country, were leaving their church and "becoming Dutch."

To solve this problem, the Puritans chartered a colony and sailed towards Viriginia. Being the expert sailors you might expect, they missed, and wound up in Massachusetts.

Incidentally, do you know why Massachusetts is a "blue state" today? Because of the Irish potato famine. Irish immigrants effectively overwhelmed the original descendents of the Pilgrims, and turned the state Catholic which, in the US, is liberal.

It's funny how this fleeing from religious freedom became "searching for religious freedom" but the reality was that the Puritans were allowed to practice their religion freely in the Netherlands and, eventually, in England as well.

But it turns out the only place the Puritan church survived (to this day, in fact) is Massachusetts. Everywhere else they had to contend with religious freedom, and everywhere else the church eventually died out. In Massachusetts they only had to deal with freedom of religion much later, with the Bill of Rights, which was apparently long enough for Puritans to have enough of a strange-hold to survive outside ideas for another two centuries.

Spain sent Columbus

[tekrat]

I find it so ironic that the USA is threatening a country that essentially found this side of the planet (admittedly, there were already people living here, but those indigenous populations are usually ignored by history books).

Secondly, exactly what items from Spain will stop being in Walmart if a trade embargo goes into place? And with "globalization", all Spain has to do is ship via a third party in a preferred trading partner status, like China or Canada.

And lastly, America is a failing empire. Apart from having a big military that they are borrowing heavily from the Chinese to pay for, they are no longer a threat. Rome lasted much, much longer, and was managed far better than the USA. A shame really.

Re:Why I love being an ex-pat living in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirated games and movies don't affect me, either. Does that mean I should shrug my shoulders and go "that's cute"? Fact is, while we should be concerned about copyright laws, it is YOU who should be MORE afraid of a country willing to censor "political stuff" You are only able to enjoy the life of an ex-pat because you have the luxury of leaving China whenever the politics do start to affect you.

A civil reply?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear United States of America,

We acknowledge your concerns over the political decisions of a sovereign state and, politely, refer you to the reply given in Arkell v. Pressdram.

Spain

Re:Why I love being an ex-pat living in China

[Anonymous Coward]

The local censorship is just political stuff so doesn't affect me. In fact it's quite cute.

...posted AC

Re:Blocklisting allies over SOPA

[marcosdumay]

I guess that will build a nice reputation for the US gathering more alies (and keeping their present ones) while it enters a war with Iran.

With that kind of posturing, people will think twice before choosing if they cooperate with the US or China...

The sad irony in this matter..

[Superken7]

Actually, thanks to Wikileaks we now know that the head of PROMUSICAE (the RIAA-equivalent in Spain), Guisasola, secretly pushed for having Spain included in the infamous 301 List. http://cablesearch.org/cable/view.php?id=10MADRID179
After Spain was finally included in that list, he claimed that being included in that list was "a national dishonor", and used this argument in order to push for Ley Sinde, the aforementioned SOPA-like law.

Only a few days ago, this law was finally passed. Most Internet users are against this law because it does not change which sites become illegal - it merely changes the *referee*. As a result, judges have been replaced by a commission whose members are privately selected by private lobbying parties (aka spain's RIAA). This might sound like something outrageous, but sadly this is exactly what has happened.
If this was not bad enough, keep in mind that this occurs right after *years* of judges ruling *in favor* of those websites that they want to take down (no hosting sites, just linking sites)

Re:The sad irony in this matter..

[Anonymous Coward]

Spaniard here. Totally true history.

More outrageous details: they carefully worded the law so that there are two judges involved in the process of closing a web page. And all they do is checking the paperwork is correctly done, not if the page should be closed or not!! Go figure... any web page the commission says is against someone's intellectual property will be closed in a hat's drop, and only after a pair of years fighting in the courts it will be ruled if the web page should come back or not. A pair of years, literally!! That's way too much for someone's starting a new bussiness on the net. This law is just a workarround since the judges in Spain where issuing "not guilty" to every filesharing case, since in spanish law filesharing was legal as long as you wasn't making money in the process.

And worst of all, there are so many fires in Spain right now, there's literally not enough people to fight back, because they are fighting back too many problems at the same time! Did you know Spain's health care system was universal and free as in beer (read paid through taxes), and they are trying to turn it into USA style private health care system? And that's just the iceberg tip...

Re:The sad irony in this matter..

[Colonel Korn]

Spaniard here. Totally true history.

More outrageous details: they carefully worded the law so that there are two judges involved in the process of closing a web page. And all they do is checking the paperwork is correctly done, not if the page should be closed or not!! Go figure... any web page the commission says is against someone's intellectual property will be closed in a hat's drop, and only after a pair of years fighting in the courts it will be ruled if the web page should come back or not. A pair of years, literally!! That's way too much for someone's starting a new bussiness on the net. This law is just a workarround since the judges in Spain where issuing "not guilty" to every filesharing case, since in spanish law filesharing was legal as long as you wasn't making money in the process.

And worst of all, there are so many fires in Spain right now, there's literally not enough people to fight back, because they are fighting back too many problems at the same time! Did you know Spain's health care system was universal and free as in beer (read paid through taxes), and they are trying to turn it into USA style private health care system? And that's just the iceberg tip...

No good - I've known too many Spaniards.

A: "Don't push it, putas", or?

[G3ckoG33k]

A: "Don't push it, putas", or?

A:"Mañana. Nos will do it mañana, gringos."

I expect the Spanish to show cojones over this.

Spain is not Mexico.

Re:A: "Don't push it, putas", or?

[ccguy]

I expect the Spanish to show cojones over this.

We didn't. But I see lots of comments here about the US being a bully. The problem (here) is not that the US is a bully, which isn't new, but that the Spanish government caved.
Also, to add some relevant info, this law was written with the previous government (changed last month) but passed by the new one. And this is a two party country (for being in power purposes I mean, there's lots of parties but doesn't matter much here). So you can see that we are fucked here.
Anyway - we do have a tendency to pass laws that eventually aren't enforced, so this can be just one of them. For example, and this is my car analogy, you can see what we do with traffic signs.

Re:A: "Don't push it, putas", or?

[G3ckoG33k]

" you can see what we do with traffic signs [youtube.com]."

So, you are the ancestors of the Mexicans! ;)

Still, sorry to hear about your president's lack of testicles.

Ok seriously, WAKE UP!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Obama administration supports indefinite detainment, preemptive use of force, the infringement of our rights, and now coercing other countries into stripping their citizens of rights.

WHEN WILL PEOPLE WAKE UP!!!!

Obama is not our savior, he is Bush the 3rd!!!!

What does he have to do to make you realize he is evil?

Re:Ok seriously, WAKE UP!!!!

[Pi1grim]

s/Obama/US government for the last couple of decades
There, FTFY.

Occupy this, occupy that.

[C_Kode]

They need to stop occupying parks and what not and start occupying the front yards and offices of the politicians that are trying to impose SOPA.

These guys are dirty and are obviously getting money in their bank accounts for doing this.

The media needs to expose these guys by putting their face all over the news papers, magazines, blogs, TV, etc. Expose these political criminals and get them the hell out of office.

Re:Occupy this, occupy that.

[b4dc0d3r]

From the meetings I've seen, they could be genuinely clueless and taking the word of someone who has enough money to take them out to lunch. Anti-SOPA people don't have connected lobbyists. Plus, the pols are proud of their ignorance and sneered at the experts who said this was a bad thing.

Politicians are always dirty, this is no exception. And they need to be shamed every time they do something stupid. But blaming it on straight up bribery is missing important points about the many ways Congress is dysfunctional.

Re:Occupy this, occupy that.

[lexman098]

It won't matter. Anyone capable of being elected in their place will be bought by the same entities. Unfortunately, this is a systemic problem and people will have to force themselves to drop their qualms with things like SOPA to focus all attention on 1. Making it illegal for a government official to take any money from any private entity and 2. Implementing a voting system that allows people to vote for a candidate (their true favorite) without effectively voting against every other candidate (that might be perceived to have a better chance at winning). This is the only way to produce "clean" politicians.

Re:Occupy this, occupy that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of us would be glad to occupy politicians' yards if there were enough people to make it more than a trivial nuisance for the police. Change your "They" into a "We", come to some meetings and get people to do it. That's how direct democracy works, not just by making a grumpy post on a tech news site.

Deliberate?

[JustLikeToSay]

Given the unhealthy state of the Spanish economy, what the new Govt there most needs is something to unite the country around to distract them from the austerity measures. You'd almsot think they'd put the yanks up to it ...

Rewrite that as "US threaten war with Spain"

[marcosdumay]

As a comercial embargo is an act of war, the replaced headline would be acurate. Remember that the US is still discussing if it should embargo Iran... Now compare to the decision about Spain.

It seems like Spain needs a nuclear program.

Re:Rewrite that as "US threaten war with Spain"

[tokul]

As a commercial embargo is an act of war

Could you tell that to USA, UN and Cuba?

Re:Rewrite that as "US threaten war with Spain"

[Hentes]

An embargo is not a blockade.

Re:Rewrite that as "US threaten war with Spain"

[marcosdumay]

See, the worst thing about not talking on your fisrt language is that sometimes you are sure of the meaning of one word, just to discover you were thinking about another one that is quite near, but different.

Or, in other words, forget it, my post was wrong. Very wrong.

addendum

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear US Entertainment Industry,

Fuck off you money grubbing whores. You'd trade blockade an entire country just becuase you think your 'entertainment' is the most important thing on the planet. FUCK YOU!

blocklists

[GeorgeS]

I think it's time the IT industry as a whole(worldwide) just stops buying from US tech companies.
Fuck it....let the big, rich corporations fight our battle in congress. When these big tech companies see their sales drop down near $0 they will panic and do almost anything to fix it.

I know I'll be checking out the "block lists" before I start building up another data center and with some creative shipping I can get equipment from almost anywhere in the world :)
I vote with my dollars too!

Great news for the conspiracy theorists!

[pla]

For everyone normally making fun of the tinfoil hat crowd, we have here nothing short of concrete proof of a vast (global?) intergovernmental conspiracy by the oligarchy to fuck... us... all.

We've discussed the technical merits (or lack thereof) of SOPA here on Slashdot numerous times, and always, the inescapable conclusion came out that we simply had Luddites and idiots for leaders. Now, we have a better, more accurate answer. Our leaders may still count as idiots, but they fully realize just how deliberately-bad a law they've crafted in SOPA.

Can you hear the drums in the distance, getting ever closer, Washington?

Maybe some will understand why...

[blind biker]

...from the distance of one ocean away, Obama doesn't look all that different from Dubya.

Re:Maybe some will understand why...

[arkane1234]

One thing most non-Americans need to realize is that America's president != an ultimate leader/decision maker
Most of the time, senate & congress make the stupid decisions and sometimes in there the president needs to either veto it or not.

Re:Maybe some will understand why...

[blind biker]

Well then, Obama should have fucking vetoed a lot of shit. Even if there was an overriding majority, he should have vetoed to show that he's against it.

Hope

you like indefinite detention.

President?

[tommy8]

Spain doesn't have a President

Same thing happened in Canada

[future assassin]

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/09/07/canada-to-u-s-please-blacklist-us/ and it wasn't really publicized in the media that the serfs read just some tech columns here and there. Oh, what came of it this near treason actions......nothing.

Really where the link to the Actual letter

[MooPi]

If there was a link to the letter or a copy of the letter included, I would consider furthering the public outcry against the Hollywood overlords. Until I get a copy of said letter this is just FUD.....

Spain's president?

[Meumeu]

In a leaked letter sent to Spain's outgoing President

Seriously?

Re:Spain's president?

[Meumeu]

Yes, seriously.

Guess what, there where elections in Spain on november the 20th. After that, there's a pair of weeks with a government in functions while the new president and his team takes control of the country.

You misspelled prime minister.

Re:Spain's president?

[compro01]

Prime Minster and President are both valid translations of Presidente del Gobierno. Presumably Prime Minister gets used more as English speaking countries are accustomed to the head of government in a constitutional monarchy being called that, as in Commonwealth countries.

Responsibility

[trptrp]

You US citizens at some point in future will need to understand that though we don't hate you, but your government and associated corporate behaviors, you have a responsibility for who represents you. If you continue to not uphold to that responsibility it get's harder and harder to respect you. As individuals you would laugh at me since I'm probably much weaker then you. But I know that we have learned a lot through time. Your nation is really young and there's so much collective experiences you never had. Please don't make the mistake and fight for north America staying like it is. I believe in better futures for everybody.

Re:Responsibility

[arkane1234]

As an American I agree with you, but unfortunately most Americans (including myself) are caught in a social-induced treadmill of life just to stay alive. I've been sitting and pondering just how to survive and fight the power (so to speak), and I've come up with nothing aside from saving up money and buying weapons, and dieing in a small-scale localized 'terrorist activity'.

Re:Responsibility

[jamstar7]

You non-US citizens need to realise that Americans as people have been cut out of the loop since Kennedy. We have about as much force available to us as a gnat's fart would influence the course of a hurricane. And it's getting worse every day.

We know you don't hate us (mostly), but can you do us a favor? Airdrop us AK-47s. Many many AK-47s. And not the cheap semiautomatic versions either. Ammo would be nice as well, and if you have any man-portable anti-tank missile launchers, that would be wonderful as well. You see, once upon a time, we had the right to keep and bear arms consistent with the military. Now, all we're allowed are nonfunctional cap guns, and they're coming for those next.

In Capatilist America...

[eagee]

We're the insensitive clods :-(. I find this so embarrassing - SOPA has like 15% public support and we're pushing it on other countries? *sigh* The worst part is that even though we can vote in new politicians, our electorate is completely broken; and I have no idea how to fix that...

Re:In Capatilist America...

[forkfail]

Well, since congress had pushback and delayed the vote until folks got weary of fighting (but the lobbyists won't get weary of lobbying, have no doubt), they probably figure if they can get other Western countries to go all draconian, it'll be easier here..

Re:In Capatilist America...

[Trogre]

You and I voted for this. WIth our wallets. We are the ones who gave mindshare and money to these companies that are now buying the laws we so loathe.

As for how to fix that, well I don't have a solid answer but stopping buying anything from the **AA, Monsanto, etc and buying local (and encouraging friends and family to do the same) is a good start.

Reverse blacklist

[dnaumov]

I am an equity investor and I have blacklisted myself from investing or holding any interest in companies that appear to support SOPA. I have also been motivating my colleagues to do the same and while some don't care, some do.

Re:Reverse blacklist

[CCarrot]

I am an equity investor and I have blacklisted myself from investing or holding any interest in companies that appear to support SOPA. I have also been motivating my colleagues to do the same and while some don't care, some do.

Hmm...good idea, I like it!

Thinking along those lines for the everyday shopper, I wonder if there is one of those ubiquitous barcode-scanner apps that can be used to check if that item you are considering purchasing is provided by a SOPA-supporting company? If not...maybe there should be? (IANAProgrammer, or I would design one myself, hint hint to all you creative brains out there... :o)

Heck, this theoretical app could even send a quick email (or tweet or IM or whatever) to the company, stating that congratulations, they lost this particular sale due to their affiliation with SOPA, have a nice fucking day! Boycotting something is not very effective unless the company knows it, and knows why.

Just a thought :)

Why Spain?

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

The Economist covered the reasons some weeks ago, starting at the sixth paragraph.

Basically, music sales ( real and online ) in Spain are at an all-time low. 10 million albums sold in 2010 in a country of 50 million people.

If there is any country in which the big media conglomerates feel they have lost, it is Spain. Little wonder they're pressuring to have Spain "punished".

Re:Why Spain?

[evelo]

Let's say the numbers are clean indicators, which I seriously doubt.

I'm not shocked only 1 in 5 people in a country in the midst of a depression bought an American CD last year, I'm shocked 1 in 5 people in a severely short economy DID buy an American CD last year.

Take a look at their usage breakdown. The poorest countries use P2P the most. Who's the braniac counting 'lost sales' here? Can he sue his educators?

If the US government wants more sales in Spain, we should send them more money. RIAA doesn't use the barter system.

Re:Why Spain?

[Alioth]

If piracy had disappeared altogether, though, Spanish album sales would still be at an all-time low. Unemployment is over 20% and salaries for everyone else have gone down, so it's hardly surprising that spending on non-essentials is at an all time low. In particuar, unemployment amongst the young (who are probably the people who buy the most albums) is around 40%. Piracy has very little to do with it.

Re:Why Spain?

[forkfail]

Libraries are just evil socialist plots to take money out of the pockets of the publishing houses. /snark

Blacklisting SPAIN???

[WaffleMonster]

Have they gone insane? People vote for these officials... blacklisting any country hurts the economies of BOTH nations... Not exactly something the US needs right now?

It is bad enough Cuba is still on the master shit list for reasons having more to do with ancient history and nonsensical rhetoric than current reality.

Then there is the issue where the effective result of the US system is screwed up. Copyright law in the US is controlled by micky mouse not rational people interested in the public good...not something we deserve to be "exporting" anywhere.

SOPA is doomed here

[WOOFYGOOFY]

SOPA is not going to pass and even if somehow, against all odds it does, it's not going to stay.

So why the hell should Spain's politicians go down that road only to be left there alone looking like assholes to their electorate?

Can't understand why this request is falling on deaf ears in Spain.

Re:SOPA is doomed here

[Creepy]

I'm on the other boat - I'm almost certain it will pass because congress has proven time and again that they are technologically ignorant and completely out of touch with how this is blatantly unconstitutional and will do it citing "the greater good," even though the law basically allows the entertainment industry to block any site and ISPs have to comply, which will never hold up in court. The main reason it will fail in court is because they can block sites that talk about piracy but don't contain any pirated content, and that is constitutionally illegal in the same way it is constitutionally illegal to not allow talking about, say, how to build pipe bombs and fertilizer explosives (as per the Anarchist Cookbook in the 1970s).

Incidentally, the law will not actually block the IP itself, only the registered name (so slashdot.org could be blocked, but 216.34.181.45 would not be), which proves that the writers are ignorant of how the technology even works. You enter the IP in the URL name and the block is bypassed.

If I were Spain I'd point out how completely broken SOPA is and that their attempt at it was also broken (though I don't know the reasons because I haven't read it, I'm sure they could come up with something).

Re:SOPA is doomed here

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Yeah but the Patriot Act didn't take anything away from corporations. The US is a corptocracy, where corporations are super-users with root access and people are garbage waiting to be collected.

Just ask the Tea Party.

Re:SOPA de gansos

[colinrichardday]

The problem here is that government is full of clowns who prefer to make noise with stupid laws and more stupid acts than really solve our problems

FTFY.

Re:Republitarians no better

[SeNtM]

I am far from being a republican, but I would likely vote for Ron Paul. He may be a loon, but he has been consistent and has shown a degree of moral aptitude, while other politicians pander to corporate interest. The Republican party has toted the line of less government influence for 100-years, yet, where are we? There have been as many Republican controlled justices, congressmen, and presidents, if not more, than Democratic ones.

Its time to put your money where your mouth is right-wingers...

Re:Do something, assholes.

[arkane1234]

awww, did your youtube connection drop?

This always comes to my mind ...

[Qbertino]

Whenever I read about DRM, TCP, software patents, SOPA and such, the below quote comes into my mind
Disclaimer: From the top of my head, not neccesarly a precise quote!

"Es wird sein, nicht lange nach dem man das Jahr 2000 geschrieben haben wird, da wird die Welt seltsames zu beobachten haben. [...] Da wird nicht ein direktes aber doch eine Art von Verbot für alles Denken von Amerika ausgehen, ein Gesetz, das das Ziel hat, alles individuelle Denken zu unterdrücken."

Rough translation:

"It will be, not long after the year 2000 has been, that the world will have a strange thing to observe. [...] There will not be a direct, but still a sort of prohibition of any thinking spreading out from Amerika, a law which purpose it is to supress any individual free thinking."

This is a quote from a transscibed lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in 1918(!). He was what one today would probably describe as an avid mysticists and esotheric teacher and lecturer, albeit one of the lesser crackpottier ones. ... He insisted that there is a spiritual world, and it's basically 'more real' than the world todays humanity percieves with their bodyly senses. Basically, one of his main claims was that Platos Cave Metaphor or the hindu concept of maya is a true thing. ... Anyway, never mind. ... What does get to me however, that throughout his lectures he did, not often but at times, give prognoses of the future, sometimes close to the prophetic and, as far as I can tell, until now has allways turned out right. The above quote being somewhat of a point in case.

Some of his stuff is really way out there, yet his advice on mental and spiritual excercises is very down-to-earth and effective, as, for instance, his advice on education. .. And whenever stuff like this comes up, I always wonder if he was on to more than one might expect.

For anybody interested, here's an english translation of the lecture.
Be prepared, some of this is deep mystic/esotheric stuff.
You have been warned. :-)
I do recomment his written books on spiritual training though, well worthwhile, even for the casual reader. ... The closest you'll get to becoming a Jedi in real life. :-)

My 2 cents.

Empty threats

[Hentes]

If the US does embargo Spain they will just route the trade through another EU country.

Re:The Real Pirates

[GameboyRMH]

You pay the tax and you DON'T pirate? You should pirate freely and without guilt!

Re:Republitarians no better

[SeNtM]

While I haven't read his book, A First-Rate Madness, I have seen a few interviews with the author... He has some interesting ideas regarding the US Presidency and some of its greatest leaders. Enough for one to conclude that maybe a touch of lunacy is exactly what those positions require.

Re:Spain has finally aproved the Sinde Law (Our So

[FreeUser]

If you fight against Sopa, you fight against Sinde. At this moment united states it's still strong (China and other countries are coming), but I hope you can imagine why is there such a strong anti-American feeling in a lot of people of Spain. I personally don't, but this ingerence in our liberties may lead to change my mind.

Hate our government as much as you like. We do. And we're as much its slaves as you or anyone else.

And yes, I still vote anyway, because as bad as things are, if the other crowd gets in, they can get a whole hell of a lot worse. And probably will, if not in this election cycle, then in the next, or the one after that. You are watching the final decline of a modern day empire, and it isn't pretty for anyone, on either side of the frontier.

Taxation Without Representation is Tyranny

[Tokolosh]

I'm ok with this, as long as you don't impose taxes on people/corporations/groups who are prevented from making contributions.

Re:Taxation Without Representation is Tyranny

[jahudabudy]

They still have representation. They can vote, they can go out and campaign themselves for their preferred candidate (actual political speech). Hell, they can lobby - write letters, make appointments to talk to the Senator, make phone calls, whatever. They just can't pay money directly to a politician. What fundamental right is violated by that prohibition?

Re:Taxation Without Representation is Tyranny

[Tokolosh]

They just can't pay money directly to a politician.

But they can fund a PAC? Take out an ad in the newspaper? Put up a billboard? Print and mail out pamphlets?

Nobody, individual or corporate, allowed to pay money to a politician?

If answers to all the above are yes, we are in agreement.

Re:Taxation Without Representation is Tyranny

[jahudabudy]

Yes, I can agree with all of those statements. Of course, you have to have some mechanism to fund campaigns. Publicly financed make the most sense to me, but I can see some arguments for severely limited personal donations. Both have pitfalls and complexities, but seem more desirable than unlimited personal donations (what we have now that allow individuals and organizations to effectively purchase legislation) or only personal spending (which would limit the candidate field drastically). Maybe there is another solution. Just about anything would be better than the absolutely broken system we currently have.

Spain? Seriously?

[snemiro]

Of course they will comply, but in order to proceed, 3 forms should be filled and approved by the king, then those forms should be legalised using a designated public notary (he's on vacation right now, until..well..we don't know....), and then those forms must be taken to the SOPA office, any Monday from 1 pm to 2 pm, only when it rains.

Spain is an EU member state

[jonfr]

Spain, as an EU member state can demanded action of the EU commission in this matter. As it is well known is that EU Commission does not take it lightly when the U.S starts bullying EU member states around and demanding things from them. This might get interesting...for the U.S when EU countries say no (maybe not UK however) to the demands of the U.S in this matter.

Re:I think we are just a little 'lost'

[Raenex]

Everybody says they are the "good guys". Who comes right out and says they are evil? The world isn't black and white, anyways, though the fight against Hitler and his dictator allies was about as black and white as it gets.

Excellent comedy sketch

[zooblethorpe]

Wait... you mean we are the baddies? That must explain the skulls on our hats.

For anyone not familiar with the paraphrased quote above, I *highly* recommend you watch the source of the quote, this short clip from That Mitchell and Webb Look, one of the funnier British comedy duos of recent years.

Cheers,

Re:I think we are just a little 'lost'

[Anonymous Coward]

Back then, the world WAS black and white.

Source: all video from that era.

Re:I think we are just a little 'lost'

[inviolet]

Everybody says they are the "good guys". Who comes right out and says they are evil? The world isn't black and white, anyways, though the fight against Hitler and his dictator allies was about as black and white as it gets.

Agreed; by then, Germany had really run off the rails. I also feel we did right by Japan, when we rebooted their society after the war and turned them into a Western-style state that is vastly more free and efficient than it was.

And to think...

[JAlexoi]

And to think that people frowned when the "commies" called Americans imperialists. Looks like the "commies" were right.....

Japan is *really* not that Western

[zooblethorpe]

Everybody says they are the "good guys". Who comes right out and says they are evil? The world isn't black and white, anyways, though the fight against Hitler and his dictator allies was about as black and white as it gets.

Agreed; by then, Germany had really run off the rails. I also feel we did right by Japan, when we rebooted their society after the war and turned them into a Western-style state that is vastly more free and efficient than it was.

I'm not taking any issue with your comment about rebooting Japan. And I don't take issue with your comment about Japan being freer than it was under the Tôjô regime.

However, the bit about "turned them into a Western-style state that is vastly more ... efficient than it was" suggests you've not spent much time living there. For all its outward trappings, Japan really isn't all that Western:

• The emphasis is very much on the group, not the individual.
• Authority is treated in a very different way.
• Conflict is avoided much more than what we see in the US or Europe.
• Japanese efficiency might not be as recent or as Western as you make it out to be. Read up on the story of engineering the Mitsubishi Zero for one example. Or look to how Toyota's just-in-time inventory management beat the pants off Detroit for another example.
• Ideas of personal interconnectedness and what each person owes everyone else in their lives are very different than in the West (a bit like karma, only backwards -- doing something good for someone when they're down is seen as taking advantage of them, because now they owe you; see Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword for an analysis that still holds broadly true some 70 years later).
• Ideas of time are different as well -- the US business obsession with quarterly earnings, and the consequent downward spiral in overall economic activity, just doesn't happen there, and companies still draft plans for the coming five to ten years (I'm not saying that these get followed to the letter, but even just thinking about things that far out leads to different behavior).
• Stereotypes aren't something to be abhorred and avoided, as in the US, but instead are a real basic part of how society functions, part of the cognitive streamlining that eases different kinds of social interrelations.

These are just a few of the bigger differences that I can come up with off the cuff. The biggest change in Japan from getting smacked down by the US was a broad realization that the Japanese people are not the best, not the godliest people, simply by dint of losing. Thinking they were the best led to mass hubris, out of the belief that everyone else was somehow less human. (... Some might extend that to the way the US has been behaving lately, but that's grist for a different mill.) From most else that I've read and heard about, however, Japan wasn't all that Westernized in the process. Modern Japanese culture has more in common with South Korea (and possibly even China?) than it does with the US or UK or EU.

Cheers,

No offence to the people of the USA....

[Antarell]

But you Government really needs to f@#$ off and mind it's own business. "Team America - World Police" is becoming a reality, and it's not welcome.

And Gary Johnson

[SteveFoerster]

There are more than two sides, and Gary Johnson, running as a Libertarian Party candidate, also opposes it. (He scored better than Obama or Ron Paul on the ACLU's civil liberties report card.) I expect the two people seeking the Green Party nomination aren't in favor of it either, but I don't remember their names.

Re:The Knights of Spain

[gzipped_tar]

And their grand master, King Carlos can just ask the loud whiners to shut the **** up.

Amazing...

[vikingpower]

...how a one-time superpower, now broke and beaten repeatedly on military, technological and other levels, still tries to bully its so-called allies. This is reminiscent of Athens' last days, before it lost all political, intellectual and military significance due to similar, gross misjudgings on its capabilities.

more to come

[ga01]

The new spanish government approved the mentioned law, just a week after. But the big stuff is being cooked in Brussels, behind the "pedophile" acts will come new measures in the European "Cyberspace" ( thats how they called it), a kinda SOUP ( that's the spanish translation of SOPA) of Nato, american contractors, and shitless euroburocrats, to firewall us and protect our decadent and civilised KinderGarden. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_zi9DfCXNw&list=PL392D4185A35E8F3C&index=75&feature=plpp_video Merry Crisis & Happy New Fear

Misleading infographic

[UpnAtom]

As well as including private debt, it excludes money that other countries owe Spain.

It is consequently misleading.

However, Spain does have a lot of private debt relative to assets following its real estate boom and bust. Domestic demand has consequently fallen. And they are stuck in the Euro hence bond rates are high..

No suprise here.

[krischik]

I started to think think the “commies” where right approximately 15 years and ago it became a firm believe when PATRIOT was implemented. So no surprise here.