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Global Online Freedom Act Approved By House Committee
Fluffeh writes "While it is a bit disappointing that companies might need a law to avoid providing tools that censor free speech to overseas regimes, an updated version of a bill that's been floating around for a few years — the Global Online Freedom Act — has passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights. The version that made it out of committee took out some controversial earlier provisions that had potential criminal penalties for those who failed to report information to the Justice Department. However, the Center for Democracy and Technology has raised some concerns: 'While some companies – such as GNI members Google, Microsoft, Websense, and Yahoo! – have stepped up and acknowledged these responsibilities in an accountable way, other companies have not been so forthright. GOFA, however, is a complex bill. While it presents a number of sensible and innovative mechanisms for mitigating the negative impact of surveillance and censorship technologies, it also raises some difficult questions: can export controls be meaningfully extended in ways that reduce the spread of (to borrow words from Chairman Smith) "weapons of mass surveillance" without diminishing the ability of dissidents to connect and communicate? How can – and should – U.S. companies engage with so-called "Internet-restricting" countries?'"
It'll be humorous when the U.S. finds itself in the "internet restricting countries" category.
Why do bills always have goofy names? Sopa, GOFA,Acta, you do the math....
Pretty soon, the US will have less online freedom than the rest of the world.
And here they come bitching about other nations?
Start by repealing the DMCA and the other crap that followed, and stop trying to impose US law on other countries, THEN you can talk about online freedom.
Does that include Snort/AirSnort? EtherApe?
Sorry, this is dumb. If the government is really interested in promoting "internet freedom" or whatever, they'd promote technologies to make it difficult to monitor or censor the internet. Of course they aren't going to take that path, as it would prevent THEM from monitoring or censoring the internet. Notice the bill only covers US businesses dealing with foreign countries, not the US government.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Oh yeah that's encouraging. At least we have a bill that doesn't suck out there.
doesn't understand that the profit principle happily and freely tramples over any human rights it can.
You need a democratic government (not a plutocratic one), regulation, to actually protect your rights from the capitalist imperative.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seriously, that's the only reason half (if not more) of these silly/terrible bills are accepted, because they tack on the word "Freedom"
Even though it's never freedom for the people. The only "freedoms" these bullshit things give is freedom for the government to trounce the freedoms of everyone else.
Our government is happy to surveille their own citizens (even with drones and cameras everywhere). So, essentially we can do it, but nobody else should!
So all of these companies will set up a factory overseas via a shell company to sell this equipment abroad. The parts get manufactured wherever, shipped there and assembled, and from there sold to whatever dictator wants to be an asshat. I haven't had a chance to look at the legislation, but I find it hard to believe they think this will work.
Bills are so crammed full of stuff that has nothing to do with what the bill claims to be about, and this will always be the case. The only way this will change is if a reform act is passed to limit bills to one subject. If bills were limited to one subject, and only one subject, then things would be clear, concise, and easily voted up or down. The reason why this will never happen is that there would be no way for politicians to slip there little pork barrels in anywhere.
Right, because this worked so well for SSL and other encryption technologies. Export controls are _clearly_ the way to go.
It isn't like companies will just purchase or open operating units oversees which they are majority stakeholders in and produce software there...
That said, it does have some symbolic value I guess, but we need to get rid of DMCA and crap like that first before we start talking about how we're taking symbolic moves to stop censorship :)
Have gnu, will travel.
While it is a bit disappointing that companies might need a law to avoid providing tools that censor free speech to overseas regimes
No more disappointing than the need to have laws to tell companies not to poison the environment, sell dangerous and defective products, commit fraud, etc.
The law has to recognize human nature. If all men were angels, we wouldn't need laws.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Let me see if I understand this...we are going to pass a law preventing U.S. companies from complying with the laws of other sovereign nations with whom they do business, if we feel that those nations are being oppressive to their people. Meanwhile, we ignore our own Constitution anywhere and any way we feel like it, because after all, you have a 4th Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable searches, but "this search isn't unreasonable" or "you voluntarily waived that right when you ____(fill in the blank with whatever activity you want)" or "it was necessary to catch the (pedophiles|terrorists|boogeyman-du-jour)."
Our word of the day, kids, is "Effing hypocrites."
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Can we make naming acts/bills illegal?
Yeah... we could call the new legislation "Ban Idiotic Titles in Congressional Hearings".
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
The problem is that, starting with the Nixon administration's visit to China, the US has systematically dismantled the protectionist policies that led to the greatest expansion in wealth and productivity this country has ever seen (1940-1960).
So now most of the tech and manufacturing capability is in other countries...try to find a single high-tech device that isn't mostly made in Asia...you just can't.
If we pass a law like this, all that will happen is the Chinese will build their own censorship solutions...they already have the factories and the talent...the only change this bill will cause, is that the profits from selling these oppressive goods will now just flow to Chinese firms instead of US-based multinationals.
Is censorship bad? Sure.
Is this law going to be an effective way to either promote US interests, or help people oppressed by censoring regimes? No.
Is protectionism bad? In the best of all possible worlds, where everybody has the interests of the well-being of the world's people at heart, yes. In the real world...as a country our #1 priority should be to look out for #1...because that's what all the other countries do...and if we don't, then nobody else will...anyone who knows anything about game theory / Prisoner's Dilemma knows that Cooperation is a sucker's strategy if the other players aren't also Cooperators...