Online Law Banning Discussion of Current Affairs Comes Into Force In Vietnam

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Online Law Banning Discussion of Current Affairs Comes Into Force In Vietnam

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday September 1, 2013 @07:08AM from the watch-what-you-say dept.

another random user writes in with news about new internet restrictions come into effect in Vietnam. "A controversial law banning Vietnamese online users from discussing current affairs has come into effect. The decree, known as Decree 72, says blogs and social websites should not be used to share news articles, but only personal information. The law also requires foreign internet companies to keep their local servers inside Vietnam. The new law specifies that social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook should only be used 'to provide and exchange personal information.' It also prohibits the online publication of material that "opposes" the Vietnamese government or 'harms national security.' Last month the US embassy in Hanoi said it was 'deeply concerned by the decree's provisions,' arguing that 'fundamental freedoms apply online just as they do offline.'"

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Pot calling kettle black by ckhorne · 2013-09-01 07:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

And the US is in a position to be talking about "fundamental freedoms"?
1. Re:Pot calling kettle black by MightyMartian · 2013-09-01 07:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The US government is all for fundamental freedoms, providing your use of them can be logged, queried at will and used against you later.
  
  --
  The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
2. Re:Pot calling kettle black by 0123456 · 2013-09-01 07:23 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The US government is all for fundamental freedoms, providing your use of them can be logged, queried at will and used against you later.
  Indeed. The US government wants everyone to talk about current affairs online, so they can easily flag and monitor the trouble-makers.
  The Vietnamese alternative is just so twentieth century.
3. Re:Pot calling kettle black by St.Creed · 2013-09-01 07:29 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The US embassy in Hanoi is deeply concerned about the situation in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the Russian embassy is deeply concerned about the situation in the US. Meanwhile, the Turkish embassy was deeply concerned about the situation in Germany. Meanwhile...
  Every government is deeply concerned with the freedoms of someone else's citizens. Even Putin is probably deeply concerned about some foreign citizens somewhere.
  It really breaks my heart to see all our leaders so concerned for the welfare and freedom of citizens that don't live in their own country *sniff*.
  Although I don't think the US embassy is wrong here. This decree is ofcourse a blatant attack on the rights of the Vietnamese people to have a say in how their country is run, which is undesirable as far as the Vietnamese rulers are concerned. The fact they deemed it necessary to actually pronounce this decree, however, gives me great hopes for the future, since laws are mostly made about events that are happening. Even the laws in Hammurabi's codex give great insight of the problems the rulers had in these days with the opposition. And while this decree is a big step backward, it also shows huge trouble brewing for the Vietnamese government.
  
  --
  Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
4. Re:Pot calling kettle black by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-09-01 07:31 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  And the US is in a position to be talking about "fundamental freedoms"?
  Depressingly, they do tend to bat above average RE: free speech: The feds are unnervingly interested listeners; but the list of subjects you can't talk about is very short.
5. Re:Pot calling kettle black by Seumas · 2013-09-01 07:36 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  America's leaders just got a massive secret erection at the idea of doing this, themselves.
  The first step, they've been pushing for ages. Control who can become a "journalist". Then license them. Then punish anyone "practicing journalism without a license".
  Oooh gaaaawd! I think they just came!
6. Re:Pot calling kettle black by wiredlogic · 2013-09-01 07:46 · Score: 2
  
  This decree is ofcourse a blatant attack on the rights of the Vietnamese people to have a say in how their country is run
  They don't have a say in how their country is run unless they climb to the top ranks of the party. Sort of like how the US is operated.
  
  --
  I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
7. Re:Pot calling kettle black by girlintraining · 2013-09-01 07:51 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The US government is all for fundamental freedoms, providing your use of them can be logged, queried at will and used against you later.
  No, I'm afraid not. Let's go down the amendments one by one and see where we come out:
  First amendment: Freedom of speech and the press.
  The United States has no Journalistic shield law. Basically, if a whistleblower drops of some incriminating government documents, publication can land you in jail. Failing to reveal your source? That's a one-way trip to Guantanamo. Then there's the designated Free Speech Cages, surrounded by police, cameras, and barbed wire, and usually located far away from a place where your protect might be visible. Failure to protest within the cage will and you in a different cage. Don't worry -- they pre-construct them for all major events at nearby warehouses.
  The right to bear arms
  In New York and elsewhere... yeah, no. There are so many examples of the constant attempts to remove this or at least regulate it to the point it is effectively removed, I won't provide more examples. Go look them up yourself.
  Not having soldiers quartered in your home
  Yeah... a guy was recently arrested, beaten, and dragged out of his house for refusing to allow the police entry, so they could pitch a tent and enact surveillance of one of his neighbors. The story has since vanished off the internet, and very few sites still have any information on it.
  Unlawful search and seizure
  The Department of Homeland Security has granted itself the ability to declare arbitrary constitution-free zones, which cover approximately 80% of the US population -- as most of the population lives within 50 miles of one of the country's borders, and that's one of the areas covered.
  Right not to self-incriminate
  unless of course, the FBI thinks you might have child porn. ...
  I could go on, but I think you get the point: They're not for all fundamental freedoms... they just want them on paper, but not in reality. Subtle difference.
  
  --
  #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
8. Re:Pot calling kettle black by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-01 08:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Well, you are not allowed to report about the government committing crimes against wiretapping laws, you are not allowed to report about getting "National Security Letters" demanding to wiretap and keylog your entire infrastructure, you are not allowed to publish videos of soldiers having video-game style fun killing unarmed civilians.
  On the plus side, you can lie under oath with impunity to congress without fearing repercussions as long as you are not lying about sex affairs or sports but areas of actual national importance.
9. Re:Pot calling kettle black by Anonymous Coward · 2013-09-01 08:09 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Hello, I'm posting this from Vietnam so I can't discuss your comment but I would like to tell you about my family:
  My uncle Acirema pretends to be a generous and liberal man but runs his family with an iron fist, monitoring all his kids activities. Yet he also likes to complain to everyone about how uncle Manteiv doesn't let his kids go out after school or talk to anyone.
  Uncle Manteiv meanwhile says he's doing it for his kids security and points out that aunt Aissur does worse by intercepting her kids emails and changing the content before they're sent out.
  Aunt Aissur herself had to give shelter to one of uncle Acirema's kids who was really scared of being brutally punished after telling his school mates about his dad's snoopings.
  Grandpa Anihc is the best, he also runs his household with an iron fist but readily admits to it.
  I'll be back later to tell you about how uncle Acimera wants to take over aunt Airys' house because she has the best apple trees in town. Of course he can't say that outright so he claims she poured bleach into her kids' soup, although rumor has it that the kids were the ones who tried to poison her instead.
10. Re:Pot calling kettle black by cold+fjord · 2013-09-01 08:21 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Indeed. The US government wants everyone to talk about current affairs online, so they can easily flag and monitor the trouble-makers.
  Where " trouble-makers" is the set of people trying to use truck bombs, car bombs, and suicide vests, plus various experiments with poison gas and plague, to kill masses of innocent people, yes.
  
  --
  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
11. Re:Pot calling kettle black by phantomfive · 2013-09-01 08:44 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah... a guy was recently arrested, beaten, and dragged out of his house for refusing to allow the police entry, so they could pitch a tent and enact surveillance of one of his neighbors. The story has since vanished [huffingtonpost.com] off the internet, and very few sites still have any information on it.
  When that kind of story disappears off the internet, it's usually because it wasn't very reliable to begin with, and the original source was found to be a liar, or otherwise.
  
  With a 24-hour news cycle, it's easy to get up in stories and publish them without checking the sources first.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
12. Re:Pot calling kettle black by phantomfive · 2013-09-01 08:45 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Well, you are not allowed to report about the government committing crimes against wiretapping laws, you are not allowed to report about getting "National Security Letters" demanding to wiretap and keylog your entire infrastructure,
  That might not be true. It's in the courts right now, I fully expect it to be overturned.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
13. Re: Pot calling kettle black by DigiShaman · 2013-09-01 09:16 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Barbara Boxer already made a statement that you are not a journalist unless you draw a salary. This was in response to the topic of Internet blogging. Durbin and Harry Reid already weighed in on the same.
  http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/07/03/Durbin-Wants-Government-to-Decide-Who-is-a-Journalist
  
  --
  Life is not for the lazy.
14. Re:Pot calling kettle black by Sabriel · 2013-09-01 09:18 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/07/anthony-mitchell-lawsuit-third-amendment-_n_3557431.html
  http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/henderson.pdf - Case 2:13-cv-01154-APG-CWH United States District Court District of Nevada
  
  19. After Plaintiff ANTHONY MITCHELL refused to allow the police to enter his home, the De-fendant police officers, including Defendants SERGEANT MICHAEL WALLER, OFFICER DAVID CAWTHORN and OFFICER CHRISTOPHER WORLEY, conspired among themselves to force AN-THONY MITCHELL out of his residence and to occupy his home for their own use. Defendant OFFICER DAVID CAWTHORN outlined the Defendants’ plan in his official report:
  
  It was determined to move to 367 Evening Side and attempt to contact Mitchell. If Mitchell answered the door he would be asked to leave. If he refused to leave he would be arrested for Obstructing a Police Officer. If Mitchell refused to answer the door, force entry would be made and Mitchell would be arrested.
  That's a nice Catch-22 you've created there, Officer. Pity about that pesky Third Amendment (plaintiff is also suing under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments as well).
15. Re:Pot calling kettle black by dmbasso · 2013-09-01 10:09 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Because no government would ever abuse such powers, turning into a totalitarian regime without hope of reverting back to democracy, right[U+2e2e]
  If you want to take the risk, then you're really stupid. Unless for you it is not a risk, but the objective. Then you're waaaay more stupid than I thought.
  
  --
  `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
16. Re:Pot calling kettle black by Zero__Kelvin · 2013-09-01 10:27 · Score: 2
  
  ... you forgot those that want to fly on and airplane and have views that aren't in line with government double-think, those who would expose the unconstitutional behavior of the government, and generally anyone who doesn't think like a fascist. Don't forget those "trouble makers". After all, they're the worst kind. They support terrorism!
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
17. Re:Pot calling kettle black by c0lo · 2013-09-01 11:25 · Score: 2
  
  The Russian government continues to cover the back of the Syrian government as it has for decades.
  I can't stop to notice that US does pretty much the same with the Saudi house (sort like a proxy war but instead of communism vs free world, it's now Sunni vs Shia).
  What doesn't make sense to me: is the Saudi house less interested in re-establishing the caliphate?
  
  --
  Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
18. Re:Pot calling kettle black by ShanghaiBill · 2013-09-01 12:01 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The United States has no Journalistic shield law
  Journalistic shield laws are a terrible idea. The freedom to speak and publish is a right shared by everyone. There should not be a special group of government approved "journalists" that have special rights that are denied to other citizens.
19. Re:Pot calling kettle black by amirulbahr · 2013-09-01 12:28 · Score: 2
  
  In Vietnam, government says, "Don't say that shit online!"
  In the Free World, government says, "Go ahead! Say that shit online. We're watching..."
20. Re:Pot calling kettle black by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-09-01 14:41 · Score: 2
  
  Oh, don't get me wrong: the US 'intelligence community' is rotten to the core, as are its major corporate collaborators, and some theoretically not intelligence agencies that have taken on the ugly trappings of one (Is there any aspect of the 'war on drugs' that hasn't been a total clusterfuck for America and Americans, much less some of the poor bastards in countries we don't even pretend to care about?) are in the same boat. The FBI, of course, never really had a non-dangerously-corrupt-and-abusive period in its entire history, so it's harder to say that it has 'rotted' in any meaningful way.
  
  However, I'm hard pressed to think of any countries where pissing off the clandestine services is legal, or where they don't treat legal restraint as an inconvenience to be avoided (at best, some lucky countries may simply have relatively vestigial and underdeveloped ones); and I'm hard pressed to think of countries that don't also have additional restrictions on speech (whether it be Britain's ghastly libel laws, 'hate speech', being a nazi, assorted vague 'materials contrary to social order and security' things, blasphemy/offending religious sentiments restrictions, 'gay propaganda', etc, etc.) that the US doesn't have.
  
  We (among others) need to shoot a lot of spooks if we want to even pretend at rule of law, representative democracy, or other cute concepts; but we have atypically narrow restrictions outside of that context.
21. Re:Pot calling kettle black by MaskedSlacker · 2013-09-01 16:15 · Score: 2
  
  Don't mention the war.
  WAR!
  What is it good for?
22. Re:Pot calling kettle black by MaskedSlacker · 2013-09-01 18:19 · Score: 2
  
  Having been to both, I'd pick Vietnam any day. Foreigners at least are treated much better there, by everyone (not just the government).
23. Re:Pot calling kettle black by cold+fjord · 2013-09-02 14:03 · Score: 2
  
  Uncertainty tends to disappear when they leave a suicide testimony video.
  
  --
  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
We should invade by The_Star_Child · 2013-09-01 07:24 · Score: 5, Funny

We should invade Vietnam to teach them a lesson.
1. Re:We should invade by blue+trane · 2013-09-01 07:34 · Score: 2
  
  How about use satellites, or balloons, or drones, to give them free uncensored internet, and let them exercise their unalienable right to liberty regardless of what their government says?
  We could do it in Syria, too. Why aren't we discussing nonviolent options?
2. Re:We should invade by cold+fjord · 2013-09-01 08:59 · Score: 2
  
  I presume you're being sarcastic, but Vietnam's leading export is crude oil.
  Which is the "WHY" of the Vietnam war from its inception.
  That's pretty unlikely since oil wasn't discovered in Vietnamese waters until 1975, and Vietnam had been at war pretty much since the Japanese invasion in the 1940s.
  Do you have a theory about Korea? Where are the big oil fields there? Or is that just another case of the US preventing a communist takeover of mountain covered land instead of jungle covered land?
  
  --
  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
Re:Say it LOUDER! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-09-01 07:33 · Score: 2

Repeat after me: "fundamental freedoms apply online just as they do offline"

Indeed, comrade, we agree and are just moving to harmonize our regulations of the internet with our repressive system of informants and physical surveillance!
There's an obvious solution... by evilviper · 2013-09-01 07:58 · Score: 4, Funny

We should send in the military to help out those poor oppressed people. Sure, an invasion is excessive and would look bad, but we could certainly send in a few "advisors" under the radar, and see how that goes...

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
only applies to vietnamese citizens? by 0111+1110 · 2013-09-01 07:59 · Score: 2

I wonder if this law also prohibits foreigners in Vietnam from posting information about current events (like this new law for instance). I also wonder what kinds of things they will interpret as reducing "national security". Are they going to start shutting down internet cafes now or just require ID in order to use a computer there and introduce mandatory video surveillance etc? It really is too bad that America lost the war there. America had no business being there in the first place but this sort of thing is ugly.

--
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Pot is far blacker than the kettle. by couchslug · 2013-09-01 08:47 · Score: 2

"And the US is in a position to be talking about "fundamental freedoms"?" to a country whose people it slaughtered while fighting to impose a neo-colonial government?

--
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
fuckthisworld by duke_cheetah2003 · 2013-09-01 09:27 · Score: 2

Is this a new tag? I've never seen before, but I definitely approve.
English, Motherfucker! by FuzzNugget · 2013-09-01 10:52 · Score: 2

Do you speak it?
The law itself is not "online." Perhaps it is by a matter of incidence (it is likely published online, on a government website), but not inheritance; and surely not what you meant by your choice of phrasing.
It is categorically an idea, not a physical noun, and therefore, cannot be contained within something. It certainly can't be entirely contained "online."
The title should be: Law Banning Online Discussion of Current Affairs Comes into Effect.
Phrasing is important. Words mean shit.