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Thai Police: We'll Get You For Online Social Media Criticism
wired_parrot (768394) writes 'After a leading protester of the recent military coup in Thailand made several critical posts in Facebook criticizing the military takeover, Thailand's Technology Crime Suppression Division tracked his location through his IP address and promptly arrested him.. The arrested was meant to send a message to Thailand's online community. Said the police: "I want to tell any offenders on social media that police will come get you."'
FB gave the ip address, thank you!
They must've had a GUI interface made in Visual Basic.
This will only catch idiots. Smart people (the ones who are more dangerous) will be driven even more underground, using encrypted chats, sneakernets, and ways to mask IP like VPNs. Bit if what they want is to "make an example", it might work.
Thailand is one of the few countries which still has Lèse-majesté laws, too.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I wish other things came so clearly marked.
Like the woman who will break your things when she leaves or the guy on the street who really doesn't need a light for his cigarette.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Just in case it might be, I'd better not say Thailand sucks! Now I'll go visit the local Thai restaurant for some Pad Thai.
"One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster... just don't tweet about it OR ELSE"
Doesn't have the same ring to it.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
This will become the norm everywhere, soon enough. Learn to keep silent, not to make waves, not to stand out. Hold your peace. Those will be invaluable survival skills in the Brave New World to come. And by the way, what is to be gained by criticizing those in power? They're not going away. Might as well learn how to ingratiating yourself to them, for instance informing on subversive individuals. It could lead to better social standing and a better share of what scarce wealth will remain. Yes, this is what one should do.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Prayuth Chan-Ocha have sex with goats.
Ya, laugh it up. I guess it's funny when it wasn't your goats.
My goats are still in recovery, thank you very much. Typical slashdot, next you'll say that my goats were asking for it because of their pretty fur or whatever.
Slashdot has a serious goat rape culture problem.
I suggest every Thailander take to Facebook to express acute distaste for the junta, and for the king's passive stance in the matter of their suppression of civil liberties. Surely not all can be arrested for months at a time? Same tactic as the sit-in protests really.
please be careful! use some 3 letter program that rhymes with a avenger (and know how to use it).
in reality thailand is very stable and they do have a memory that rivals that of an elephant!
I often find people don't seem to understand when talking about countries like Pakistan or Egypt that the military, police and intelligence services aren't just bureaucracies within the government. They are institutions that have a life of their own, a life that is parallel to the civilian government. And when push comes to shove, the nominal subservience of the security services to civilian authority goes out the window.
And here in the US, people are already crossing the line from respecting and honoring the men and women who serve this country in uniform to revering the military as an institution, and that we should never do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Isn't it a pal and a confidant?
Tourist murder capitol of the world.
They don't like it when you point out the number of tourists that end up getting married, leaving everything to their new thai wife, and then commiting suicide.
Serious (not tinfoil) comment: you have three such entities in the US (on a scale that their equivalents in the UK do not come close to matching).
The FBI, the CIA and the NSA are all independent institutions with a life of their own.
The FBI has _repeatedly_ demonstrated that independence (under Hoover and after), and little regard for the constitution.
The CIA has a budget which you as citizens do not get to fully inspect, dark revenue streams that have seen it alleged to be involved in drug and arms dealing, and has been implicated in the killing of a presidential candidate. It dodges constitutional issues by largely not getting involved on home turf.
The NSA is operating outside of the constitution, plain and simple.
Your military (though I see your point about reverence, quasi-religiosity and cultural impact) is not on the same scale.
I'm old enough to remember the time before Obama, when you could speak out against the government and not have to worry about getting targeted by goons from the IRS.
use HTML entities like "é" :
"cliché" give "cliché"
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I would add that if push comes to shove in the USA and the army steps in (and it would; that's what armies do), your biggest worry is which of the NSA or CIA will take control, and whether the FBI will launch an insurgency.
If does seem that Thai people need another Revolution to gain freedom...
Wow, a serious civil war amongst various branches of armed and/or security services would be quite intrigueing.
Well, at least with goat rape culture you know the goats have been raped.
As opposed to goat stare rape culture. Anyone looking at a goat is considered a rapist. And you're not a rapist for staring at your goats right?
Goat: Rape! Rape!
You: I'm not raping you. I'm butchering you so I can eat you.
Goat: Oh. That's all right the...HEEYYYYYY!
The percentage of goats in leadership roles in Thailand is far too low. We need a new campaign to foster goats, to mentor them and make them feel empowered. They don't feel safe to leave the goatyard. Have you noticed the dearth of goats in the new government?
In fact they can suck both my feet.
Too bad it'll never happen because it's the Corporations that rule. Anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant of reality.
Telling people that you'll come arrest them when they speak out against you is admitting that you're not acting in the best interest of the people. Hence people will be less likely to support you in the long run than if you just allow and *gasp* maybe even listen to criticism.
These people act more like playground bullies than adults governing a nation. It's pretty sad and despicable. Imagine if they just came out and said "You may say whatever you like about us; tell us how you really feel. No harm will ever befall you for stating your opinion." The good will that would generate would be FAR more effective than arresting those who disagree with you!
Why should we have to resort to such shenanigans when anyone with an appropriate keyboard or a 'nix-style Compose Key configured (I recommend Win Compose if you're not running a 'nix) can enter the characters in a cross-program compatible manner far more easily? This is a clear failure on the part of the Slashdot code, which has been operating an overly-aggressive unicode blacklist on comments for far too long.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I would add that if push comes to shove in the USA and the army steps in (and it would; that's what armies do), your biggest worry is which of the NSA or CIA will take control, and whether the FBI will launch an insurgency.
Wait... you mean they aren't *already* in control?
...come and get me cunts!!!
Why should we have to resort to such shenanigans
Because Slashdot is US based and is english speaking, and nearly all the discussions here can there for fit within basic ASCII char-set. (Except a few loan-words which are acceptable without accented chars anyway).
The fact that you and I come from other regions and speak other languages won't change the fact that Slashdot doesn't give a fuck about non-english language and their scripts. Support for UTF-8 is not a vital necessity on /.
On the other hand, motivated people like me have found a compatible way around.
Also, given the avarage geekness here around, html entities don't feel that far stretched. Probably half the /. readership has edited HTML source in vi or emacs (depending on religion).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The arrested was meant to send a message to Thailand's online community.
Come on, /. editors. Seriously?
Did the authorities start shit with Charles Murray over The Bell Curve ?
use some 3 letter program that rhymes with a avenger (and know how to use it).
I can't think of a 3-letter program that rhymes with Steed or Peel.
because there is a government surplus as well as a budget surplus. Fiscal sovereignty is the mother of political sovereignty. How can a nation's internal affairs be influenced from the outside if they owe no one nothing?
It's merely one more example of nations that are currently prospering are that which are blood-based. Idea-based nations (i.e. Anglosphere) are riddled with debt and illegal immigrants.
And since we police work for you, you'll get you.
Reality is itself ignorant of your statement. For example, in the recent Snowden scandal, it wasn't the NSA whose leash got pulled hard, but all the businesses and people affected by them. For example, a huge slice of the US IT industry's existence is threatened by NSA actions, but for the NSA it remains business as usual.
There is a whole lot you're wrong about there. The FBI is only independent recently, and not entirely. Made so to reduce abuse from being used politically. The CIA is not independent at all. The NSA is independent but has no law enforcement or governing structures or rights; all they can do is collect information and give it to other parts of the government, and they're substantially restricted in what they can share.
Your claim that the CIA "has been implicated in the killing of a presidential candidate" is indeed tinfoil. "Implicated" in no fact at all, "implicated" in baseless accusations by people who claim broader conspiracy, but offer no evidence of such.
The claim that the "The NSA is operating outside of the constitution, plain and simple," is only plain or simple to the same extent that it is tinfoil. It is popular to recite such a claim inside of an anti-establishment echo chamber, but that is not the same as actually being able to point to a part of the Constitution that it is somehow "outside" of. According to the Courts it is not so, and who else but the Courts makes that determination? Our Constitution is not so clearly worded. You may find if you get into the details that there is nothing simple or clear about the issues at all, but that instead that they are fuzzy and disputed, but that most people live in an echo chamber where only one view or the other is socially acceptable even to admit exists! Just admitting it is disputed what it means will tend to get you shouted down by many faux-populists.
The military OTOH is almost entirely independent other than at the very top being controlled by the President. The Secretary of Defense, for example, can't order them around; their Joint Chiefs of Staff, made up of the heads of the different branches of the military, directly control the military, and most of the President's (Commander in Chief) power is exercised by giving directives to the Joint Chiefs. So there is nobody other than the President that ties the military to the rest of government.
Note that regarding the FBI, for example you reference to Hoover, that was when the FBI was _less_ independent, and that is _why_ they are more independent; before the politicians had more power over them, now the lawyers have that power, and the politicians only get to pick the top lawyers. The CIA is also mostly banned from operating inside the USA, and the FBI is tasked with investigating the CIA on a continual basis with regards to their US activities. That was set up after the Vietnam War-era abuses by the CIA.
Wow, you really didn't get what I was saying at all.
Times are changing: at least they did not arrest him for outrage to the king.
will solve this problem. There is a reason brutal monarchies never exists in a society where its citizens are armed.
Thailand will be a great business opportunity to Smith & Wesson.
New Economic Perspectives
Cankle cops?