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New Sanctions To Target Syrian and Iranian Tech Capacity
vivIsel writes "This morning, President Obama is set to unveil a new executive order that will allow the U.S. to specifically target sanctions against individuals, companies or countries who use technology to enable human rights abuse. Especially as repressive regimes more effectively monitor their dissidents online (rather than simply blocking access), the sanctions focus on companies that help them do that."
Now if only they'd use that on the TSA
So when do the sanctions roll out against ourselves? I'd say "repressive regime" that "monitors dissidents" applies directly to the US, no?
shouldn't have abusive Homeland Security.
All those other countries that do that nasty stuff. When the US does it, it's different.
Is this the same administration that has been falling all over itself giving retroactive immunity to telcos and other companies violating the civil rights of American citizens?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
"a new executive order that will allow the U.S. to specifically target sanctions against individuals, companies or countries who use technology to enable human rights abuse"
Good, start directly with yourselves, US Gov't. You're one of the worst offenders on this fucking planet.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It is far more dangerous that we are seeing an increase in executive order being the rule of law than the content of those orders whether justifiable or not. What little influence we have as voters is nullified by this side-stepping of congress and our system of government, however flawed it may be.
Is that the U.S. or European company that manufactures the products? Oh, no. They don't sell to customers in embargoed countries! Hold on a sec. I see a large order of "corporate internet filtering" products for shipment to the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain that needs attention. Amazing how much tech stuff those guys use!
Where was I? Oh, yes. Those nasty gray-market distributors. You know, the shell companies incorporated a couple of months ago? Yeah. Those guys are ruining it for everyone!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a large order of CALEA equipment for delivery to U.S. telecom firms to ship out. Between that and the systems on order by the U.K. and China the bonuses should be fat again this quarter!
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
They should start with the good old USA.
The NSA is currently building a huge data center to capture email, phone, sms, etc. data.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/23/more_secrets_on_growing_state_surveillance
This includes an interview with hacker Jacob Appelbaum, who has volunteered for WikiLeaks and now works with Tor Project and others.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Following on the heels of the article about how we've lost our trust in society, the timing of this article couldn't have been better. I know my confidence level just got another little chip taken out of it.
Since WWII the US Government has sanctioned entire economies and betold woes on those who would deal with them.
What, you want a list?
(note: this is by no means exhaustive. Just the ones that actually made the news. Source: own research)
China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Belgian Congo 1964
Guatemala 1964
Dominican Republic 1965-66
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Lebanon 1982-84
Grenada 1983-84
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1981-92
Nicaragua 1981-90
Iran 1987-88
Libya 1989
Panama 1989-90
Iraq 1991
Kuwait 1991
Somalia 1992-94
Bosnia 1995
Iran 1998
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia - Serbia 1999
Afghanistan 2001
Libya 2011
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I hope the US is not going to be hypocritical on this point ... after all, they're doing it too.
I'm sure the Europeans who are having all of their personal information handed to Amerika when they fly within Europe would be happier, not to mention all of the US citizens whose email correspondence is being tracked by the NSA.
Sorry Amerika, but you've developed a bad case of "do what I say, not what I do", which means you're losing your moral high ground to say such things.
And, cue all of the "but Amerika is the best, how dare you" posts.
This build up over the last year is taking to long, just start Vietnam II already.
We're already sanctioning Iran because they will take Euros or Yen for oil.
This is another straw for the camel; the American public is tired of invading Middle Eastern countries to keep the price of Texas oil high, so we need them to attack us.
Blood is already in the water, the sharks are circling.
Can we start with HP?
In Palestine, HP is deeply involved with the Israeli occupation. HP develops and profits from population-control systems that assist the Israeli government in the restriction of Palestinian movement, ethnic-based discrimination and segregation, and human rights violations.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/703/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1232244
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"Through its subsidiary EDS Israel, HP is the prime contractor of the Basel system, an automated biometric access control system installed and maintained by HP in checkpoints in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt).
Another control mechanism HP is involved in is Israel's ID card system, which reflects and reinforces its political and economic asymmetries and tiered citizenship structure. HP will manufacture biometric ID cards for the citizens and residents of Israel (Jewish and Palestinians) for the Israeli Ministry of Interior. In addition, HP also provides services and technologies to the Israeli army.
Furthermore, two of HP's technological services providers in Israel are Matrix and its subsidiary, Tact Testware, which are located in the illegal West Bank settlement of Modi'in Illit. HP is also taking part in the "Smart city" project in the illegal West Bank settlement of Ariel, providing a storage system for the settlement's municipality."
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Especially as repressive regimes more effectively monitor their dissidents online (rather than simply blocking access), the sanctions focus on companies that help them do that."
So then US gov, what you're saying is you should place sanctions on yourself and the companies that aid you?
AccountKiller
When the Saudi, Bahraini or Qatari governments buy "mass-surveillance technology" by the million-load, that lets them spy on all of their citizens, its perfectly "OK". After all, the Saudis provide the U.S. with cheap oil, Bahrain is another important oil-producer, and the Qataris provide military bases from which the U.S. can launch convenient wars against "rogue states" like Iraq. But when Iran & Syria do the exact same thing - buying snooping gear from the free market to keep their population in check - they are suddenly "evil", and "decisive sanctions" have to be imposed on them, and the companies. ------ Obama, either be fair and impose those sanctions on ALL surveillance tech vendors and ALL of their middle eastern clients (and perhaps the U.S. too?), or give your Nobel Peace Prize back, and let someone take office who isn't such a "double standards wielding" hypocrit. ------- The best solution to all of this would be to ban the creation, marketing and selling of mass-surveillance systems across the entire world. But where is the leader-class that could pull this off? Nowhere. The politicians who currently lead the "free world" seem to be far too fascinated by being able to "listen to" and "track" everybody within their state borders, to ever think about abolishing this practice in the first place.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
i) Indefinite detention without trial.
ii) Wars of aggression.
iii) Murder of anyone without due process.
iv) Total Information Awareness program
etc, etc
This seems somewhat hypocritical, unless this legislation can also be used against the US Government and companies like the RIAA.
hyperbole, look it up.
Americans will never see the Palestinians as victims.
Never.
The reason is simple too. They aren't. They have played the role of terrorist for so long now Americans find it difficult to separate the words Palestinian and terrorist. To be honest, the Palestinians have never given the world any reason to separate the two words either. No reasonable person believes that they want to be anything more than terrorists. If it walks, quacks and shits like a duck ... it's a duck.
Everything the parent AC listed has actually happened. So stop blabbering on about hyperbole and start catching up on your Greenwald:
*cough* Patriot Act *cough* NDAA *cough* assassinations w/o trials *cough* massive NSA spy center under construction right now
think you could've summed it up with Gitmo, but good enough.
That none of the "entities" targeted will be in any way related to the tech companies that help politicians get elected.
Total hypocrisy, as usual, from the corrupt banana republic of the United States.
Sanctions? I thought that was political speak for "shame on you". They don't do anything real.
Can anyone name an international issue or conflict that was resolved by sanctions?
DHS?
Liberty in your lifetime
Australia is an english speaking country known for such last I checked we weren't doing this.
Says the guy openly criticizing the USA with absolutely no fear for his safety or the safety of his family as a result.
So the tyranny that occurs in the US is invalid, simply because it isn't quite as blatant as that in Iran?
Yankee two face.
Obama & Co. are obviously not delusional, yet would resort to talking out of both sides of the mouth time and time again without fail.
The Americans basically have nothing left in the gas tank, and must resort to desperate straw clutching.
A drowning man is the most dangerous man.
TSA, NDAA, Executive Orders his inside circle buddies of Corzine of MF Global fame I could go on and on.
Human Rights Abuses Indeed, Obama should look out his WH window.
-Hack
PS: Oh, and just as a closing point. If you think gun sales are hot now, wait till Romney and his cohorts get into office. TSA will need every single one of those Hollow Point bullets....at last count, over 200 Million ordered for delivery....right between the eyes of every man women and child in USA.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Aren't them shooting themselves in the foot?
The CIA uses technology to spy in people and kidnaps people all around the world (Their "rendition" program).
Microsoft Craporation for enabling the repressive technologies.
Yours In Minsk,
K. Trout
Signing an order to have someone assassinated is obviously an abuse of civil rights.
Obama has continued renditions and torture.
He has continued the drone programs, and added some great touches like targeting rescuers of people in the houses the drones have blown up, and then targeting the funerals of all those people.
NDAA allows the military to arrest and incarcerate indefinitely anyone the President designates.
Sounds like a Hitler-in-the-making to me, and that is not an exaggeration, so Godwin doesn't apply.
The South was defending itself against aggression, but even more against terrorism. Lincoln made it clear he was fighting to "preserve the union",i.e., keep power over the region. The reason on the Southern side for secession was largely fear of agitators coming in and starting a race war (John Brown having been the most well known of the lot). Lincoln of course was not officially sponsoring this, but had made statements sympathetic to that cause, leading to doubt in his willingness to suppoess such.(On the other side, many in the North were none too pleased either with Federal agents coming and capturing any random dark person as an "escaped slave", evidence or not.) It led to a situation where there was not so much love lost between the sections.
A government supposedly based on the "consent of the governed" has considerable crust, though, starting a war which wound up killing 750000 or so people (or 30000000 total) (and wounding many more) in order mainly to regain its control over an area where the vast majority of the population demonstrably objected to it. To be sure, it had not that long before performed a major land-grab off Mexico with negligible justification. Nor has the US record been very clean in matters of places like the Phillippines and Korea (go study the TR administration).
It would be very good to have these kinds of proposals applied to behavior of the US government as well as to others. However the current administration seems at least as control motivated as others. This kind of thing ought to be accompanied by actions to moderate US behavior as well, domestically as well as abroad.
ok, that's all well and good I suppose but what about *cough* CHINA* cough that's been in the news quite a few times for it's firewall that monitors all of the citizens of china that use the internet and filters out most outside sites and or bans users that go around it.
So they are going to put tech sanctions on england?
Rocket Surgeon.
My ass
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
*cough* Patriot Act *cough* NDAA *cough* assassinations w/o trials *cough* massive NSA spy center under construction right now
Yes, all aimed at Al Qaeda and its affiliates that are making war against the United States, and legal under the law of war. The US Congress passed the laws behind them, as well as the Authorization for Use of Military Force. Al Qaeda is no longer being handled as a purely law enforcement problem. Bin Laden, as head of Al Qaeda, declared war on the US and launched attacks. The US is responding in kind. Not hard to understand.
You should probably see a doctor. You don't sound well. Of course you'll do less well if you take the fringe crank Greenwald seriously.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
NO COMMENTS
Yes, except that's a big pile of police state apologist bullshit with no basis in reality.
If we are "at war" with Al Queda, then how many captured Al Queda operatives have been treated as prisoners of war? The Constitution clearly states that habeas corpus may only be suspended in times of invasion or rebellion, making the NDAA and military detention flatly unconstitutional. The AUMF only applies to the people who actually attacked us on 911, not everyone we point a finger at ten years later and call them "Al Queda". If you weren't involved in 911, then the AUMF does. not. apply.
So see your own doctor and and ask him to pry your head out of Dick Cheney's ass. Then maybe he can give you some pills to deal with your tendency towards sophistry and fascism. Then pick up an elementary level civics textbook and brush up on your Bill of Rights:
New Sanctions To Target US Tech Capacity for Guantanamo prison and other human right violations.
Recipes for USA bankrupt - http://tinypaste.com/0d66f dd = dollar deluge (printed in the infinity)
Targeting human rights abuse and any tech helping to reverse engineer our misplaced spy plane, no doubt