Slashdot Mirror
RSF Names Names In Report On Online Spying
eldavojohn writes "Reporters without Borders has released a report on governments and the companies they employ to spy on their own citizens online. Syria and China were singled out as the worst with Iran, Bahrain and Vietnam not far behind. In addition, RSF named names when it came to the corporate entities (a market worth 5 billion dollars) that provided specific services to these oppressive governments: Gamma, Trovicor, Hacking Team, Amesys and Blue Coat. The report is aptly titled 'Enemies of the Internet' and, though lengthy, provides a detailed examination in the destruction of online rights as well as very specific attacks each government employs. RSF also noted the many attempted solutions to these problems and a link to their online survival kit."
While I realize that censorship and monitoring are nowhere nearly as bad in the U.S. and Europe as they are in the included countries (though perhaps more insidious for its subtlety and secrecy), I still would very much like a public shaming of the contractors who are helping those governments too. As big as the homeland security contractor craze has gotten in the U.S., you can't tell me that there aren't a bunch of companies out there happily helping the U.S. spy on its citizens (and you can bet it's happening in Europe and other Western countries too).
Your political party doesn't care about your rights and only represents corporate interests.
Any info from Reporters w/o Borders should be taken with a large grain of salt - is a dubious organization at best, a propaganda mouth piece for special interests. References:
"Reporters Without Borders Unmasked"
"Reporters Without Borders seems to have a geopolitical agenda"
"Source Watch: Reporters Without Borders"
What about domestic censorship, monitoring and even censoring on all foreign communications? Spying on their own citizens are internal affairs, could be justified on maintaining order, internal peace or whatever, but doing it for most communications of other countries or between other countries? Wikipedia is full of references on it, among others, And is acting on the information that is gathering.
What's domestic to you is foreign to someone else.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Twitter launched its own transparency report in July 2012. It focuses on user data requests by governments (the United States made the most requests) and on content removal requests by governments or copyright holders. Twitter has also undertaken to leave a “Tweet withheld” message whenever a Tweet is removed in response to a complaint from a copyright holder and to send a copy of each takedown notice to the Chilling Effects website.
Opponents of the proposed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA) say it will allow privacy to be violated in order to protect cyber-security. Although it seemed to have broad support in the US Congress, it caused such an outcry that substantial revisions were made to increase protection for privacy, the White House threatened a veto and a sizeable number of representatives ended up voting against it. A new version of CISPA was resubmitted in January 2013 and could come before Congress as early as April 2013.
United States
The proposed "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and "Protect IP Act" (PIPA) elicited a great deal of domestic and international criticism of the danger of unprecedented Internet censorship. Their opponents said they would prejudice countless Internet users who had never violated intellectual property by forcing websites to block access to other sites accused of vaguely defined copyright violations. The bills were finally shelved, but for how long?
Trial of WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning
US Army Private Bradley Manning confessed before a court martial on 28 February 2013 that he passed military and diplomatic files to WikiLeaks, including US embassy cables, the files of Guantanamo detainees and videos of air strikes in which civilians were killed, in particular the “Collateral Murder” video that showed a US helicopter crew killing Reuters journalists. He said his motive was to enlighten the public about what goes on and to “spark a debate about foreign policy.” He explained that he initially tried to give the files to the New York Times andWashington Post but could not find anyone who seemed interested. He also claimed that he chose the material with care in order to ensure that it would not cause any harm. Manning is facing up to 20 years in prison. Many NGOs have criticized the conditions in which he was being held as humiliating.
The European Union and many member countries were criticized as well but you can just read the report instead of having me repost the entire thing. Also, I find your logic laughable:
While I realize that censorship and monitoring are nowhere nearly as bad in the U.S. and Europe as they are in the included countries (though perhaps more insidious for its subtlety and secrecy)
By this logic, it is the Government of Antarctica that we truly have to watch out for. Their efforts of censorship are not nearly as bad as the U.S. and Europe (though perhaps even more insidious for its subtlety and secrecy since no one even knows they exist). Every time the US or EU attempts to censor something, it makes Slashdot's front page. Are you really so naive as to think they're so much more sophisticated than China that we can't detect the worst things they're doing? In China they have to rent access to the internet from the Chinese government! In the United States, if Comcast inserts a popup into a browser to notify users, it makes Slashdot's front page! How can you even compare the two or call the US more insidious? Hyperbole much?
My work here is dung.
" when in reality it is legislators that legislate that such tools must be used to control the population in the first place?"
In other news, using an army to stop an invasion is futile; because armies are what invade in the first place!
'Legislators' aren't some sort of global hive mind. The theory is that legislators in jurisdiction A would take action to prevent companies in jurisdiction A from aiding legislators in jurisdiction B from oppressing jurisdiction B. Since, as you say, the private sector is (or at least enough of it is that you can usually get what you want) amoral and mercenary, the only check on mercenaries in jurisdiction A would be either the total impoverishment of jurisdiction B, which would leave them unable to buy weapons, or coercive legislative pressure.
In practice, the likelihood of this actually happening has more to do with perceived national interest than any fancy talk about human rights. We are currently rooting for Syria's collapse, so some amount of legal pressure against those who assist Syria is quite likely(in the US, Russia the reverse). Bahrain, by contrast, is our bestest ever US Navy Fifth Fleet buddy, so it is exceedingly unlikely that anything more than cosmetic expressions of displeasure are to be expected.