Slashdot Mirror
Clinton creates group to "address unlawful conduct" on Net
Ungrounded Lightning Rod writes "President Clinton has issued an exectutive order creating a "Working Group" to "address unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet". The text of the Executive Order is online..
" The text of it looks disturbing-perhaps a legally-qualified person can offer some thoughts, but a trying to change the Internet by fiat doesn't seem the most effective-click below for more details.
Chaired by the Attorney General and including the other law-enforcement and "child"-related cabinet secretaries (Treasury, Commerce, Education) and department heads or agency directors (OMB, FBI, ATF, DEA, FTC, FDA), it is mandated to investigate how current federal law can be used to investigate and prosecute Internet users, propose new laws, regulations, and technology development to assist investigations, and study existing and potential technological tools for mandatory internet censorship.
They are to issue a report early December - a very fast track
People should be able to do anything they want as long as it doesnt hurt other people OR THEMSELVES. Why, you ask? Simple. If you choose not to wear your seatbelt, and then go and mangel yourself, MY TAX DOLLARS are most likely going to be footing your tax bill. Even if you have insurance, your stupidity is gonna jack up MY PREMIUMS. The government is generally fine the way it is. This "less government, everyone is independent" crap needs to stop. This nation was founded by a bunch of colonials WORKING TOGETHER, and I think most of the people who are spewing anit-government sentiment on this thread need to wake up and realize that WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER.
No, gun rights are a natural right.
Gun rights follow directly from a right to self defence.
Gambling, Non-Regulated&Offshore E-Banks, Trailer-Park-Wife Pics and more.
The Idea that a 16 year old can;
- See what some 16 year old does not have on.
- Order 20 Cases of Scotch from factory floor in scotland.
- Have new Saturn to be sent to Girl.
- Meet her with booze at Net-reserved hotel.
- Paid for by offshore gambling from holdings in Anon-E-bank.
(TODAY!!!)
And when the GirlZ start doing their thing...
The Hard-Liners will excede the recommended volume for their Soft-Liners.
my2c
What are you gonna do with that paunchy meatsack you're festering in, if you go to live in the "Internet State?" We certainly don't want you leaving it behind.
Actually... It would not be SUCH a bad idea to get a few thousands of people to come to Washington and camp out somewhere on the Mall (either by the Capitol or by White house), set up a nice little network and engage in acts of civil disobidience and protest right in front of the legislators.
As long as we are nameless, faceless email addresses, we will be ignored. We need to be there and to tell them what they want - and we need to be there en masse because in Washington SIZE MATTERS!
mAx
--> Any fool can criticize - and many do --
The President gives an order asking his cabinent to give him recommendations within the next 4 months of what, if any, new legislation is needed to prevent petty crime on the internet, just like there are current laws against crime via phone or mail, so that he might consider if any new laws need to be sent to Congress.
You call that news?
Do you have a clue?
AFAIK:
It's not in the constitution. It was in an order declaring a state of emergency during WWII. Somehow it's never been repealed. Only a president can do so... He would just need to proclaim that the state of emergency was over, but none of them ever have.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Well, I could be wrong, like I was when I voted for Clinton twice under the impression that he was a liberal, but my reaction is that this is good news. Rather than trying to pass 'special laws that pertain to the internet', which is what they've been doing, they're finally looking at the enforcement of existing laws on the Internet. This is not to say they couldn't still screw the pooch (and the citizen), but at least in theory, it seems like they've finally gotten the clue they've been missing so long: The Internet is just the newest delivery system for humanity.
Come to think of it, that is why I voted for Clinton. I saw the promises he was making, and I said, "This guy is a dishonest, slimy huckster who's just telling me what I want to hear. WOW! At last! Someone who's at least in touch enough to know what I want to hear!!" Well, they've finally figured out what I want to hear on the subject of the Internet, that it should fall under existing laws and not under new panic-inspired Unconstitutional chokeholds.
Step One - create the problem. Step Two - Fabricate 'Public' outrage. Step Three - using the fake public outrage, cram more repressive and un-Constitutional legislation through Congress. Destroying the Constitution. Step Four - Dictatorship. Have a nice day!
Guns, for hunting and sport, I can understand...but any adult who thinks he needs explosives should've stopped playing with tonka trucks long ago. Violence is not the answer.
Are there any precedents for arguing against the constitutionality of Executive Orders?
:-)
Assassination as a method of argument comes to mind... several precedents for that.
Ooooooo, that'll get moderated down.
Once again, Slashdot has reacted in its typical reactionary manner.
For good reason. The internet is in it's infancy still -- hell, it's not even out of the womb. We're all just scared as heck that someone will come in and abort the fetus.
_______
2B1ASK1
And who's the scapegoat? Any idea why objections are appearing?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This isn't legislation. It's a study of existing legislation, isn't it? No laws are being made by this working group. Reading through it, I can see how laws may be eventually made, but nothing directly stated by this working group will be made into a law.
Reading = good;
-V
Mr. Clinton heads the Executive Branch, just as it is written in the constitution. His responsiblities include issuing executive orders. No law has been created by this executive order. You should have done your homework when you took civics.
but implied very strongly:
(3) The potential for new or existing tools and capabilities to educate and empower parents, teachers, and others to prevent or to minimize the risks from unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet.
It says "minimize the risks" but does not specifically state who is at risk, but strongly implies children from the statement "..parents, teachers, and others..."
I'm not sure what the relevance is, but why not just say "risks to our children/citizens" or something? Sounds like an incomplete sentence without it. Seems kind of odd the way that is worded.
Different contries have different ages of sexual concent. While a 17 yearold getting boned on camera is statuatory rape and child pornography in the US, it's perfectly legal elsewhere.
There's really no difference between the democrats and republicans. Did anybody look at the party statements in the last election booklet? Those two parties had the exect same statements almost to the word. That says it all...
Anybody who actually is tired of the way things are going should vote for an independant party. I don't care which one, but any independant party will be better than the Demopublicans, at least they have some sort of principles that they stand behind.
The Demopublican party line: "Show me the money"
I don't think you read it very well:
(2) The extent to which new technology tools, capabilities, or legal authorities may be required for effective investigation and prosecution of unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet;
He's talking about creating whole new law enforcement agencies here. Plus:
(1) The extent to which existing Federal laws provide a sufficient basis for effective investigation and prosecution of unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet, such as the illegal sale of guns, explosives, controlled substances, and prescription drugs, as well as fraud and child pornography.
This reads to me, "The extent to which we need to write new laws, that our new law enforcement agencies can enforce."
Maybe I'm a cynic, maybe I'm just right.
Captain_Carnage@hotmail.com
Linux
-----
We already have enough bull $#it laws that aren't enforced. We certainly don't need a socialist administration like Clintons watching over us making up the rules. I would LOVE to see a session of congress where they passed a budget and went home. There is no need for more laws.
Because these same people that you want to own guns and explosives are also the one's that make pro-wrestling one of the most watched programs on TV and keep buying Budweiser by the truckload.
The combination of that and explosives frightens the bejeezes out of me.
yep, but as long as the economy is perceived as "strong" it's dictatorship with a smile. When it turns south, blame immigrants or the poor.
But as long as people are happy with longer chains and bigger cages, they'll get them.
Oh, whoops. I guess if it weren't for the fact that the United States government of late DOES NOT have an excellent track record of protecting individual rights and freedoms, maybe we'd all be a little less triggerhappy about this sort of thing.
Regardless of whether this means they're TAKING action, the point is they're LOOKING for actions to take - and given the conclusions they've drawn so far, and the actions they've taken so far (regardless of party, btw), I think we're all justified in being maybe a little worried that this will not turn out for the best.
Besides. Is anyone on that panel a USENET regular, or a Slashdot regular, or in any other capacity one who is on the Net as often as any of us? They are almost certainly going to base LAW on what they find on the Net between now and December. Want to lay odds on what they'll find - and what they'll be looking for?
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
The internet is your middle finger to the universe. And you're sitting on it. And wiggling your finger. It looks so cute. Keep it up, child.
- Remind law enforcers that it's the creation that matters, the internet is just the transport medium.
- Amend the law so web sites/news postings/email/other electronic forms are admissable as evidence and create a legal preservation method (printouts are the best we have so far, but not good enough).
- Try and encourage other countries to pursue similar legislation.
- Establish protocols for co-prosecution of law-breakers across multiple boundaries (especially international) where similar legislation exists.
Breaking the law is still illegal if it happens to involve the internet. Freedom of speech retains whatever status it had elsewhere: those who control the medium control the content (you can't use bad language in letters to newspapers, as the editors choose to censor them: it's their freedom of speech.)You should bear in mind that I'm not a US Citizen, or even in the US. These comments are written without reference or even care about local standards: it's goal is simply to extend those standards to new mediums..
... and today's pet project has
Yeah! More programs! Let's use that budget surplus on some more government programs. Taxpayers don't care. We can just raise taxes if we run out. Let's get rid of all those terrible problems by putting some red tape over 'em.
Oh, but hey, if any religious organizations--we call 'em wackos around here-- try to promote values and order, let's shut 'em up. With lawsuits. They're being intolerant. Those wackos violate the first amendment--we can't have that, now.
And the Internet? Pshaw, Al Gore INVENTED the Internet, we can take care of any problems there...Rest assured, America, you're in Big Brother's hands!
--
Is it just me, or is legislation looking more and more ridiculous each day?
Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me...
I'm no fan of the R's or D's either, but Nader's got his own agendas as well.
:(
I'd vote Republican, but they're big business suck-ups.
I'd vote Democrat, but they're responsibility-shirking regulation-happy Santa Clauses.
I'd vote Libertarian, but they're anarchists.
I'd vote Reform Party, but all they care about is election reform (duh!).
I wouldn't even consider voting US Taxpayer's Party. They scare the bejeezus out of me.
I'd vote Independent, but there's nobody worth voting for.
Doesn't leave much.
That's Washington for yah! Does anyone else want to vomit like I do when they have to listen to these clowns in D.C. get behind the nearest podium full of microphones to announce how whatever it was that they've done whether it be passing some ridiculous statute or spending bill or signing another executive order was to protect the children?
This is about as repulsive as the anti-gun, anti-nuke, anti-internet-porn, anti-whatever whackos who have to drag their kids along with them to the marches and protests and have them waering or carrying signs. It sure doesn't produce any sympathy for their cause with me. Instead it just tells me that they're desperate and te way to garner support for their ``cause'' is getting the press to film those sweet, little big-eyed kids who are against nuclear weapons, oil spills, etc., gauls me no end.
Talk about your child exploitation...
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Who lit a fire under their arses...I wonder.
Hear, hear! If you ever get a chance to take look back on the US involvement in Panama (during the Bush administration), I strongly recommend it.
I thought this is a democracy
Wrong, it's Republic, but thanks for playing. And, yes, the exeutive office has way too much power.
Finkployd
It could (as in, probability theory allows for the outcome) be a good thing. Want to buy a bridge? Why be put off by what you have heard about prior bridge salesmen? It's a really good deal!
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You are a slave. Do you think for a moment that you can ever really say or do what you want? You can't dream without fear of punishment, even if it is your own hypodermic guilt making you look to religion, drugs or suicide as an escape. Modern expression in TV, movies and music is without any stimulants. It is numb and safe, easy to sell, easy to digest and easy to forget. It's not really even suitable for kindergartners or the mentally handicapped. We are treated like soulless sub-animal house pets until we are old enough to drive or buy cigarettes. When we become consumers they pretend to give us an opinion. We are constantly shoveled milky mounds of unchallenging, moronic impotence disguised as entertainment, but really only designed to lower our standards and make us passive and content on being dumbed down. Why do we watch the things they give us on MTV or Jenny Jones or the 11 0clock news? We have been conditioned to have low expectations and our standards have become less than primitive. The illiterate apes that beat your ass in highschool for being a "fag" now sell you tuneless testosterone anthems of misogyny and pretend to be outsiders to a world that they were born to wear their ADIDASS-FILGERING uniforms in.
/.'ers forced into forming the underground internet intelligencia. I also wonder how long it'll be until all content is monitored, filtered, and and approved by the governments of the world. Remember, this administration works incrementally, this is only one in a long list of steps towards gaining complete control over what you hear and what you see. Either it will be a forum for political parties to float out new ideas on how to steal your privacy, rights, liberties and freedoms, or it will become worse than television with commercials popping up in browser windows selling viagra, propecia, or compaq computers (all are for the hairless soft...take that as you will). Either way, it will cease to be our internet, it will become a tool for others to make money, gain political power, or both...but no longer will it be a sanctuary for free thinking and new ideas.
And we buy it up, helplessly.
Even Christ wouldn't kill himself for this pitiful
America that hides under "christian values," and
exonerates criminals when they remind the
newsman that they too, beLIEve in god.
The networks, record companies and movie studios
are all afraid of what we have the power to become.
Unlike them we have nothing to lose, and that's what makes us pure.
It is time for their world to be destroyed. It is time for a new age, the Age of Horus. It is time for a new standard, a new canvas, and a new artist. We must forget this wasted generation and amputate it before the mind rots away with it. Paint it, record it, write it down before they kill you with their slow poisonous stupidity. Make yourself heard.
This Internet is your middle finger to the universe, don't let them break it.
Fuck their world.
Let's make our own.
The third and final Beast
Marilyn Manson
This IS the people's internet. I see commercialism as just as threatening as government regulation. I'm not downplaying what the gov't is trying to do, I see both of them as horrible threats to the internet as we know it. I wonder how long it'll be until the internet is reduced to an online shopping mall with
Proving daily how scary genius can be in the wrong hands.
How strange it is that at one moment, the good president is willing to declare "cyberwar" against Milosevic... then at another, he creates a task force to look into "illegalities" on the internet. Just my 2 cents. "without evil, there is no good."
"and no, im not the spot working for Transmeta, although i wish i was..." -- ~spot "i'm the epitome of public enemy..."
Roger that! I appoligize. My fnCk1ng firewall is not letting me use my Nick. (ps -onnt). I believe this is a means of manufacturing a demand. "We have to stop all this criminal activity" (we're scarred to death of hacker groups that are smarter than us), "for the peolple's best interest" (Interest of special interest groups. If corporate America had it's Owellian hands on the Net, ... sensorship, content filtering, ) This has got to NOT happen!
"and prosecution
of unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet, such
as the illegal sale of guns, explosives, controlled substances,
and prescription drugs, as well as fraud and child pornography".
Sounds good to me, you infavor of this stuff?
Fascism sucks woman too. If it's such a smelly nose, it probably masks the aroma wafting off your unwashed body. Whew! Take a bath, dork.
This really points out a big weakness in the government. All these committee members are non-technical people. Why isn't someone like an Esther Dyson on this committee? While I realize this working group is supposed to examine unlawful conduct on the Internet I have no doubt that all these law enforcement agencies need help from real computer people to understand what's going on. Without that guidance I have little hope that their recommendations will be all that useful.
Been around for years I doubt that sparked anything
======== In the future, everything will be artificial. ========
Isnt it nice, if clinton did take total control you dont need much more military force than your neighborhood police dept. and national guard if things get problematic. I'm sure they'll jail the intellectuals first namely gun owners, followed shortly by hacker/geek/linux ppl who have the good sense to know something is awry. As far as the general populace is concerned, they probably wont know anythings changed being totally wrapped up in their jobs and television.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
perhaps al gore invented this?
How can they reasonably expect any kind of national legislation to work? I mean, say that USA outlaws nudity on the net; here in Sweden it's perfectly legal, and it's as easy to point your browser to a Swedish site as it is to an american one... The same goes with most information, whether it be nudity, violence, religios or political information or various forms of rumor-mongering.
The only things that really can be outlawed on the net are those few things that governments all over the world can agree on, like child pornography. And even then, there is still the matter of actually finding and prosecuting perpetrators. The ability to locate servers, their owners and the owner of the data on them all over the world makes current extradiction and jurisdictional problems look easy.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Who hasn't seen this coming? The American public takes a very passive role in these things.
:) But these people don't have any useful suggestions to curb violence, racism, porn, etc. They just "want something done to stop it."
Take the high school shootings, for instance. Dolts clamor about saying, "We've got to do something to stop this from happening." Do what? Shooting people, kids having guns, bomb making, etc are all illegal already. Very few people I've talked to, or seen interviewed on TV had anything useful to suggest. The only constructive idea was to ban guns altogether. Then you're stuck with asking, will a criminal or someone set on killing people abide by a no-guns-allowed law? Sure it won't work, but at least they are thinking enough to come up with an idea.
I live near Peoria, Illinois. Recall a few weeks ago that weirdo (Matt Smith, Mike Smith, something like that; his real name was Benjamin but he though that sounded too Jewish so changed it) went shooting Asians, Jews, etc in Illinois and Indiana. It turns out that that he was rejected from buying a gun lawfully because of a background check. So, he visits an unauthorized gun dealer and is able to go on his shooting spree. Now I look at this as the laws working perfectly. There will always be an illegal means to get material that is banished. It isn't too difficult to see what would happen if guns were outlawed. You just wouldn't be able to purchase them at a store.
And this brings us to Matt Hale's little church of wackos that this Mr. Smith subscribed to. Matt hasn't been on the evening news in quite a while here, since he left Bradley University. So, to get his message out he turned to the Internet. (Aha, more proof the Internet is evil!) And, in this country's mood of non-involvement, they turn to legislatures to solve this problem. One woman on television said something like, "How can they have this sort of material available for anyone to see?"
I don't have any kids yet, but I've done a lot of watching of family/friends. When parents are involved in a kid's life, teaching them what is right/wrong, what is/isn't appropriate material, etc the kids are able to handle themselves well when confronted with it. But that's asking a lot when careers and possessions are more revered than children.
So, for those lazy-asses out there, we need laws that make them feel warm and fuzzy when they drop their kids off at the library and go off to have their nails done. These people don't know how to turn on a monitor, let alone how millions of computers all over the world interconnect to be able to spread a wealth of information across the globe in a fraction of a second. We understand that it isn't technically feasible to ban porn (or whatever) in the US when you can just point the browser to Sweden. I'd wager these sort of people think you have to fly to Sweden to see Sweden's internet.
How exactly do you, on the national level, control content on something that is very international?
First off, any idea what it costs to hold a trial? The cost of an appeal? (Last I remembered, housing an immate cost between $30,000 to $50,000 a year - Trials/Appeals run in the millions very quickly.)
Not to mention the fact that immates on death row HAVE to be treated differently. Threatening to kill them if they try and escape just doesn't seem to work for some strange reason.
Extreme flamebait...but hey, I'm waiting for someone to return my page. The good ol' USA has already killed serveral innocent people even with the concepts of 'Due Process' and 'Bill of Rights'. It's naive to think that just because they exists doesn't mean people don't slip through the cracks. The system is imperfect...but hell, it's the best we've got.
Of course, that's not to say that I don't approve of the Death Penalty. I do believe that executions should be the extreme form of penalty...not to be applied to every Purse snatcher. And I recognize that it's more costly to kill someone, that there is the chance that mistakes will (not if) be made...but frankly speaking, there are some a$$holes out there that need to die. I'm a proud member of the state of Florida and more than happy to say that got Bundy and burned his a$$.
I second this sentiment.
The "really bad stuff" that the law enforcers are going to pay attention to are the crimes that are already being enforced in other venues.
The Pornography Industry (who still represent a staggering percentage of the online 'revenue stream') can easily be reigned in through domestic action. If it goes offshore, just make it impossible for revenues to be collected from American customers. If it isn't 'for-profit' stuff, it's probably covered under 'free speech' law anyway. I've so seldom caught sight of a 'non-profit' pornography industry, that I won't be surprised if one never emerges.
There's this thing called a "temporary autonomous zone". I.e.: that party where everybody cut loose and activities that would be questionable in the light of day become acceptable. It's the camping trip away from buildings and roads and police squad cars where casual illicit substance use just happens. It's any time people gather and no force of authority intrudes.
Here's a clue for you all: It's temporary. It never lasts, because Fester the molester always somehow manages to figure out where the party is and people stop having fun because of the tricks he plays.
Deal with it.
>The idea that "he can't win, so i won't vote for him" is what makes third party candidates win so rarely. Actually, a 2 party system is almost the necessary result of using first past the post election rules (like the US).
I'll confess. Back when I was the sysop of a small 'social' BBS, I used to post outrageous distortions of daily news items like the people running this site do on a regular basis. It keeps things exciting, it gets people sputtering and fuming, and, most important of all, it increases traffic. My little BBS used to be a boiling pot of discussion, just like Slashdot becomes anytime the people in charge decide to stir things up. In this light, the clear distortion of the facts that head up this big mess make a lot of sense. It's not irrational stupidity. It's calculated self interest on the parts of the people who run this scene. Sysops always like to feel important. In the case of this place, they also like to see banner ads flying out across the wire. I never figured out a commercial angle. It wouldn't have sailed back in the old days of private BBSes. It sure does now.
executions are more expensive due to the legal process and the number of appeals.
"It is true that lengthier sentences can add to the costs of imprisonment. But as a replacement for the death penalty, even a sentence of life without parole would not add significantly to the prison population, and would, in fact, be cheaper than the prolonged litigation associated with a death sentence." http://www.essential.org/dpic/dpic.r07. html
Pork is not a verb
> all controlled and prescription drugs should be legal.
Almost. This isn't often thought through, but there is one class of chemicals that *must* be protected and restricted. Antibiotics.
Take a look at Mexico, and penicillin. It's available over the counter, last time I checked -- too bad it's now more or less worthless. Overuse [and misuse] has engendered new and exciting strains of, say, tuberculosis, and they cheerfully ignore penicillin. This is bad. This is VERY bad; there's only so many antibiotics to choose from...
I definitely favor the libertarian viewpoint, but some things MUST be locked down and controlled.
Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
The right to keep and arm bears shall not be infringed, be they white polar bears, or stuffed teddy bears. Furthermore, the gun nuts shall be entitled to kill their next of kin (the statistical norm, BTW) to cleanse the genetic pool. Furthermore, the right to bare arms shall not be infringed except in such case where said bare arms might be sheared off by passing vehicles, i.e. while hanging out the window. The right to bare patches out on the lawn, of course, is granted by dog the almighty urinator.
Oh, so gun owners are 'intellectuals'? I'm sure that some gun owners are intellectuals, but when I think of intellectuals, I think of Harper's magazine, not Guns and Ammo.
Clinton's executive orders are not designed to institute martial law (sorry!)
You know, I always thought that Clinton's fault was that he had nerve to get involved with a bad real estate deal and have some sexual dalliances.
That is so un-American, we need to get back to those covert government slush funds that finance right-wing death squads in Central America, get the government back into to the cocaine business, and fix a few elections while we're at it, a la Ronald Reagan
And people say Clinton is bad. How quickly we forget...
I've looked at Linux. I could turn my head and look at it right now. I run it on my old machine. It's a Pentium 133. I'd never waste my new Pentium III hardware on an interesting but limited option like Linux.
What's so bad about this? Like every other executive order Clinton has imposed on us (and there are plenty, all of which limit our freedom) this one law was passed without the consend of congress. Make no mistake, we now have a dictatorship.
When you can find where in the constitution it says the president can make laws like this, come back and we'll talk.
Finkployd
Did you fail seventh grade civics class? The primary responsibility of the president is to execute the laws. This means enforcing them. All he is doing is setting up a task force in his cabinet to discuss how law enforcement should deal with the Internet. Do you think that the Internet should be a law-free zone? Do you think that the laws which your elected representatives have enacted should not be enforced just because they are being broken on the Internet instead of in meatspace? If you disagree with laws you should try to get them changed. In the meantime. it's up to the president to enforce our laws. I'm sick of the rabid anti-government/ultra libertarian sentiment of Slashdot. I think all of you guys who think that laws shouldn't be enforced should get on a time machine to the wild west when laws weren't enforced. People got robbed, raped, and shot indiscriminately. That is what the state of nature is all about. I prefer civilization.
The typical cycle of a Slashdot article related to politics:
1. Person who submits story fails to read the article they found thoroughly.
2. Person who decides that it should go up on Slashdot (CmdrTaco, Hemos, whoever), fails to research (or sometimes not even read) the original article.
3. Article gets posted on Slashdot, and immediately provokes a knee-jerk reaction from people on either the right or the left wing (or both in some cases), because they fail to read the original story as well.
4. Foaming-at-the-mouth Slashdot readers argue in the comments, e-mail everybody and their mothers, and generally look bad.
I've seen bad thinks posted about Slashdot readers in the Linux kernel mailing lists, BSD websites, IRC, and on news sites.
The sad thing is, it's all true.
I refuse to take part in it anymore. I've been guilty of being a knee-jerker in the past. No more.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Of course it's PR. This group couldn't agree on what to have for breakfast, let alone anything meaningful.
It'll look real nice for the 2000 elections, and then quietly dissappear.
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
You should at least let them do something wrong before you begin to criticize. In short, this order simply sends a bunch of people to go figure out this Internet thing they've been hearing so much about as it relates to illegal activities.
Plenty of illegal activities related to the Internet fall under national control. They don't have a single proposed action listed there, merely an imperative to figure out what can be done about net-related crime.
If we want them to realize they can't do anything about most of it, we have to wait for them to start looking for an answer before we try to give them one. It is, sadly, the way government works. I see this as a positive step, since it avoids further creation of laws without even thinking first (for a few minutes) and is better than just sticking their heads in the ground until a political backlash forces more ridiculous laws to be passed. CDA, anyone?
Uriel
more bullshit from a group of politicians who have no concept of reality.
2) The extent to which new technology tools, capabilities,
or legal authorities may be required for effective investigation
and prosecution of unlawful conduct that involves the use
of the Internet; and
oh and do they actually know how to use these "new technology tools".
maybe we can send them to Computer Learning Center -- in three months they'll be able to catch anyone involved in illegal activities on the internet.
So now we have an official order of Conduct on the Internet. The president is now an offical Internet sysop -- next he'll be reading our email.
You don't think a life in prison is more expensive than an execution? Pa-leez no more appeals no more food and more room for the scumbag that just raped some old lady and got out in 2 years cause there wasn't room, less frivilous lawsuits by inmates awaiting execution who have nothing better to do. Yep you kill innocents every now and then and you jail innocents now and then...our system may not be the best but it isn't the worst either. To get a life sentance you have to be a pretty shitty fellow and you deserve to die...and that means right now ...not when your 91 and cost us a heap of cash in feeding your worthless ass ( I mean that Editorially)
======== In the future, everything will be artificial. ========
Ohhh yahhh! Wont be bad ar all, what with Janet Reno chairing, the FBI and the DEA in the group. We know where they stand on these issues. When will America realize that it doesnt control the Internet anymore? Not that the other governments are any better, but they will likely rip us to shreds while trying to "impose order".
This is an example of why we need a stronger UN which could start to make laws dealing with the world as a whole. That's the only way you could ever even try to police the interenet, otherwise you just move your server to South America. But if there was a universal law, there would be no need for extradition. Maybe they decide to classify 'child porn' as pictures of kids under 16. Then, (if you can track down the person posting the site) they get tried in their own country under the world law.
Of course, the reason this won't work is that the US doesn't listen to or support the UN, (acronym envy?) so they would pretty much undermine anything that was decided. Look at the landmine fiasco. Every nation in the world agreed to the ban, but the US says "we'll agree to it, unless there's a war".
Using Microsoft software is like having unprotect sex.
Bite the hand.
I think its pretty clear that the framers didn't anticipate the existence of modern police forces or professional armies The Hessians were a professional army. The British Redcoats were pretty good at spying on and torturing the peasants.
> I STILL don't understand the hoopla of "The Internet Menace".
.ru, .sk and other exotic national domains? If any american court tries to serve a subpoena, they are immediately dealing with international law, extradition and mutual law enforcement assistance treaties (which may or may not exist) and a simple request ends up being months of work. To top the whole thing off, most of the time they get nothing.
From what I gather around here (Austria, Europe), law enforcement have a big problem enforcing current laws if the internet gets involved. They have procedures how to tap a local phone, how to search a car or a building, but with the internet, those procedures fail fast, because it is so easy to get outside of their juridiction.
Ever wondered, why so many warez and other sites on the border of legality are in some
The next stumbling block is the usability of the evidence gathered on the net. How is the police going to prove the data comes from the suspect? Most of the time they end up confiscating some disks and use what they find there.
And for those, and many more reason, police departments around the world hate the internet and try to push laws to regulate it to death. And because they don't really understand the concept of a truely distributed net or the volumes involved, the laws are either ridiculously repressive (cf China, Iran) or stupid. Often both.
> Kiddie porn is illegal no matter how you trade it.
In most of the places around the world it is, but the definition of 'kiddy' and of 'porn' both vary a lot. And even the concept of 'trade' isn't that clearly defined across countries.
I find it ironic that anytime big brother comes along and says you can't do something on the net you think it's out of ignorance. It's not out of ignorance. These people are smart, very smart and very well informed. They know what they are doing. They also know that "incompetence" or "ignorance" is the perfect excuse for tyranny. Next time you think that the reason these people are doing these things is because they are stupid think again.
No, this group will make recommendations. They will likely take these recommendations and write bad draft legislation, but last time I checked, we still have three branches of government: executive, judicial, and legislative. Its still got to get through congress before its a law.
(disclaimer, I am not a constitutional scholar, please correct me if I've misstated something. I know the president has power to make Executive Orders, but I read this one and didn't see this as anything other than the formation of a blue-ribbon panel to form recommendations).
Whoah, a enterprising guy could sell crack over the internet legally, right? Better close that loophole!
Yeah, I see SO MANY websites selling crack.
And all those guys dealing rocket launchers to inner-city high school kids may have their business closed down. So many schools getting hit with rockets these days. Wes jus gotta do sumpin!
Clinton's defenders (e.g. you) will profess not to care about their rights anymore just to not say a single thing bad about him. The ONLY think that will come out of this executive order are MORE regulations and MORE invasions or privacy for absolutely ZERO gain in the war against anything except liberty, which these guys have been at for 6 years.
-kabloie as AC.
how can "god" grant you the "right" to bear arms? it isn't a right, its a privilege. the 2nd amend was written how long ago? how can you claim that the people who wrote it knew what they were talking about? i don't think you have the right to have an m-16, ak47 or anything else. what use does anybody have for those, except to kill people?
also, why does everyone always spout the constitution when things like this happen. maybe it's time for a new government. i agree with that. but when we do that, why are we limiting ourselves to the old constitution? what's the point of that? we could write a NEW one, that applies to todays times...
I'm not "in favor" of any of it, but I think that most guns, mostexplosives and all controlled and prescription drugs should be legal.
Fraud and child porn are bad, but I'm not sure the federal government needs to be any more involved.
The idea that "he can't win, so i won't vote for him" is what makes third party candidates win so rarely. If everyone just voted for who they wanted, we might be much better off. Of course, it is quite understandable why people don't do this (and i won't bother elaborating on why, i'm sure you all understand already). My brilliant idea is this, on the ballot have two questions:
1) Who are you voting for?
2) Who do you want to win?
Only the first answer will be counted as a vote and will determine who wins, but the second will also be added up and made public along with the first. Then, if it turns out a third party cadidate would have won, people will know this for sure and change their real votes (question 1) in the next election.
You could argue that this is just an elaborate way of taking a survey, but there is a definite difference. Here, you get a response from every voter and only the voters. Surveys usually have small sample sizes and are badly conducted (you have no idea how many of the people in the survey actually bother to go vote on election day, for example).
After a while the need for the two questions would disappear and the second could be removed because people would have learned to vote for who they wanted to win and not "the lesser of two evils."
Uh, OK. I read it again.
It looks like the original poster was completely accurate. No mention of encryption or nudity or pornography except for child porn. Maybe you should read the EO again.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
What about that one some investigative justices found lurking in the penumbra emanating from some other rights?
;)
Oh, I forgot... That right to privacy wouldn't apply here -- it was single purpose.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Sorry, but do I smell trolling? Sniff sniff
yup trolling. I aint a Lie-nuts rabbit maroon but methinks though art trolling for some flambe.
Nice try, now go away before the real rabid
Linux morons find you.
I'm not hopeful. On the surface this sounds like a reasonable endevour,
but digging in, he fails on the execution. Who on this committee has the
slightest clue about the Internet? They'll be operating with misguided notions and
second-hand experiences of the urban legend sort - "My third-cousin's brother-in-law's sister
has a friend who went on the Internet and had her kidney stolen and got AIDS!"
Someone else mentioned that this may be a preemptive measure for some futuren g-private-communications debacle.
freedom backstabbing, but I'm thinking it may be a "response" to the recent FBI's
please-can-we-just-listen-into-all-your-law-abidi
And to the posters asking why the uproar/kneejerk reactions, NO REACTION in the past has
created the current climate of distrust and disgust many Americans now feel toward
our so-called leaders.
End transmission - Rev. Ishmael
On the Internet, only the NSA knows you're a dog.
Look, this is a bunch of people who couldn't decide on, frame, and write the order for Perrier vs. Evian and get it out to the caterers in four months. Whatever will be in the report has already been written. The Committee, as such, is strictly a Supreme Soviet.
Does anybody have any idea how it might be possible to submarine in and find out what's in the report? Then we'd have something to talk about.
Regards,
Ric
The only way this could change is perhaps in third world countries with wires stretching from house to house bringing in net access or perhaps a slow wireless internet for at least email that bounces from house to house, sure it would be insecure but you could use strong encryption on it. Another route would be by lasers aimed at trasceivers in two houses (like lucent is experimenting with) to link them together which would also create community awareness. This could possibly be done with cd-r lasers. I challenge anyone to build one. You could transfer files over it with something like fidonet uses and the same for news. In urban areas net access over telephone lines or cable is wayyy too centralized and easy to pull the plug on. The HAM enthusiasts have the upper hand on is in this one.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
No, it doesn't. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Since the framers are all dead and you can't ask them, why don't you read what they wrote about it? I think you'll find they considered the entire population to be the militia. Check your state law; you are. The state doesn't have enough guns for everyone, so you should arm yourself. Check your arguments before you submit them...and stop tying the second amendment to the warped, irresponsible dream world you live in. Chris@toybag.com
The US government may be well aware that they do not make laws for the rest of the world but they do have a lot of economic muscle (not to mention a whole shitload of death planes) that they regularly bring to bare on foreign powers. In Australia we (as in our government) willingly take up any cause the US mentions and pass stupid laws.. yesterday our government started talking about "ristricting Internet domain licenses".. obviously having no clue what the hell a domain is. Wonder where they got those ideas from?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I believe there was a rogue vote for a libertarian sometime in the seventies... BTW, we do vote for the members of the electorial college- look at the ballot when you vote next time...
Hey, as long as you are first in line to sign up for your National Internet User identity card, I'll be right behind you.
I hear they'll be coming out with a microchip version that they can implant in your brain too.
You don't think your ISP could be required to either issue or check for an internet license? Give me a break. Consider how many ways you can get into the net, and then consider how many lakes and streams there are near you. Then think about the availability of places to fish in comparison to how many places you can dial up to the net without a username or password
Proving daily how scary genius can be in the wrong hands.
You know what I always found amusing? How little schools actually teach about the electoral college. It's always people elect the president. Not people elect the members of the electoral college who are free to vote anyway they wish on the president. Go figure.
-matt
> This Order's true target will no doubt rear its disgusting head in the
> next few weeks or so.
Amen. That's the part that frightens me.
(1)(a)(1)
The first part is pretty good. There's nothing wrong with investigating the "...extent to which existing Federal laws provide a sufficient basis for effective investigation and prosecution of unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet". If something is illegal in the Real World, it's probably illegal on the 'net.
(1)(a)(2)
The second bit is neutral - in and of itself. "The extent to which new tec hnology tools, capabilities, or legal authorities may be required for effective investigation and prosecution of unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet" simply means "hey, if someone's doing something naughty, how much new technology do we need to find them?"
So what's the agenda?
It's structured like most good propaganda documents - start with something everyone will agree with, stick in something that may have "unintended consequences" (to give you room to manoeuver), and then bury the real agenda deep down in the document, covered with noise. I've often felt that reading Fedspeak is more like an exercise in steganography. (The irony of this is left as an exercise for the reader.)
The obvious answer to (1) is "For the most part, existing federal laws probably do. Let's figure out if we've left any loopholes that need to be plugged."
The obvious answer to (2) is "Not many could be developed and implemented without draconian legislation (e.g. banning crypto) or an enormous erosion of civil liberties (e.g. mandating key escrow and/or automatic wiretap technologies built into all communications gear). The crypto genie has been out of the bottle for decades; if you want to enforce the law, you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way. Sucks to be you, but even policing in a democracy ain't supposed to be trivial, and even if we wanted to make it easy for you, it's too late; you'll have to rely on HUMINT, not SIGINT.
Any /.'er on this Working Group would be done with it at that point. "Mr. President, set up e-mail hotlines like the one at enforcement@sec.gov and staff 'em with people who can nail the abusers, and sponsor training for local police departments so they have a rudimentary degree of technical clue when it comes to people using the 'net for criminal activity."
Of course, we're not on the Working Group. Buried at the tail end of the document is a list of names. Hmm... an interesting list indeed.
And so, buried in the noise we find the real signal...
Instead, we've got the Attorney-General and the directors of the FBI, ATF, and DEA here, none of whom have been terribly interested in the Internet as "an important medium both domestically and internationally for commerce and free speech", and all of whom likely consider things like auto-wiretapping technologies, key escrow, and the elimination of strong crypto as precisely the things that are "...required for effective investigation and prosecution of unlawful conduct..."
Perhaps there's hope in the EO's (3)(b) paragraph, which specifies "technology-neutral laws and regulations", but I wouldn't count on it.
Finally, note that the committee isn't limited to the people on the list; it includes under Sec. 3. (11), "Other Federal officials deemed appropriate by the Chair of the Working Group". Seeing as how the Chair of the Working Group is none other than Ms. Reno herself, I wouldn't place any bets on anything but token representation from technology companies and/or privacy advocates on the Working Group.
> Can you say False Consensus Building
And if you're still having trouble with saying "False Consensus Building", try saying "Stack The Deck" first.
The US can force other countries to go along with our laws. America is the largest military power in the world, so if the other countries don't agree to our internet regulations, we (the US) can use military force to "persuade" the other countries to obey. As a last resort, we also have nukes.
Exactly how do you "stand up" to an executive order?
I would love to have my views heard about spending my very very hard earned tax money on this sort of bs, but who do I tell? How do I tell them?
Oral sex! Oral sex!
Grunt. Oink, oink.
At election time the fundies will be treatening
not to support Bush unless he make clear plans
about curbing the evil stuff that is on TV and
on the internet, like sex. You know, all those
things those people likes but are sinful when
not done by a preacher.
If the fundies stay home Bush is screwed and he
knows that. He may get some of the Hispanic vote
but this may not be enough to counter the lack
of fundies votes.
He would then attack Gore as bein pro internet
thus an evil person. The fundies would vote
as many times as possible to guarantee his
election. Coming out now appearing to do something
about the evil internet both Gore and Clinton
look like the good guy to the average fundy.
Since it doesn't do much, most normal people
won't give a rat's ass.
You see! it's a win win situation for the
president and vice president. If you ever
want to go in politic just look at the pros
in action.
Yeah, *that* would be *much* less expensive!
void post { post_random_comment("slashdot.org"); karma--; }
At least the Guns and Ammo crowd still think the US is worth fighting for. It's a good thing that the intellectuals aren't arming themselves in droves- when the Guns and Ammo crowd decides that they've had enough of the intellectuals ruining society, they'll have an easy time taking back control. That will be a good day...
Don't underestimate governments. If they want to know who you are, they will.
If you think the members of the cabinet don't have a clue, you can't flame the EO for ordering them to get a clue.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Once again, Slashdot has reacted in its typical reactionary manner.
Quote of the day. To react in a reactionary manner. Is there any other way?
But seriously, Roger is correct about this. It is simply a task force to study the law. Why they don't just apply current laws to the us portions of the internet (if that's technically possible) is completely beyond me. What I'm afraid of is the possibility that new laws will be created as a result. That can be bad. The result would likely be like new patents : "to transmit video and audio via the the Internet" That is not what we need.
Lowmag.net
Umm- Life in prison adds 1 to the prison population for the duration of the life in question. One extra person in jail often means one more criminal on the streets. Jail population probles are not abstract issues.
Also, while many executions are appealed multiple times, some are not.
void post { post_random_comment("slashdot.org"); karma--; }
Never mind, but this government did not came out of the blue IIRC, or did I miss some military coup in the U.S. ?
Why don't we address the unlawful conduct in the White House first? Getting a blow job on federal property, for instance, is a crime. Lying under oath, perjury, getting others to commit perjury, bombing countries in a "Wag The Dog" style are also crimes.
> There are other arguments, of course, and the US has an awful lot of laws...
And it looks like it will have a lot of awful laws.
--
The proposals that have been recently attributed to this government have not filled me with trust and glee.
No group of tradesmen ever gather together except to conspire against those not of their trade.
(This is a misquote from a forgotten source, but I believe it to be [generally] true).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Does that dick head really think that "WG" will do any better than the Secret Service has been previously doing. If so, oh my god, he has to be the biggest dumb ass. All this is a political statement and nothing more, remember he's campaigning for Hillary & Al now.
The govt either knows who you are or they don't care. I mean really it's not that hard to catch anyone of us here, if you had govermental authority. For you newbies who don't completely understand that last sentence, well, ask a GM and he'll explain it to you. They aren't going to actually catch any more people than before. This is all media hype and virtual propaganda to make people a think twice before doing mischief on the Internet.
Billy-boy you retard, get a clue!
"MS blows, billy hos, Jobs laid a floresent egg!"
-Lynux Snyper-
This again. I have an idea, let's find a way to circumvent Congress (since all they are interested in is dress stains), make the Supreme Court powerless (since they are just a bunch of old white guys) and give total control to the President that we elect because the media tell us he is a great man, and glosses over all his little "problems" with the law.
Oh, wait. We already have that, it's called Executive Orders, and they have been around for years. Never heard of them, that's because the media was too busy worrying about importent stuff like Monica while the President was enjoying his dictator-like power.
But don't worry folks, we live in a Democracy (well, repubilic, but most people don't know the difference) and we still have the power right? I mean, we can makea difference with out vote right? I can fly if I flap my arms really fast right?
Finkployd
In Canada they're phasing in laws to regulate boat use, within 10 years you'll need a license to have a rowboat. I can see that they will demand licenses to use the internet within that timeframe, which you'll have to pay a fee each year to keep and is revocable at will.
Welcome to the Brave New World, never thought I'd live to see it.
This doesn't actually involve killing anybody. They can put that together in hours.
Therefore, it cannot be done in the time (putatively) allowed, because we are dealing with dyed-in-the-wool bureaucrats here. These are people who need a couple of days, and a regulation change, to find their asses -- which is why so many of them have *that* expression most of the time.
I have no idea what's in the report -- but the report already exists, and the Committee is there to rubberstamp it. After a decent interval of course.
Regards,
Ric
Anarchist? Capitalist libertarian? I'd be more concerned about cutting back FBI, NSA, CIA, and Pentagon/military spending and corporate subsidies than social programs. I don't see how punishing the poor and rewarding the rich and agencies used to keep America the way it is, is the right path. Middle class americans are really stupid, but well educated (through what they've been taught in school). I hope America collapses within my lifetime, and preferably replace with Anarchist collectives. But of course that'd be heaven.
It is the executive branch of the government that executes laws. Executive = execute. Think about it. Obviously the president should not be able pass laws without congress approving. No, you might not of failed civics class. You simply went through our government paid school system and are the obvious non-thinking outcome. I pitty you.
Pathetic.
I'm sick of the rabid anti-government/ultra libertarian sentiment of Slashdot.
I'm sick of the rabid anti-freedom/ultra communist sentiment of Slashdot.
Corndog
Just because the order doesn't say all that in the text, you can see it between the lines when you look at our power hungry presiden't past when it deals with the internet, and the fact that Janet Reno (the head of this "Working Group" has previously stated about the internet.
If one was serious about this subject, would you put a self-admitted computer IDIOT in charge of the comission?
EH?
It's a puppet show! Reno in charge of a working group on internet laws is a GIVEAWAY that the one outcome is going to be recommentations for new legislation banning this and that.
Yet another Executive Order from weirdo, and a gaggle of people who have NO PROBLEM because he's their guy. Give it a break for once!
-kabloie as AC
The PR part of it is to word it and handle it in a way, that does not scare the average person. That would be impossible if the real reasons were put forward. The fact that it comes not long before election indicates big rush and uneasiness on their part. They simply CAN'T WAIT ANY MORE. As for the subject: with internet you have it your way much more than with any other thing. And that simply cannot be tolerated... scares them
I agree that the reaction to the EO has been a bit strong, but there are still many valid reasons why we should be concerned!
/.ers of course] is ruled by (at best) news shows, that are owned by 'other' interests. I have yet to see a single prime-time news program that regularly presents the whole story. The people who report know nothing very little of the story and are overly eager to simply report something, even if its nothing (i.e. the recent Kennedy crash). In addition, the press loves to be selectively interested and to readily place blame. Technology is one of their favorite scapegoats, too.
.02c, but I've run out of time!
1) The average American person [not
2) The average American citizen does not vote(like only 35%)! And therefore knows little of the issues. In addition, the majority parents that do vote are concerned with little matters and want to be able to rely on the internet as a babysitter, much like TV.
3) Corporations in general can easily manipulate voters via media and contributions. And if voters can be manipulated, so can the government. So therefore, our elected officials are more concerned about corporation's interests than their own voters. Some industries that are of current concern are the software and recording because of some of the money they have to blow and legislation that they are trying to pass.
4) A lot of pressures are being placed on the government to regulate the Internet.
-- Military
-- Music Industry
-- News Media (Quick to Judge)
-- Movie Industry
-- Uninformed / Misinformed Parents
-- General public who has been scared by the news media.
I think there should be a call for a select few knowledgeable netizens to form an organization to keep the net a free, open, and international community. They could be called upon by governments when these matters arose. They could also be in charge of setting standards free of industry pressure.
Well, that's only part of my
FEDERAL ACTIONS TO ADDRESS NERDS MARCHING ON WASHINGTON
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1-1. IMPLEMENTATION.
1-101. As over 200,000 marchers swarm the streets of Washington, D.C., the legistators are regularly heard to complain that computer geeks don't bathe and thems feets are stinky. Reportedly they also don't blend in well with their representatives.
1-102. Creation of an Interagency Working Group on Nerd Internment.
a.Within 3 months of the date of this order, the Administrator of the Nerd Internment Agency ("Administrator") shall convene an interagency Federal Working Group on Nerds with Bad Hygiene and quarantine all offending parties.
Pork is not a verb
He is doing it by EXECUTIVE ORDER! He is ruling like a king! In the US! Executive orders are only for time of war. He has passed more executive orders then all other presidents combined. No one can stop him. This is utter facism.
Nice to see some of this come to slashdot though.
Corndog
Correct.
The 2nd Ammendment implicitly recognizes that the right to keep and bear arms existed before it was written.
Show me one really good law enacted since Congress ratified the amendment to repeal Prohibition. Seriously. Maybe the Freedom of Information Act. Other than that, what? The problem is that Congress spends way too little time repealing laws. And the abidication of lawmaking to regulators has left us with an uncontrolled soource of new laws.
I wrote parts of this stuff
You're right Pedo pics themselves hurt no one, except that someone was hurt in the making. If you're a a person that thinks that "just looking" at pedo pics is ok, tell me how you would feel if it was you, or worse your child that was in that pic? Just the thought of someone touching one of my kids sends me in to a rage. I'd kill the f--k, quicker then you can blink! Drugs are fine, if you can keep yourself off the raod, street, sidewalk, etc. Someplace that you can't be hurt or hust someone else, and agree that when you little brain is gone you won't talk any taxpayer dollars to "help" you mend. In fact just because it's next to impossible to control drugs or anything else that is harmful, doesn't mean you don't try. In fact look at what 13 colonies had to fight against, hmm seems to me the odds were not stacked in the favor of them.
So what was that again about not hurting people? Start to think a little bit, _before_ you spout off about stupid shit.
if my wife asks a question, and I'm not paying attention, and then I answer wrong does it still count
This isn't the vanguard party. They're basically people, specializing in this field, who people elect based on their widely appealing propaganda. I'm sure many of them aren't stupid, but to equate all intellectuals with being devious is kind of ridiculous.
MANY "intellectuals" are more dissidents than you probably think. We're just exposed to intellectuals who are supportive of the current system because it'd be too risky to put intellectuals with REAL differing viewpoints in television debates (i.e. Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, etc.) And don't think these people only have limited support. Of course the political interests and viewpoints of "intellectuals" isn't listed on a sheet of paper...so it's a bit more difficult to be aware of such things. It should also be pointed out many universities don't hire political science professors who are more supportive of socialist type systems (yes, there is more than just totalitarian communism).
Fact is that the constitution does apply today. It was purposely written to be general enough to apply despite new technology, social climate, or boobs such as yourself calling it outdated.
And as for your comment about guns....
The general population was granted the right to bear arms in order to keep our government in check. If you can't understand freedom and peace through strength and vigilance, then as a favor to the rest of humanity I ask that you don't breed.
Proving daily how scary genius can be in the wrong hands.
You GO Man!
Communists? Democrats? Are you NUTS??
How old are you? Democrats are not communists, Clinton is no communist, I know this, because I belong to the Socialist Party, and he's not our candidate.
Someone made a great point, do you think someone like Bob or Liddy Dole grok what the internet is all about? Do you honestly think that George W. Bush is going to make this situation any better?
George W. cares about one thing: money. Don't fool yourself...
Whoops! Congress passes amendments. (With a supermajority??) States ratify them.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Just supportin you.
Corndog
of the voters can subjugate the rest of the population. That's why we are *supposed* to be a republic. The Constitution lists some things for which it is illegal to make laws about.
First off, this is not a democracy. As written in the Constitution, this is a Republic. Look up the word "republic" in the dictionary _BEFORE_ you reply to this message. And while you are at it look up the word "fascism"
Just supportin you!
Corndog
You dont read the history books much , do you? Have you even looked around at the last 5 years of Net Legislation? How can someone on /. be so clueless as to think this act is "nothing to worry about"? Everyone who is putting this off as a minor point is part of the problem. It only goes to show that being on /. does not mean you have the power to reason. Remebe the words of Public Enemy when speaking about the alsying of Malcom X.."every brother aint a brother cause of color, hand of a nigger pulled the triger" Read a book, examine the public record of Net laws inthe past 5 years and try to use your brain once in a while.
As others have mentioned, how can anyone really expect to carry out a "national" agenda we dealing with something so completely international. Sadly, there is an arrogance involved (not trying to start a us bashing flame war here ) that the US has concerning the internet, that somehow they own it and have the right to control, legislate, monitor, "tap" as they see fit. It is however an international entity and as such when anyone country tries to control it they thereby infringe on the right of the populous of other soveriegn nations. What gonvernments wouldwide will have to do, is set up an international body for dealing with something of this nature and other such "problems" such as wireless communications technology etc, that is run by an org. similar to the UN, global in nature, looking out for the rights of all global citizens. This body will then have to be charged with dealing with some of the more heady issues such as e-commerce taxation, spam, "illegal" uses, net warfare, tapping, etc. For any one country to try and possess or exercise such power is trouble, the US government has to relenquish this notion of possestion of the net... even if Al Gore invented it :-)
"Oh, whoops. I guess if it weren't for the fact that the United States government of late DOES NOT have an excellent track record of protecting individual rights and freedoms, maybe we'd all be a little less triggerhappy about this sort of thing."
I certainly agree that, given the federal government's track record, along with statements made be various members of government that indicate a complete lack of understanding about the technology used on/with the Internet, we should be concerned.
The reason I made the above post was that (at least at the time), the majority of comments were posted by people who did not even know what this is about. People were calling this legislation, asking how this can be enforced, claiming that this isn't valid because the U.S. is not the only nation that uses the Internet, etc; rather than voicing valid concerns (of which there are many).
Worse? Dole? Do you think he would rule by executive order like a king? F#ck his workers? Cheat on his wife? You Clinton supporters are a bunch of f%cking retard! EVERY FUC$ING ONE OF YOU!
Corndog
"A great many people upset and offended at the creation of thought crimes." No, unfortunately, a great many people are _not_ going to offended by this action. Face it, most people don't vote, and most of those who do aren't informed. You and other /. users are the exception, not the rule. Most people, after being re-assured by the media and other government mouthpieces, will accept being locked inside their homes-as-prison, as being for their own good, and the protection of their children. The existence of an unconstitutional power such as the Executive Order is evidence enough that we, the people, have little to no power any longer.
First of all, I don't see how executions could be more expensive. If someone is in a prision for a very long time, you have to pay for their food, medication and board. If you kill the guy, you don't have these problems.
Second of all, if you risk executing someone who isn't guilty, you also risk locking away someone who isn't guilty. If your system of justice can not sort out the guilty from the innocent, then it shouldn't be throwing people in jail, not to mention executing them. Of course in a society such as the United States, it would be impossible to devise such a legal system without infringing on that pesky bill of rights . . .
Woah woah woah -- all of a sudden the slashdotters who were screaming at Jon Katz about how teenagers freedom to see R-rated movies is now crying about how their freedom is being taken away?
I would expect all of you who support taking teenagers freedom away to see R-rated movies are supporting this venture by Cliton.
Or does freedom only work when you want it to?
>Quite frankly, your arguement is specious at >best. Are you an anarchist who believes we >should have no laws?
yes. I am.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Next thing youll know you'll have to have your webpage 'approved' by your ISP before theyll let you post it.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Sadly, you seem to be falling prey to the same thing you accuse everyone else of. You cannot see outside the boundaries you set for yourself. I know what life is like being truly independant. Like communism, it is great in theory and tempting in its abscence.
Science disagrees with you. Humans by nature are social. They lack the skills to thrive in solitude. We form society not because of god or power-hungry leaders, but because that is human nature. This is rapidly flowing off topic, but think to yourself, how many of the great apes are solitary animals? Or are chimpanzee's subject to the opression of our mass media and governments?
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that for some reason you labled yourself as an outcast (or someone did it for you). You then take out your anger on the society that you think doesn't want you.
By the very nature of your comments, using absolutes and extremes, you are showing that you have very little idea what any of the *people* are like. You have never met me, yet you can only see me as a drone. You don't know how I think or what I believe in, but you label me mindless.
Others see me as radical thinking and a zealot. Many others see me as both. The problem is that you have only one view. Everyone is either a "free thinker" just like you, or a mindless drone completely unlike you. While what you say be be the truth to you, your views do not make something fact. If this were true, my views would also make something fact.
And I find your comments about religion rather dissappointing. They are characteristic of a person who has given up hope for a better world. You believe that everyone is trying to control you. In the end, if you subordinated by anyone, they are trying to control you.
You are one of the helpless people who think life is something that simply happens to you. Life is something that you make happen. No one controls what I think. But I also don't feel I have the right to impose that on others.
This is where we differ: I enjoy living among people with different beliefs than me. I find that it forces me to think for myself. You have decided that everyone must be like someone who hurt/damaged you, and have decided to remove yourself from that. It is simply running away from conflict.
If society is filled with government drones, why are you here (slashdot)? It is as much of a society as anything else in the world. You probably like this because you can voice your mind without fear of being embarrassed.
There are people in this world that embrace free thinkers like you. I am one of them. However, I got annoyed with you attacking me. And yes, you were attacking me. By referring to society as a whole and saying "everyone" was a certain way, you have included me.
For such a free thinking person this is rather puzzling. You seem to worship your individuality but strip it from everyone else.
Although i agree with most of your post, I must point out that both parties are business parties. This isn't laisezz faire capitalism party vs. totalitarian communist party. It's strong government and capitalist party A vs strong government and capitalist party B. They just end up taking different stances on a few popular issues when election comes...and one is closer to Christian fundamentalism. But they're basically the same party.
True, but you miss one important point that was made elsewhere in this discussion: No one on this board is a qualified technical expert, and in fact most are politicians. Not to call into question anyone's intellegence, but their goals, the understanding of what's possible on the net, and the actual acceptance of this by netizens because of the culture are three totally different things. Not one of these people is either a techie or a netizen; and unless the panel adds eleven other people to advise them, we're not going to get a fair shake.
Second, this group is made up of the president's closest advisors; he's not going to ignore their advice. What they say has extreme sway on what the prez will enact/propose.
And third, we geeks are not exactly known for joining together and fighting as a group. We just agree and do things our way, or we tend to accept and move on. When and if this group enacts laws, we may not have the sway to actually do something yet; and while I know the EFF and other groups like that will do their best, I'm not in total agreement with the EFF, or with most lobbying groups (the vast majority of which exist to promote software companies, not computers or internet freedom). I don't know if the EFF will either be effective or be helpful.
Doonesbury
Whatever you do... don't read this.
I meant that there might be some law protecting privacy. Then again, I suppose only the constitution is law about what laws can be made.
http://www.strategicintel.com/InternetEo.htm Executive Order Targets Internet by Pat Gaffney On August 5th, 1999, the President of the United States issued an Executive order to form a 'Working Group' designated to target "UNLAWFUL CONDUCT THE INTERNET". The tasking of a working group in lieu of a study group is indicative of an offensive posture. An offensive posture is one that is authorized to actively work within the bounds of existing laws, whereas a 'Study Group' is tasked with passive study and reporting...This analysis was completed by a former CIA analyst. "...An interesting note is that in 1995 Cyberspace Sovereignty was declared by a group of individuals calling themselves Laissez Faire City. This legal notice was placed in a number of legal publications worldwide. In this case Laissez Faire City may very well be the Jurisdictional Overseer of Cyberspace since the Legal notice was unchallenged by governments world-wide. In the very least this group now holds an unchallenged sovereign position in Cyberspace since all statutes of limitations have been met."
addresses the question from a legal point of view. Instead, everybody takes an emotional perspective, including the ones who understand that this, like the proposed controls on encryption, is about something much much bigger than kiddie porn and pipe bombs. And, if there is any group which should care about this emerging issue from a let's actually look-it-up and let's get-the-facts point of view, it should be this group! I suggest that a few drop the emotional ranting and try instead to get the facts.
The gloss requests - "perhaps a legally-qualified person can offer some thoughts [on where any President get this power to effectively make law by executive proclamation]."
A lot of very concerned people with legal training and background have put together a compendium of law on this extremely important issue. For those disbelievers who want to review a detailed step-by-step documentation of the origin of this executive power, Dr. Gene Schroder's Report on War and Emergency Powers is as good place as any to start. Understanding the html version of the report will require tracking down each of the references, and studying them carefully. (The written version is a little more complete. And, no I am not plugging for Schroder, any more than the rest of us plug for Linus and Redhat.) Reading the full report, and understanding it, however is going to require a very open mind and a few hours of hard work, for those who care to follow in their thoroughly documented footsteps of Dr. Schroder and others.
I know that my reference to this detailed report will arouse all the FBI mudslingers who lurk on /., but Gene Schroder's life work on Constitutuional Law is in my mind right up there with the life work of Stallman and Torvalds in respect of trying to preserve the prospect of free communication. It's is worth the effort.
A working group to address illegal activity on the web? This just shows how out of touch this administration is.
When you want an address for illegal activity on the web, you get a static IP from your ISP, or else you use DHCP. Then you get a domain name. It's the same for legal activity.
It's simple, why is a working group required? What are they going to reccomend? That all activity use the 207.xx.xx.xx subnet?
--Shoeboy
worth the title of intellectual are pro-gun rights! Like Eric Raymond, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams for instance. Chomsky and a**holes like him just pretend to be intellectual. They don't have a cohesive world view. The implementation of their views always falls to force. A more natural way is to just leave people the hell alone.
it ALREADY suggests crimes commited over the internet are under federal juristriction
o ssible person, but its time to face certain facts. There are millions and millions of 'normal' citizens (voting citizens) on the net, as well as an increasing number of people who use the net for illegal activities for the precise reason it is a legal grey area. It is true that the US does not own the internet, but the alternative, which is do nothing, is not an option anymore.
Precisely who's juristiction would you want Internet crimes to be under? The states? Interstate commerce laws make this impractical. Or would you have the interstate commerce laws not apply to the internet? I got an idea, lets appoint a working group to review the laws that exsist and... Oh wait! They already did that.
Or maybe you would have no law enforced on the internet? A sort of criminal haven I guess...
it ALREADY says that content will have to be policed in the future
I read the thing for the fifth or so time now, and I still can't find that part... could you quote it out for me please?
Besides, just because something is badly written doesn't mean it was badly written for a malicious purpose. It just means that the person who phrased it could be an idiot.
I am a die hard keep-the-government-as-far-from-the-internet-as-p
I don't want to give the impression that I am not nervous about this, because I am. One of the 'tools' the working group might (already have?) decided on is a back door to encryption cause by golly we can't let criminals communicate in a way we can't monitor. And this frightens me. There is alot of potential here for exploitation, but at the moment it is just that: potential. The real battle comes (and the opportunity for us to fight this will come) when the report is released and laws are attempted to be formed from its findings.
How many blatant attacks on the Constitution have been started in the last 6 months? It seems that every single day that yet another attack on the individual freedoms and liberties occur in this country.
The Internet is a truly open, free forum, consisting only of thoughts. Regulating the Internet is the same as regulating thoughts. The existing laws still apply to actions.
So if you go out and sell drugs, or even manufacture drugs, this is illegal with or without the internet, but if you discuss HOW to make drugs, this is legal, and should be, because it is speech, press, and thoughts...
sigh... sometimes i wonder if the government is trying to start a revolution. I certainly hope not, but there are going to be a great many people upset and offended at the creation of thought crimes.
... hi bingo
Yes, especially the part of the drug industry the CIA used to finance the rebels in Nicaragua... :-P
That all activity use
This should read That all illegal activity use
--Shoeboy
I'm guessing you don't know the majority of the American public.
>how can "god" grant you the "right" [...] i don't think you have the right to have an m-16, ak47 or anything else. what use does anybody have for those, except to kill people? Uh just in case you missed American History class in Highschool or College, the right to bear arms wasn't specified as "god given" but rather, in the context of the times, was a tool that was vital human existance. Guns were used for everything from killing game, to plinking at crop gawing pests to killing the armed representitives of tyrants (i.e. people). One could make a very strong argument that the right to bear arms priviso was put into the constitution for the express purpose of allowing citizenry to kill PEOPLE (red coats or red skin... it didn't make a difference). What's so wrong with killing people? Everything under the sun has it's time and it's place. Some times killing human beings is outright commendable. Americans just haven't been exposed to the conditions that make that particular action acceptable (though, I don't think the time is far off). I know that may seem uncivilized in these times, but you should think about computers and networks the same way the the framers of the constitution though of personal weapons. ...and if all possible, you should think ahead farther than that. As far as I'm concerned and occasional shooting spree is perfectly acceptable risk of keeping an slightly antiquated constitutional concept alive. Like about 99% of the population has an opposable thumb and a pre-frontal cortex, so if guns aren't available, they'll just use another tool or make their own guns (go down to your local police station and ask to see their collection of zip guns... it's probably more extensive than their collection of guns used in crimes).
... because I enjoy butting heads. I don't often find someone to argue with who has strongly molded opinions. Too often I am labled a troll, and left to flames. Of course, I don't expect much more.
:) Acutally most apes don't have large groups. Only the chimps (which are pretty dumb apes) hang around in large packs. The rest have little family groups. Family is good. Here is where I did not make myself clear (and many others, but I don't usually expect someone to take the time to try and understand): Society is good. Big government is bad. These days government has been considered part of society. There is the problem. Government controls education, and therefor controls the minds of the people. The media is a mouthpiece to the left-wing government too. That is sad to me.
;)
:) I love the internet!!!!
Independant thought is NOT only great in theory, but great all around. Do not think I mean independance from human control. No... I am talking purley about mind control (not silly movie mind control).
Orangutans are anti-social.
I am not angry at society. I am angry at where society is heading.
I use extremes to get responses. I am not a moderate in any way. I do understand people... too well. I am the type to listen more then talk, and so people spill their guts to me. I like those people, and also begin to understand how society is falling apart.
Everyone is either a "free thinker" just like you, or a mindless drone completely unlike you.
NO! Communist leaders are not drones. And they are complete opposite of me! Drones are people who think with their hearts, and not with their head. Don't take that statement wrong. I am not heartless. I feel with my heart. I do not think with it. This idea goes really deep for me...
As for me, everyone thinks I am a radical thinker, but no one thinks I am a zealot. Zealots do not back things up with fact. They push something on faith. If you are a zealot, that is a shame. If you back it up with fact, then they are wrong to consider you a zealot. So far, you don't seem like one to me.
Yes, what I feel about religeon is a shame. I wish I did not, but the more I understand, the worse it seems. Like I said before, that is mind control. You are told what to THINK. I don't mind being told what to DO. My gf tells me what to do (you can bet on that!). My boss tells me what to do. My family tells me what to do. Yet none of them tell me how to think. I have had people like that, and they quickly began to dislike me.
You are one of the helpless people who think life is something that simply happens to you. Life is something that you make happen. No one controls what I think. But I also don't feel I have the right to impose that on others.
Do you think I impose my thoughts on others? Does posting on slashdot impose ANYTHING on ANYONE? I think not! Yes, life DID just helplessly happen to me. For that I am glad. It makes me completely free. I don't have to report to anyone. Religous people think I would become evil because of that. Nope. I am the most moral person I know. I don't ever pirate freaking MP3s or software! Religous people are annoyed by that. Annoyed!!
However, I got annoyed with you attacking me. And yes, you were attacking me.
Sorry dude. Gotta use harsh words to get responses. Those with a mind respond. Otherwise I get flames.
You seem to worship your individuality but strip it from everyone else.
No, not everyone. Most people, yes. I am not the only one using extreme words, huh?
To think I am this twisted and I am only 20!
Wish you had an email, but no.spam does not seem like a domain name to me. heh..
Corndog
Look people are doing illegal stuff on the net. They are using the net to do stuff that has been illegal for years in whatever juristdiction you are talking about. If you use the net to commit fraud (Which was explicitly mentioned in the E.O.) You have commited a federal fellony. And you should be prosicuted for it. Just as if you had commited fraud in any other ways.
The laws of the Nation (Whichever one you are in)
for good or ill are still aplicable to you on the net.
I meen quite frankly if the mob is using the net to move stolen cars the FBI should stop them, that is why we have laws.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
No place in the Constitution is the right to keep and bear arms granted to anybody at all. The Second Amendment simply states that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It doesn't say that the right is "hereby granted by the government." It only says that this right shall not be fucked with.
That's what due process and probable cause are for. However, laws that assume that everyone is guilty of something do undermine what should be the null hypothesis in the US legal system. Also regarding 'an awful lot of laws': the Constitution trumps all of them.
On the guns front, look at the UK ... incremental removal of gun types works there. All you really need are a few massacres (preferably with a big "CNN factor"), followed by press outrage that "something must be done!" ...
BUY GUNS
yep.
Partly true. The story is like this. As of 2000, if it wouldn't be granted clasification as a book or movie (stuff with too much drugs, XXX or the like) then you can't host it in Oz, and if forign material it is identified by a panel as bad, ISP's must block it. I would still like to be treated like an adult and be alowed to *choose* what I look at and what I dont tho.
Once again the American Elected gov has tossed the glove down. Net users will get second class status under the growing body of legislation that is being spear headed by Clinton/Gore.
Not to mention Clinton/Gore are once again treating the net like an wholly American owned whipping post.
If you are American and you let these laws go unanswered, you have helped drive another nail in the nets potential.
If you are in a position to do someting about this, get up and organize. Hit the orgs already in the mix (cda, eff, hands of the net) or start up your own.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Right! As Thomas Sowell put it: "Who is the first person called to the site of a shooting? Someone with a gun to counter the bad guy doing the shooting."
If the 2nd Amendment doesn't include the common man neither does the 1st, and Freedom is farther down the toilet than you realize.
BTW, do you remember what happened to the guy in the Chicken suit who heckled Bush? He went on to work in Clinton's Administration rummaging through 1000+ FBI files (for which no one has gone to jail... they can't even figure out who hired Hillary's two friends. Ya, right.)
And, do you remember that Mexican-American couple that shouted questions about the bimbos at Clinton while he was visting the Dems in Chicago? Secret Security arrest, false accusations, lots of legel expense, IRS audits....
And this man, the most lying, dishonest, double-talking, newspeaking person ever to hold the office of President, is concerned about maintaining the freedom of the internet?
You are also right... he and his administration (16 of 18 cabinet officers indicted and/or convicted) couldn't have gotten away with all the stuff he has done without a bunch of Reps and Dems turning a blind eye and ear, and the Dan Rathers of the media covering the crimes with puff interviews and reruns of Nixon and McArthy stuff, as if Clinton's crimes and abuse of power were not as bad as Nixon's. Clinton has made Nixon look like an amateur.
And don't forget -- he'll destroy those liberties for the sake of the children.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Now, more victims are thinking about coming forward, and there are rumors they are going to join forces and file a class-action against President Clinton.
For latest developments, watch FreeRepublic.com. By the way, Free Republic had the story about this Executive Order last Friday.
I guess I didn't really expect to get anything back from the projected tax overcharge...er...make that "surplus." Laws, laws, and more laws. Each day he remains in office our republic gets weaker.
This is obviously no great move, but it's not too harmful either, because it says:
(b) The Working Group shall undertake this review in the context of current Administration Internet policy, which includes support for industry self-regulation where possible, technology-neutral laws and regulations, and an appreciation of the Internet as an important medium both domestically and internationally for commerce and free speech.
So it will be within that context, like it says, and hopefully the Working Group won't say anything stupid about free speech.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
Ever wonder where groups like EPIC and FSF are when research groups like this are formed? How about some representation by people who actually know the curent state of technology and could help prevent embarrasements like the Universal movie trailer fiasco?
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
The government and the people, or at least netziens seem to be in opposition.. what happened to the government serving the peoples needs.. Can we make make the US internet a state, and then elect our own guy to defend us? Every day I see the likes of my own Helms, and that ass Hyde, and think.. I'm not being represented! Are you being represented?
"Life is all about strategy, mathematics and psychological perceptiveness."
There goes Freedom. Who wants to march on washinton? =)
fruad and child porn are bad, but guns and explosives are *good*??? Oh, sorry, I wasnt aware that NRA members frequented this site...
How can "god" grant you the "right" to breathe? It isn't a right, it's a priviledge.
Soon enough, the government will come to remove your priviledge. Please wait patiently. Thank you, and have a good death.
Why the USA thinks they have the total power
:)
over the Internet. It's evident that nobody
(meaning the dearly loved Senators, Governors
and one sexcrazed President) have any *clue*
as to what it is, how it works and the fact
it spans the entire globe.
And here they go again.
Just something informative; the Internet (or at
least it's core functionality, packet switched
networks and the beginnings of the TCP/IP
protocol) was invented in the UK
(ofcourse after liberal caffeine intake I might
be mistaken...)
There is no sig...
This is not the first time Clinton has done something like this. He's signed more executive orders than any previous president. With them he does everything from giving pay raises to federal employees to making it easier to transfer tech to China to redefining federalism contra to the Constitution. (EO# 13083 by the way) If you don't believe me about the executive orders go read them yourself at the federal register's site or even at the Whitehouse's repository online. The press barely makes a peep about things like this. That's just as scarey.
Shame that with todays atmosphere there is no chance of ammending the constitution to ensure the privacy of personal communications. We'll be lucky if they do not outlaw the use of encryption in personal communication. A very sad state, the only people that will be able to afford privacy in a few years are the rich and powerful.
Dont open that can of worms. The last thing this forum needs is another session on the internet discussing why Bill Gates gets on his knees for Linux.
Pleeease... without us "rabid Linux morons." you would just be another MS Billy boy flunky. Wait a minute, come to think of it. You probably still are a MS Monkey Boy if you haven't at least looked at the anything other than Microsoft.
You poor shmuck you probably also think that there where no computers before microsoft. And that the Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny Colaberated to design OS2... wait, that really did happened.
"Resistance is not futile!"
"MS blows, billy hos, Jobs laid a florescent egg!"
-Linux Snyper-
Internet can be used for criminal activity, and it make that activity easier to perform and harder to prosecute. Yet this does not justifiy any form of attack on freedom and privacy, and the only thing, government can do is to act within existing laws and educate public about safety, reasonal behavior and responsibility in anything related to the Internet.
It doesn't take a working group, created by EO, to come to this conclusion -- actually it doesn't take anything because everyone who have seen anything remotely related to the Internet, already heard that. This means that EO was issued to achieve something else, most likely to create long and emotionally charged document that is supposed to justify new laws that reduce freedom in this country -- possibly with a goal of selective application.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Maybe because we INVENTED IT. You can say we don't have power over it all you want but if we decided to close off all the pipes going to outside the states, it'd collapse in a heartbeat. I bet you have to go through the states to get from the UK to Sweden. Don't you?
;)
:)
AFAIR (As Far As I Recall), AOL (America Off...er...OnLine) works like that, using a central authoritative server-system.
One of the main purposes of the Internet (ARPAnet) was to allow for continued connectivity even if one or some links get broken - but as one of the inventors, you probably know that already.
Greetings to Al Gore, too.
-- Eavy (: Linux Is Not UniX
i wasnt aware rabid anti-gun advocates frequented this site either. whats wrong with a person legally owning guns or explosives ? the US military owns large quantities of them.
It's too bad that these were passed, we already have added punishments in place for aggravating factors of crimes. A murder should be a murder, should be a murder. Granted, if you rob the person, or if you murdered him becuase he was a minority, then you should do more time (punishment phase of a trial)... but that has nothing to do with the actual *crime* -- Ender, Duke of URL
Your socio-political rhetoric is classical of that borne of education without experience. We are talking about the Internet here, Intellect, not guns or prostitution. The Internet is about Ideas, Opinions and Thoughts - when these are to be censored, what will the forum be for like minded individuals to express their opinions without fear of recrimination or persecution.
The world is not a "hive mind", many of us (evidently not you) still value individuality and freedom of choice.
"Prior to such presentation, the report and recommendations shall be circulated through the Office of Management and Budget for review and comment by all appropriate Federal agencies.
Would a comittee that had the god-like governmental powers you just describe need to circulate it's report to beauracrat in D.C. ? Now here is the part I find very odd, the timing. Starting now, on Aug 9th, the group is not scheduled to submit their report for 120 days. Then it has to be reviewed by "all appropriate federal agencies". God what a management nightmare! This procedure is not by any means going to be completed during Clinton's administration. So now we have to think about who it falls to next. If Gore wins the election we can assume that he will act on, probably in the direction he has always acted before. Get a copy of PGP now! But what happens if Bush Jr. is in the Oval Office by that time? Probably he buries, it wasn't written by a member of his party. But then how do the democrats reactThis EO has more implications than just studying internet "usage" and proposing new laws. It actually gives this group the power to implement policy and legislation over the internet without agreement from other legislative bodies. The text of the EO just requires that the working group get input from other bodies. They can ignore the input as long as they document the reasons why. Last time I read the Constitution, only Congress had the power to enact legislation like that. Where is the Congressional outcry??????
_ xcbtl_clinton_co.shtml
For a good analysis of the EO, look at WorldNetDaily: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_btl/19990809
cheers!!
So, I guess this means President William Jefferson Clinton (aka, Billy Boy) will have to shut off his Offal Office webcam, eh?
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
And another thing, what about people that live in europe? are they affected by the cencorship? how about people in asia? the bahamas? and etc.
> there are going to be a great many people upset
> and offended at the creation of thought crimes
The creation of "thought crimes" is an issue that is currently under heavy debate, but I'm not talking about the Internet.
They are more familiarly known as "hate crimes." People want to give extra punishment because a particular thought/emotion/attitude towards another group motivated the crime. Hot words like racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, etc. are examples of some of the thoughts.
And believe it or not, some groups actually want these hate crime laws.
Yea, the constitution says it "Trumps all of them" but in practice Congress and the Supreme Court ignore the Constitution.
Public schools would not be legal as they currently exist if the US followed it's own constitiution.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
robert they know the issues. the internet is threatening to take power from the state and give it back to individuals. think about that for a minute.
Thanks for the info. For anyone that doesn't feel like searching, they're all here.
I thought this is a democracy, so the president can only have the power "you" gave him. Now the Internet cannot be a lawless area and all in all it does not make for a very interesting read; cool down a bit.
Well yo may claim to be leaving the Knee Jerk path, but you did it in such a knee jerk fashion your are still part of it.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
"we need to get back to those covert government slush funds that finance right-wing death squads in Central America, get the government back into to the cocaine business, and fix a few elections while we're at it,..."
The gov't never stopped doing those things. It has always been biz as usual.
Then check the Executive Order FDR signed in January of 1942. It authorized the FBI to use CENSUS data, in violation of the Census act and the will of congress. Those apposing the census act, at the time of its passage, claimed it would be abused eventually be abused by some future president.
Using the census data FBI agents rounded up all American citizens of Japanese ancestry on the west coast and sent them to concentration camps in the desert for the remainder of the war. No similar actions was taken against Americans of German or Italian ancestry.
It was for the preservation of the principals and liberties mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Right that we went to war in the first place. To do what FDR did made a mockery of them, but no worse than the Supreme Court saying in the Dred Scott decision that "all men" doesn't include negros, or in Row vs Wade that a human fetus isn't a human being, or HUD threatening California homeowners with violations of homeless peoples civil rights simply because they went to court (sought due process) to prevent a homeless shelter from being built in their neighborhood.
In other words, our fameous documents of freedom aren't worth the paper they are written on if those elected to "preserve, protect and defend" , degrade, lie and destroy those liberties.
This is why the people I talk with show little respect for either political party- the reps seem to favor BG type capitalism and the dems favor Lenin type socialism and the lobbyists and special interest groups pay larges sums to buy of both sides.
What a mess. The reason: our elected representatives have as much moral fiber as those who elected them. We get the politicians we deserve.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
There is no way this side of Hades that that many government agencies can do ANYTHING in 120 days. Which means that their "report" is already written. I can tell you what it will say already: "there aren't enough federal laws to let us go after all those nasty people who want to sell guns or drugs or kiddie porn on the Internet -- we need more federal laws! And we need mandatory blocking programs everywhere to [say it with me, everyone] Protect The Children!"
Gag.
This executive order stuff was dangerous. Did you listen, no. http://harvest-trust.org/newnazi.htm
"Hopefully George W. will clean up all this crap when he takes over."
GWB's version of "I didn't inhale" -I don't do coke for the high, I just like the way it smells.
Damn! I just stole my own sig
China ain't gonna have nothing on the US!
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
if you risk executing someone who isn't guilty, you also risk locking away someone who isn't guilty
True. But when you finally find out that he/she ISN'T guilty, if you've locked them up, you can let them out.
If you've killed them, I suppose you can dig them up.
Either way, you get them out of a grave situation, but someone it doesn't seem the same....
Do you know what CAUSE AND EFFECT is?
The gov has doen this shit time and again. Wake up.You cant be blind to the facts forever. Lookat the CDA for a clear show of how the little things turn big.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
"Jail is great,..."
Don't forget the great sex!! Let's see if you can take it like a man. We'll be happy to move you in tomorrow. Bring the kids...
The Internet should be admitted as the fifty-first State.
The Internet would have its own voting electorate and its own state laws, and its own taxation ability. US interstate commerce laws would apply to relationships between the Internet and the other 50 states. [Think of the relationships between, say, Martinique and the other overseas departments and the rest of France.]
Citizenship in the US Internet State could be granted by proof of residency, if so desired.
Foreign nationals and businesses using or connected to the Internet could set up their own Internet political entities in their own lands. Commerce and communication between the various Internet States around the world would be regulated by current international law, treaties and agreements.
[For some reason, when the word "Internet" is added to a debate, a previously settled issue is suddenly open to renegotiation, even in the face of established, current law.]
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
I didn't know one bullet or piece of rope cost so much, but I guess paying for their needs in jail for the rest of their life is better. Jail is great, free food, free tv, free living, free weight rooms, all at the taxpayers expense. Oh yeah and the best law libraries money can buy.
Let 'em investigate it. Despite the popular opinion on /. not all laws are bad. We can either have good laws that are designed to protect childrens' rights and privacy, or bad laws that restrict childrens' freedom. The report is going to get written either way. We're the experts so we should be the ones speaking up to inform them of the correct choices.
-Rich
Where is the good president going to get his pr0n?
In my mind, this is nothing more than a PR move by Clinton. Of course this can't be enforced, but does the general public know that? I doubt it. What the general public will see is Clinton attempting to stop things like child porn. How well this works is irrevelant. The fact that he tried will make the people like him.
Do the obvious to e-mail me.
Have you seen the "Hate Crimes" bill that's going through the house judiciary commitee yet? That's what it will do. It'll make a federal crime out of any crime that is for prejudicial purposes (like killing a jew because he/she is a jew, or assaulting a homosexual because he/she is a homosexual). It's making the motive for the crime the actual crime. It will create a new class of crimes, not just varying degrees on existing crimes. Some people who tesified (i saw the hearings on C-SPAN) said that instead they should simply use existing laws and attach new sentencing guidelines for so-called "hate crimes."
72656B636148206C72655020726568746F6E41207473754A
Once again, Slashdot has reacted in its typical reactionary manner. This order is NOT a, abuse by Bill Clinton. It's nto even a significant event, really. Here's why. All this order does is establish a group to study whether or not there could be effective laws to help prevent some of the illegality that already exists on the internet, and whether or not these laws exist. (See the examples cited in the order: fraud [travel scams, prescription drug scams, fake ecomerce sites, etc], child pornography, drug trafficking, etc.) Most of the time, these laws already exist; if they do not, any new laws would still have to go through the existing lawmaking process - the house, the senate, a signature by the president, and, if there's a possibility of a constitutional violation, the court system. This group has NO lawmaking powers on its own. No one is talking about banning nudity or encryption or anything like that. Besides, the federal courts have been very reluctant to uphold any anti-liberty net laws so far; it's unlikely they would suddenly start approving them. The US government sponsors hundreds of such commissions every year; this is nothing new. And likely, nothing will ever come out of it. Don't worry. The sky is not falling. Roger Ford
BtW: Super Users (At least those who are it by the test of MicroShaft) don't know how to get to those sites either.
So?
It seems to me that there are far worse things out there, this is fairly neutral speech, I mean is this even going to be an agency with a name?
Has anyone ever heard of the Metallic and Non-Metallic Mine Safety Board of Review? Well, it was a government agency that was created so if a lot of people protested the closing of mines for safety reasons they would have a place to take their complaints. However, in all the years that the agency existed, no one brought one single complaint before the board. Board meetings consisted of trying to come up with a logo for the agency, in nice resort spots, and the guy who ran the agency spent his time in his office listening to classical music until it was time to go home. He was always completely forthright with Congress, and told them during yearly reviews that he didn't have any work to do. Eventually (in Washington slow-time) the closed the agency and transferred its functions to the Dept. of the Interior
I'm not a fan of Bill Clinton, and I think this is probably a waste of time/money, but when you've got agencies with teeth (FBI) egged on by ignorant pols this seems sort of... un-news. I promise to recant if this body turns into a real scary threat, but right now I think there are bigger fish to fry.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Usually, I'm resolutely apolitical on slashdot. I'm bored today, though.
Does anyone doubt that the result of this will be a recommendation for special laws that pertain to the internet? There is so much popular media that portrays the internet as dark and evil (your cat-5 is cursed!). Many see it as a home for pedophiles, hate groups, and little else.
Kiddie porn is illegal no matter how you trade it. Hate crimes are crimes regardless of whether or not the perpetrators have a home page. What is the purpose of creating more laws when we are doing an inadequate job of enforcing the existing ones?
Is it more likely that the recommended laws will actually amount to provisions that make it easier for the government to "monitor" internet activity? Is it likely that those provisions will make the internet less useful for law-abiding citizens?
I have a BS in Political Science with a minor in Criminal Justice. I worked (briefly) for my local Sheriff's Department. I STILL don't understand the hoopla of "The Internet Menace". Maybe it's because I understand the internet a little better than the average voter. Maybe I'm just naive.
Or maybe it's because "The Dark Internet" is a far more effective scare tactic than an actual menace.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I wonder what the comission will report... hmmmm....
1: the internet is too damned big to police effectively. Sorting through all the BS would make finding real criminals far too time consuming.
2: even if the government could police the internet, easy access to encryption products like PGP will make it impossible for the government to catch people doing much of anything once the "criminals" realize how easy it is to use.
3: aside from w4r3z and kiddie pr0n, not much illegal shit happens online. Kiddie pr0n people will pick up encrytion if the feds crack down on them, and w4r3z people aren't worth the bother it would take to hunt them down since most of them don't deal out in quantities large enough to successfully prosecute.
all in all, it's just more of Bill campaigning for Al and Hilly-Bob...
1. Are existing federal laws sufficient to address crimes that use the Internet?
2. Are new technologies, government powers, or organizations needed to combat Internet crime?
3. Can new technologies help "educate and empower" citizens to protect themselves?
Now, we might not like the answers the working group comes up with to those questions. (Things like the V-chip, government access to private keys, etc.) But that's not a reason to disparage the attempt at studying the issues. In fact, this can be an opportunity to argue that current government powers are sufficient--- or at least that further regulation will not be effective.
There's no need to panic just because the government is considering what changes, policies, or technologies might help law enforcement. We might (however unlikely) agree with the answers they come up with!
"I wish it was true that it unconstitutional for the government to monitor people's communications,..."
I was under the impression that unless it's specifically authorized by the constitution, then it's prohibited...
-Help, I'm a cop... FZ R.I.P
The government won't be happy until laws are put into place preventing people from using the web without a license. I'm serious. Right now you need a license to drive, fish, hunt, build a building, operate a ham radio, etc... And what better way to keep people on the straight-and-narrow by threatening to pull that license. It works really well for radio stations (the FCC wasn't established to police broadcasts -- they were in place to keep transmitters from overlapping frequencies). Step out of line, you're off the air. Post plans to make a bong, the FIC (Federal Internet Commission) yakes your internet license for a year.. I can just hear it now: "Using the internet isn't a right -- it's a priveledge!"
[ Posted anonymously for fear of government harassment ]
And the criminals.
It also happens to state that the working group should take into consideration current "Internet policy", which promotes self-regulation "and an appreciation of the Internet as an important medium both domestically and internationally for commerce and free speech."
There doesn't appear to be anything bad about this at all really. You don't have a problem with "the illegal sale of guns, explosives, controlled substances, and prescription drugs, as well as fraud and child pornography"?
Hell, they didn't even mention warez or illegally exported crypto stuff!
You need to learn a bit more about politic and
you will understand the meaning of studies.
A study is made when people bitch to the
government to do something and the government
is unable or doesn't want to do anything about it.
Look at the past history in Canada about racism
toward the natives and French. Little was done
except over 30 years of multiple useless studies.
And here in the USA about Acid rain, studies and
more studies, nothing of value is really done.
In this case they'll study about possible things
that can be done and will find out that little
can be done.
Child pornography : the nasty stuff is usually
not done here in the US.
Drugs, guns and explosives : By the time they
get to the guilty ones, they'll be moved. This
is just mail moving to the net.
Fraud : read previous comment.
At the end the population is pleased, the
president has done something about their biggest
worry, the internet.
If people are so concerned about the kids
being exposed to filth on the net why not
keep the kid off the computer? It's just
another baby sitter as the TV is/was.
I hope this doesnt lead to a situation somwhat like Australia is about to end up with... Controls put in place by the government without any idea of how effective, or disruptive the planned laws could be. But, if thats the direction the governing institution wants to go I doubt the net community will be yelling in the streets, just like in Australia, a few people spoke up, but not enough to show the sentiment of the netizens... No point closing the gate after the horse has bolted...
I'd guess the President is feeling pressure from a lot of different groups (current buzzword: recording industry) to do something about all this stuff.
/.
You can complain about the piracy in China, but it's happening on the internet too, and like it or not- some individuals and companies feel affected/threatened by it.
And a "working group" seems like a fairly intelligent way to go about it all too. They're not talking about making new laws, passing new legislation, etc... but simply trying to figure it all out, and how computers and the internet are going to change the way the federal government and federal laws operate.
However, this has the possibility to be a Very Good Thing (but I'm not holding my breath), especially if that group begins to realize the implication of encryption, free speech, digital copyrights, and any other multitude of important issues which have been discussed recently on
It could also be a Very Bad Thing if they come to admittedly non-liberal views on those same topics. Something to the effect of putting tracking collars on every packet connected to the 'net. No matter how lofty and noble the goals might be, the loss of privacy and potential for abuse are just too great.
I'm sure others can say it better, but don't get your shorts in a bunch, it might not be all that bad. And with a group like this, perhaps they would be willing to listen to their more informed constituents?
$0.02
--Robert (rames@utdallas.edu)
If that stuff is illegal already, then why do we need to conduct an internet witch hunt and create a lot of new laws and regulations. How about enforcing the existing laws before we clog up the system with more?
The last time I checked, the Internet wasn't designed and planned to be a ramrod to eliminate all national governments, and usher in an era of world government. That's what all the loonies in this discussion seem to think the "above the law" Internet should represent. You can't drape wires all over the planet, convince 5% of the world's population that it's keeno kewl to talk to each other over those wires, and then pre-emptively declare yourself a sovereign state. It doesn't work that way, but everybody here seems to think it does. All the Libertarian loonies come out to play when a Temporary Autonomous Zone opens up. Have a bit more fun, your party room won't last much longer.
'nuff said.
At the same time, fifteen minutes a day of computer participation, started as soon as it comes home from the hospital, is strongly recommended to all parents...Increase computer time to two hours by eighteen months, and to four hours by school age. (Tip: Leather straps are a good way to ward off "fidgets", and a dandy way to get Mom some "time off"!) Naturally, it's a given that you'll want the very NEWEST hardware for this...step right this way...
What? You don't like it?? You wonder how they're going to socialize, excercise, even go outdoors now and then?? Why, don't you know that it's IMPERATIVE that ALL children be taught "computer literacy", especially as it refers to the "information superhighway", to insure employability as we build a "bridge to the twenty-first century", and make the United States competetive in the "world marketplace"...
Yawn. I'm kind of sick of hearing how "kids" are the focus of computing -- children needing computers, being wizards with computers, misbehaving with computers, being threatened by computers, being taught by computers...Fact is, I'd really like to take computers out of schools...I'd like to see more cybercafes, more arcades with computers, more computers at home (preferably in the living room) where everyone can use them. Instead of cities and towns paying twice over to have state-of-the-art hardware K-12 (that are totally unused at night, on weekends, and during the summer) and overbooked terminals in public libraries, I'd rather have them put them all in one place, where retirees, jobseekers, and the curious of all kinds can learn from them.
"Computer literacy" is a joke, similar to the "New Math" -- in the hands of someone like Wozniak, you can teach 10 year olds to do something more than pointing and clicking (anyone remember Logo? BASIC?) with "educational" software little better than bad video games -- but most teachers either don't know or don't want to learn. Meanwhile, most parents who don't use computers at work (and a considerable number who do) consider their home WinTel boxes to be little more than electronic babysitters -- in my experience teaching adult computer literacy, the continual refrain is that "it's something kids do -- they're naturally better at it than I am, I'm too old, I can't learn..." -- with the result that the family computer is in the oldest son's room, regarded with holy dread by the parents and womenfolk, while he's pretty much stuck in there. Is it any wonder that he's checking out www.youngest.com, www.kkk.org, and the like? It's the only thing he can do, and all we've left to him...Sorry to ramble, but come on, Bill, will you please make up your mind?
teleny, friend of cats.
I really do suggest you get a clue, why don't you read the ACLU's attack on the Communications Decency Act where they describe how the Internet isn't owned by anybody and is a separate entity in itself.
It looks like the shoe is on the other foot now guys, the thought police are turning their attention to the US, they've already legislated against freedom of thought and speech in Australia!!!
There's something wrong when a sleazy prick like Clinton can come up with crap like this, and what amazes me is that there's no shortage of self-righteous people to jump on the bandwagon - how quickly they forget eh?
Subject says it all.
If the U.N. had control/regulatory authority over the Net, the entire world would be facing the same sort of censorship/monitoring that the US is starting to face.
It wouldn't happen right away, but it would creep up on us, slowly but surely.
The U.N. consistently has written legislation that is totally against liberty and freedom oriented people.
They are closet totalitarians, the same way the current adminstration is. Anyone that denies this is categorically ignoring everything that has happened for the last 40 years (UN) and the last 7 years (Clinton).
Look at the Kyoto accords, for instance. If the policies from Kyoto are implimented, they will gut US industry, while leaving the "developing" world to continue polluting. This would relegate the US to having no heavy industry, no manufacturing, hence not much of an economy. It would cripple energy production, so even Net development would be slowed, and exported.
Giving the UN ANY kind of authority over the Net is a Very Bad Idea(TM).
If you want more evidence of bad things the UN has done do a Google search on "Moon Treaty", which the US thankfully has not ratified.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
All this order does is establish a group to study whether or not there could be effective laws to help prevent some of the illegality that already exists on the internet, and whether or not these laws exist. (See the examples cited in the order: fraud [travel scams, prescription drug scams, fake ecomerce sites, etc], child pornography, drug trafficking, etc.) Most of the time, these laws already exist; if they do not, any new laws would still have to go through the existing lawmaking process - the house, the senate, a signature by the president, and, if there's a possibility of a constitutional violation, the court system.
This group has NO lawmaking powers on its own.
No one is talking about banning nudity or encryption or anything like that. Besides, the federal courts have been very reluctant to uphold any anti-liberty net laws so far; it's unlikely they would suddenly start approving them.
The US government sponsors hundreds of such commissions every year; this is nothing new. And likely, nothing will ever come out of it. Don't worry. The sky is not falling.
Roger Ford
He was "elected" by the electoral college... a paramilitary organization composed of New World Order executives. The actual "citizens" of the United States have no power whatsoever to decide who governs us... corporations and the NWO do.
"if the second amendment doesnt include the comman man, neither does the first" Ummm...the second amendment states "in order to establish and maintain a militia..." The US Supreme Court has decreed that in modern times, the National Guard is the militia to which the second amendment refers. So: THE SECOND AMENDMENT DOES NOT INCLUDE THE COMMON MAN. Check your arguments before you submit them...and stop trying to tie the second amendment, which in no way supports anything to do with gun control or the NRA, in with the First Amendment. That is a false analogy. The second amendment exists, in the framers' minds, to prevent tyranny by establishing some sort of National Guard.
>>> I guess this might be scary to the "You can have my kid's gun, when you pry it out of his cold dead fingers" crowd.
What a stupid thing to say. It is nearly impossible to purchase a gun illegally over the internet. Most transactions require the gun to be shipped to a licensed dealer who then runs background checks, etc.
I say nearly impossible because just like there will always be 3% of people incapable of playing by the laws the rest of us do, there are bad gun dealers also. Yes, you may buy 1 or 2 guns illegally with the help of the internet if you work at for the next 12 months. You could also get one illegally (in several days at most) in any large American city.
Here's a thought: THIS IS AMERICA--A FREE COUNTRY. Accept the risk that a certain percentage of people will feel free to not obey the law.
Slashdot: Liberal News for Nerds. Liberal Stuff that Matters.
When will Rob add SSL support to slashdot?
Maybe because we INVENTED IT. You can say we don't have power over it all you want but if we decided to close off all the pipes going to outside the states, it'd collapse in a heartbeat. I bet you have to go through the states to get from the UK to Sweden. Don't you?
You just used all kinds of expensive words you really can't afford to say something we all knew. Cyberspace doesn't exist. When I read a book where there are all sorts of fairies and demons, and hobbits and stuff in the story, it goes away when I close the cover on the book. That's what the Internet is like. Deal with it.
Your euphamisms do not fool anyone. Clinton is "THE" most rotten president we have ever had. He makes Nixon and Carter look like pre-k kids. He has done more bad for this country than all the previous presidents put together. Hmmm.... School shootings? how many have there been in the last year? Well... i don't need to go on.
Attorney General- It's well known that Reno mae her mark in Florida with a bunch of shodilly prosecuted "kiddie" cases. So I guess she qualifies as "child related"
Treasury - My guess is that the Treasury Department is there because of the ATF. Guns Alcohol and Tobacco... Or, if you're particularly paranoid, Reno's old friends from Waco. Child-related? Doubtful-- although this may cause the death nell of internet liquor and gun sales to minors. I guess this might be scary to the "You can have my kid's gun, when you pry it out of his cold dead fingers" crowd.
Commerce - I can't think why they qualify, unless the're planning to "crack down" on MP3 commerce.
Education - very possibly child related...
Do not calm down. Stay frantic and irrational. You are difficult to identify unless you keep ranting. An attendent will be by shortly to administer your medication.
I gave him no power over me; I'm not from the US. And yet he wants to do something that will potentially affect me. This is wrong.
as someone once said, you should never watch the production of law, or sausage, too closely. IMHO, this 'working group' is in fact a good thing, given the context that it is presented in. On the very day that the last charges against Mitnick are dropped, you should consider just exactly what actions under-educated officials are willing to take when charged (by a terrified populace) with the regulation of a technology that they do not understand, and therefore fear. The report created by this group will be used by the current, and possibly future, administrations and congressional committees as a basis upon which to respond to some of the more crackpot regulatory and legislative proposals emanating from congress and the named federal departments. As has been discussed at length elsewhere on /., as recently as today, there really is no such thing as too much education, and the fundamental charge contained in the executive order is educational in nature and scope.
I drink to make other people more interesting
Great.. So all these "horror story" reports are going to come out, and what will be the result?
* New laws (which I guarantee
* More regulations and hoops for Internet activity
* New "enforcement" actions, maybe including a new branch of "cyberpolice" to march around the Internet looking for jaywalkers.
Take me back to the days when the Internet was a wide open frontier, before the fences started going up...
W
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
You're a hard guy. I bet your girlfriend really likes it when you talk tuFF on the net for a few hours then take her to bed to rutt.
Yep, use crypto. Babylon. Opps, that was supposed to read: babble on.
The colonials fought together, using the very same things you're trying to outlaw, to gain the right to act independently. If I crash my car and get myself mangled, there shouldn't be any government program to fix me up - which means your tax bill wouldn't go up. Insurance? Can't help that - but it goes on whether you try to stop it or not. Read the legend of King Knut.
What you need to wake up and realize is that more individual freedom is not a bad thing. You want your tax bill to go down? Scrap welfare, scrap income tax (started "for the duration of the war" in the 40s, BTW) scrap Social Security, scrap Medicare, get rid of 90% of all government workers. Scrap the NEA, scrap every single government agency and program that should not be a government agency. (What else? Start with the USPS - that's a market function now. Education - check the test scores, privatized schools are doing so much better than public that it's not even funny. By killing income tax and eliminating all these government "taxes" that aren't labelled as such, you can eliminate most of the IRS - fold it back into the Treasury, where it belongs.)
Oh, we won't do it. The people like their Bread and Circuses, and so we'll chase the rabbit around and around some more. Until one day we realize that the track is a spiral, not a circle, and it doesn't lead up.
Of course, you'll refuse to believe it. Fools always do. You sit there and read your revisionist history and doing your new math, and it never occurs to your tiny, dark little mind that maybe, just maybe, this has all happened before. Change your statement to Latin, and it could be straight from the arguments before the fall of Rome. But hell, you don't care; things were so different then, and who reads that stuff, anyway? Gibbon is so damned heavy, and there're no pictures.
Meanwhile the rest of us watch in sadness, we lonely few who've been taught to think instead of simply memorizing... watch as the grand experiment, the wonderful land of hope and freedom known as the United States, decays and dies like every republic before it. For the same reasons. We don't need barbarians at the gate; they're inside already, and they're sitting on the throne.
-- The meek shall inherit the Earth. In very small plots, about 6 feet by 3.
...at least trying to.
/.-ers) .
:) I'll have to finish this off later.
Personal computers, and the internet, are the biggest advances in mass education since the printing press. Think of all the changes that have happened since the invention of the printed page. We're looking at that type of paradigm shift. As a result, current institutions are opposed to the changes provided by the tech industries produced from the shift, because these industries move "power" from the current institutions to individuals and newer institutions.
It isn't just the internet, either. I mean, the personal income tax as a tool of wealth distribution has been obsolete since the invention of the mail-order catalog, the limited-access highway, and now the computer mo-dem (hyphenated for non
At least in the U.S., we have a semi-fighting chance. I say semi-, for obvious reasons.
Basically, it boils down to a situation where we either vote for candidates who will support the new paradigm, or run for office ourselves. And btw, we have to (a) have lots of kids, (b) raise and educate the kids by ourselves, to try to catch up with the ignorant masses.
I've run out of rant, for now.
Basically, you are describing a nation without a society. Everyone acts independently without any help or interference from the government. This is sort of like normal anarchist rant, except usually you would say that there should be no government.
Without the programs you mentioned, some people will not have the money to send their children to the now commercial schools. And without school, they can no longer think like you and all the other "enlightened" people. Oh, wait. Neither can their children. I see a vicious cycle.
If you want to compare the US to Rome, do a full analysis. I think you'll come up with a few major differences.
Finally, If you think that I cannot see outside my little world, try to see outside yours. Can you immagine a world of millions of people trying to help each other? A world where people actually care about how their neighbors are doing?
Usually I find that anarchists are people who feel that society has wronged them in some way. Well, society has done nothing for me, but instead of whining, I try and change it and dream for a better day.
The country you describe is a country without dreams or hopes. A country without citizens or a soul. A country without a future. A country where life simply happens to the inhabitants, and they have even less control over what happens.
Of course you'll refuse to believe it. Fools always do.
...mean? Darkharlequin....
I thought this is a democracy, so the president can only have the power "you" gave him. You were wrong. The president was given only the powers enumerated in the Constitution. The Constitution don't say diddy about "executive orders". The government will have as much power as it can steal and usurp before the citizens start shooting. Just like all the other governments.
"If I post a website on how to rob a convienence store am I breaking a law? What if I do it "as a joke"? "
Words in themselves are never crimes; however, if your words are intended to assist someone or culminate in an action, you can be an accessory. If you plan the action with another it can be conspiracy. If you try to motivate someone to take an action, it can be solicitation.
Solicitation, conspiracy, and accessory are the weirdest bunch in criminal law. On one hand, its almost too easy to get an indictment; thus, it can lead to indiscriminate prosecution. Conversely, its difficult to prove. Per your example, you can claim its just a joke, and the burden of proof on your state of mind is with the prosecution. This means long cases, and (IMHO) convictions come done to who has the most money to spend to put on the most persuasive battery of state of mind and general purpose witnesses.
Even if you get off on the criminal charge, an aggrieved party can still bring a civil suit claiming that your joke was negligent and prone to cause the intended action. Negligence is much easier to prove than willfulness.
The bottom line is while you theoretically have complete freedom of speech, our current legal system does not make it prudent to make jokes about criminal activity. To me that is sad.
Not a lawyer, but in law school.
The executive order passes no law. There is no change here.
Obviously you are an anarchist, and you refuse to see any government action as just, but how exactly is the president supposed to do his job, or is he simply a figurehead? Executive orders are the way that the president sets up agencies and enforcement groups and orders them to act. That is exactly what is being done here.
It's too bad that explaining how our government works is now "rabid anti-freedom/ultra communist sentiment." I have spent enough time explaining to other anti-government posts.
I choose to support the goverment because I believe in society. People helping other people. I know the government isn't perfect. However, I am still a free thinking individual. At least I try and change things instead of saying "It isn't perfect, let's scrap it and make it my way" or "let's not make it at all."
The US (and much of Europe, for our international friends) is one of the few places where you can say this and not be worried about the security of your life. Why? Because people like me will protect you anyways. I don't care what you think, when you get mugged and sit in a hospital in a coma, I am willing to pay for your health insurance with my tax dollars.
Now doesn't that just confuse you. I must be a government drone. I must have brainwashed by public schools. I must actually be an agent of the government posing as a common slashdot user. We are everywhere you know.
Ever taken a government philosophy class? Government is based on a society that gets together to help each other. Thus though some will need more help than others, the entire group will benefit. If you join the society, you get all the benefits of society, but have to bear the burdens of society also. To go against this (as you are) is to say that you no longer want to be part of society.
...but it DOES serve as basically a "heads up". That is, should the 'net be used as a medium for criminal activity, such as selling controlled substances, the Feds will at least have taken a brief look at what they can do to investigate it.
After all, many law enforcement bodies right now don't have that much experience when dealing with investigations of this nature. It's fitting that they figure out what they're allowed to do, and whether or not criminals can evade the normal police tactics simply by going online. The obvious solution is to study it before something big bites them in public.
To do otherwise would be to stick their heads in the sand -- what they DON'T want to happen is, say, a (pre-arrest) Escobar-wannabe buying up "drugs.com" and marketing mail-order cocaine, and DEA agents scratching their heads about how to stop that.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I'm really getting sick of the Clinton Administration thinking they can police and run the entire world. Last time I checked, The Internet is not some company that runs in the US. Hulk Hogan for President!
The East Coast Establishment/Hollywood Machine doesn't control the internet (yet). To help them, we must impose mandatory filtering, taxes, route traffic to corporate sites, bad mouth Administration critics and imply that criminals and pornographers are rampant on the internet. Only when it's as controlled as the evening news can we trust it to inform the average citizen.
Yet again the United States Government demonstrates its utter lack of any technical knowledge or understanding whatsoever.
:)
These people still haven't realized one simple thing: they can't legislate the internet. It's not *theirs*. Current political models are based around geography, the concept of physical borders. The internet transcends physical geography. "Cyberspace" (i hate that word) doesn't exist in the U.S., it doesn't exist in Brazil, it doesn't exist in England. It doesn't exist in physical space, and thus political and legislative models based in physical space can not and will not apply to it.
The simplest solution to this dilemma is to simply ignore them.
To further my rant, not only do their concepts of "laws" not apply in any way, but they can never hope to keep up with the rapid pace of the net. Anything they can come out and declare "illegal" we can re-package, re-route, and re-work in a thousand different ways before they even get the law through their aging and increasingly disconnected legal system.
This government claims to represent the will of the people. I say that the net itself is the only true representation of the will of the people. They're becoming more and more irrelevant every day and losing ground steadily.
Bye! *wave* We don't need you any more! See-ya!
Anthony DiMarco
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
: sigh : I know, I know .... unfortunately, the only thing worse was the alternatives ....
I have a solution for this Internet Problem that the goverment speaks of...
Lets just pack up all the kids and geeks and send them off to their own island to use their so-called "Internet".
Perhaps then we can stop all this drivel and get to something less-important... I have not time to figure out these Com-Pu-Tors you speak of...
Diji
"I came, I saw, I WTF'd!"
"This is obviously no great move, but it's not too harmful either, because it says: [yadayadayada, blah,blah,woof,woof] So it will be within that context, like it says, and hopefully the Working Group won't say anything stupid about free speech." uh, that's Bubba saying that stuff, you know, the pathological liar who doesn't know what "is" means... Algore's wife started the RockandRoll censorship movement... looks like the Thought Police are gonna be a real Federal Agency by year's end. Don't take my guess as fact, I'm not Nostradamus, but do read this article and decide for yourself if the Great Lying Bubba really has your best interests in his plans.
Tell me I'm too much of a geek but would it be too simple for Congress to establish a law that says any site that offers what would be considered adult content (and spell that out) has to be part of a new domain ".xxx"? Next a fine for any site that didn't follow and a simple password switch to enable this domain in browsers. No need for lists of sites to block. Simple to enforce with a website, for people who want to, to report offenders. No more ISPs gettting completely blocked due to one site hosted there.
Why does this have to be complicated?
Someone please tell me I'm either brilliant or out to lunch.
Let's just deal with it. You believe in society, and I believe in the individual. That's it. You say I no longer want to be part of society? Yes. With society as it stands (non-thinkers, drones), I want no part of it. I think all my own thoughts. It is easier not to think though, so that is what most do. Are you a government drone? No. You are a society drone. Do you really want to help society and the people? Yes! I don't doubt that. You have great intentions, I'm sure. Sadly, humans are (not all) free, independant thinkers, who require only themselves for survival. When you take that away... why bother being moral? Why bother caring?
I said the word "moral" so now I will be called a crazy right-wing-christian wacko. I am right-wing, and mabye a wacko (some think), but I don't believe in God. No such thing. A higher force only tells you what to think and once again supports what I said earlier.
This is it for all you non-thinkers out there:
The government controls you by force.
Religeon controls you by faith.
Either way you are not indepentant.
Corndog
This is just an order to create a study group, charged with listing methods that can be used to determine where illegal activity is occuring on the net and how to stop it. I'd wait to see what the Working Group's recommendations are. Although it would be nice to see some technical people listed as full board members, it's just that technical people wouldn't be working in that high of a government position. Instead, it is likely that the Working Group will request the opinions of people they consider to be experts involving the technical aspects of the internet. Now if they end up making some ridiculous suggestions then we start raising voices otherwise... chill.
But one of us angry power users is bound to write some software (free and open source, of course) that allows even Joe Soap to easily get at any content (s)he likes. The internet community has more time, manpower, know-how and dedication than the governments will ever have. I think they'll have to shut the whole thing down to censor the net, and I'd like to see 'em try it. :)
nt
Yes, Clinton is an idiot.
And I voted for him.
Twice.
When confronted with the choices of a dumb evil president (Clinton) or an intelligent evil president (Bush/Dole), I'll choose the dumb one. Kinder Gentler Police State? No thanks.
(And yes, I'll admit, Clinton is moving us towards a police state almost as fast as Bush did, but at least his bumbling is helping to slow the actual progress somewhat.) Sorry, but I'd rather have an idiot who wants to control the world than the ex-head of the CIA leading our wonderful nation.
Of course, next time I believe I'll just fully vote my conscious and go Libertarian.
(Intelligent rebuttals will be thoughtfully read and considered. Flames will simply strengthen my current beliefs.)
Never ask a geek why, just nod your head and slowly back away. -Rob Malda
No. I'm sorry, but Clinton has consistently been the worst possible choice (personally, I voted libertarian).
Yeah, and I suppose George Bush or Bob Dole would have been so much more open to the whole concept of the Internet... puh-leeeze.
I'm not saying Clinton is perfect -- just better than the alternatives. (And I know there were/are some great third-party candidates out there, but be realistic: IIRC, Perot had the best third-party candidate showing in a *long* time, and he won what, half a state? Just pissing your vote away. So you pick the lesser of the two big evils and hope and pray for a better selection in four years.)
"I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum." MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
As we have seen in the past few years, the little things build up to the big stupid laws.
Fight it while its small, let them know NOW that you will not allow them to do this on YOUR TAX MONEY.
Simply put, if this is allowed to happen now, we will have been the ones to have LET it happen.
Nip it in the bud, bite it in the ass, send it back to the hill with a big boot mark on its butt saying "DONT TREAD ON ME"
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
The US government is going to make a law that protects children's rights... Children can't vote, remember... And they have no reason to give up their power over them.
Not only that, but the people who these new laws most effects (internet users) are in the 18-30 year old range... Historically, these people don't vote either... So, unless we get off our asses and do something about this soon, there might as well not be an internet in the US. Because the way it's going, it'll turn into network TV with buttons. (And all of the content will be politically regulated just like the evening news and Dateline, so that people here won't know that their freedom has been stripped from them!)
Geeks for President!
Maybe, but that person's life has been completely ruined in the mean time. Everyone out there thinks they did such-and-such a horrible crime (child abuse, rape, etc...). They get harrassed, they can't find a place to live because communities full of people who are convinced the person is guilty pressure the local governments to prevent them from moving in. Say what you like, but execution is more humane than public opinion in some cases.
You sure about that? I read an article recently that he's presided over something like 50 Texas executions since he's been governor there.
I don't think either of the two candidates will do any better than the other.
America is heading to shit and no one cares and it sucks.
It's too bad the USA is still considered by many to be "the best place in the world to live".... And this is posted right after I read the article about The Revolution(R). I really like the way that's trademarked...great irony!
Janet Reno, the Third Horse(wo)man of the Apocalypse, is heading the 'Working Group'.
Crypto may well be target #1...
Hey all. Just got done reading the order, after putting on my big silly Lawyer's Hat (and taking the Red one off for a minute). Here's my 2c...
1) Folks, this isn't really all that revolutionary. Yes, it shows rampant stupidity and a desparate need on Clinton's part to kowtow towards the right. However, none of the listed governmental bodies are being given one iota more power than they already really have. The fact that no mention is made that LIMITS THE POWER OF THE CM'TE to US LAWS shows that this thing is probably being done as a sort of political pre-emptive strike--a real hack job. This Order's true target will no doubt rear its disgusting head in the next few weeks or so.
2) This can also be seen as a potential strike against crypto, especially strong crypto--look at all those allusions to "just how well can law enforcement deal with this stuff...." Great straw man.
3) The fact that the Budget Cmte. gets to review any recommendations BEFORE they are officially presented to the Prez and Veep also shows that they just want an excuse to write more bad laws, not make real policies. It's a lot easier to tell everyone that they can't do x y or z (like use crypto, have open access at libraries, etc) then to bother to train, recruit, and outfit top-notch people to help get after the real crooks.
4) He's pulled in just about every freaking major association and commission in the GubMint. Can you say False Consensus Building?
In short, the whole thing is just a made-to-order straw man for law enforcement and the Porn Police, IMHO.
If anything, this should not be something that's limited to Federal committees. Write your Congressmen and Senators and DEMAND that the users of new technologies get a voice in the proceedings.
Foreign Slashdotters: Protest, protest, protest and make sure that YOUR governments remind the US that they ain't the only game in town. Use crypto. Help foster use of encryption standards that work between the US and the rest of the planet.
Hope this sheds some light w/o generating too much heat.
The above poster has it absolutely correct. It's about monitoring, controlling, and censoring thoughts and opinions. The only "cybercrime" they should worry about is bank infiltration, cracking, and other crimes that use the Internet to take ACTION. Discussing these crimes should be no more illegal then discussing shoplifting, even to the point of how to do them. If I post a website on how to rob a convienence store am I breaking a law? What if I do it "as a joke"? Any lawyers around, this is actually a serious question. :-)
It seems that if this council continues with the current trend (i.e Internet is bad and needs to be controlled) then such actions (posting my "7-11 Retirement Account" webpage) would most definitely be illegal. Soon we won't be able to joke about guns or explosives anywhere (now it's only outside airport metal detectors
+&x
Yeah, right...
There have been more eradication of individual rights under Klinton over the past 8 years than under any Republican administrations. People harassed, FBI files read, people killed (Waco), censorship bills signed (CDA).
Hopefully George W. will clean up all this crap when he takes over.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
It seems to me that the summary of the Executive Order posted above the discussion is somewhat misleading.
...it is mandated to investigate how current federal law can be used to investigate and prosecute Internet users, propose new laws, regulations, and technology development to assist investigations, and study existing and potential technological tools for mandatory internet censorship.
The summary:
The (most relevant) actual text from the Executive Order:
(3) The potential for new or existing tools and capabilities to educate and empower parents, teachers, and others to prevent or to minimize the risks from unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet.
How exactly is there any provision for mandatory censorship?
As others readers have pointed out, let us get the facts straight before posting an article. Slashdot (or at least the person submitting the summary) just looks stupid otherwise.
Secondly, this is just the United States. While the American government may not realize it yet, they do not create legislation for the rest of the world. If any material is banned (remember, this executive order is not calling for that) just look it up in Canada, Sweden, Turkey, whereever.
Relax!
Linux
-----
Very good point...why do you think they're trying to get rid of all guns? Sure, they're only working on assault rifles and such now....but they're well on their way...incrementalism at its worst. BTW, since they're "addressing unlawful conduct" do you think they'll include purjury and obstruction of justice? I'm glad I didn't vote for this dork.
Proving daily how scary genius can be in the wrong hands.
It seems to me that the summary of the Executive Order posted above the discussion is somewhat misleading.
...it is mandated to investigate how current federal law can be used to investigate and prosecute Internet users, propose new laws, regulations, and technology development to assist investigations, and study existing and potential technological tools for mandatory internet censorship.
The summary:
The (most relevant) actual text from the Executive Order:
(3) The potential for new or existing tools and capabilities to educate and empower parents, teachers, and others to prevent or to minimize the risks from unlawful conduct that involves the use of the Internet.
How exactly is there any provision for mandatory censorship?
As others readers have pointed out, let us get the facts straight before posting an article. Slashdot (or at least the person submitting the summary) just looks stupid otherwise.
Secondly, this is just the United States. While the American government may not realize it yet, they do not create legislation for the rest of the world. If any material is banned (remember, this executive order is not calling for that) just look it up in Canada, Sweden, Turkey, whereever.
Relax! PS: Apologies for submitting this comment twice (once as an AC). My mistake.
According to a recent study, 0% of those criminals that were punished by execution have commited repeat offenses since the execution...
China seems to be doing a stellar job of blocking any and all content that it deems "illegal," which by my reckoning is just about any and all content not directly related to the positive side of the government in Beijing.
Of course, I just saw an interesting news brief on CNN (or something like that) about these new Chinese ISPs... so maybe there is progress being made?
"I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. I'm all out of bubblegum." MSE USC APX AIA CSI CASp
You are deluding yourself.
People who vote for Democrats should be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
If they find that current laws do not apply, then perhaps they do need additional regs
When was the last time that they didn't think they needed a whole lot more regulation? Given the Clinton administration's recent call for extensive monitoring of the internet (and the outcry against it), there is little reason to believe this isn't just an excuse to start a big, sensationalized witch hunt to justify a lot of additional monitoring of the net, coupled with laws that add additional penalties for doing things that are already illegal, but on the internet. I can already see 'conspiracy to use the internet to do something-or-other'.
...so you come after us to make us need you. That's their reason to harrass us.
I see some trends;
The old style representation of people consists of old people (How many yang delegates are there in the EU parlament?). The new consists of everyone who cares to represent him/herself. _Including_ the yang people. The old are scaered to loose their power.
The old style manifests its power through control and restriction. The new manifests its power through discontrol and unrestricted information.
I just hope that none of them will get the idea to cut the kables. Oh, sorry, they allready got that idea. Now they're cutting kables.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
www.whitehouse.com linking to a pron site.
Expect lots of overseas accounts. Our president is now creating crime on the internet. Just like the war on drugs, now we will have a war on information and expression of extreme thoughts written into text. It will be here soon...
Yep. I can't understand how one can vote for people whos only accoplishments are masive tax increases.
I heard that ISP's in Europe plan to set up a system which would combat this quite effectivly (at least from the demonstration I was given)... assuming you are joe soap average internet user... most power users will have no trouble circumventing it.
Did you read the order? It calls for investigation of the existing tools and their applicabilities, and does not criminalize existing behavior.
If they find that current laws do not apply, then perhaps they do need additional regs; after all, there's little reason that a fellow on a street corner sellin' crack should be more liable than some Hotmail user doing the same, eh?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
make the problem worse. Since the average alphabet head in DC has no clue how the internet works ANYTHING they do will solve no problems - as others have pointed out, there exists laws enough already. If the folks in DC really cared about our children they would start listening to the kids more. I caught a report from TV about mental and physical abuse by boys against their girlfrends is a serious problem, Dear Abby (or Ann Landers, I can't tell them apart) had a coloum in today's paper about BUILLIES in school. Jon Katz and the new HELLMOUTH web site has plenty of violence against geeks to really worry me. Big Brother says they want to protect the children but they won't talk to them or listen to their problems.
zenray
let's see now... I seem to remember LOTS of fun with the other 3 K's.... Anyone remember Klipper...(wanna guess how far back that goes???) Wanna remember who killed the 4th admendment??? (Hint it was before clinton - and it was for the 'war' on drugs) And I won't even get into ol' Kushes ("No NEW TAXES!!")
It is fun to see so many people make excuses for the politicians they love. They would rather have freedoms removed than speak ill of the people they "elected". This is what has made America weak. If you place party and politics before freedom you have aided in killing off the very spirit that made America great. So now another run is being made and another round of people are telling us to sit down and be good little children. America is now the biggest day care center on the globe. Children cry for freedom and get instead to suck on the teat of the body politic. Just as long as they keep paying taxes they are made passive. Now we see what happned elswhere happen to America, and they are rolling over to let it happen.
Yes, boys and girls, the President had decided we need additional laws that make things illegal that already are illegal. Wow. I'm impressed. How warped can you get?
Next thing he'll be saying we need laws to make it illegal to kill homosexuals because we already have laws that make it illegal to kill homosexuals. Oh yeah, he's already said that. Never mind.
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
Are there any precedents for arguing against the constitutionality of Executive Orders? In other words, if I get arrested for violating one, can I go to the Supreme Court and argue that the President was never empowered to pass laws in the first place?
yup, I agree. I am almost at the age where I could be drafted to go fight some commie democrat's political war. In 2 years from now if gore gets into power I can be drafted and sent to stop 2 uncivilized, barbaric societies like those in serbia and kosovo from killing each other. I say let them kill each other, maybe when 90% of them have died in their stupid ethnic wars they will be too tired of fighting to go on.
---Got Coffee?---
I've found copious references to some "Emergency War Power[s?] Act", 1917 and 1933, but
* *no* bill text
* not from remotely trustworthy sites. That is, even providing the obvious negative search terms ("alien", "conspiracy", "militia", "jewish", "clinton") which block a LOT of the neo-Nazi / alien enthusiast / conspiracy theorist / radical anti-fed / radical Clinton hater sites, one *still* finds that most of the sites rave and ramble incoherently.
It's possible that Congress specifically authorized the President to do so, though, using the 'necessary and proper' clause and apparently escaping Supreme Court challenge.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
As anyone who has worked near a govt agency knows,
every budget cycle you dare not have a SURPLUS of
funds, otherwise next years funding will be cut.
It often happens that an agency will have a SURPLUS
and then go on a spending spree to get rid of the
ca$h quick, just buy stuff, who cares if it's
necessary or not, but for chrissake don't return
it to the taxpayers or let another department get it.
So now Clit-tongue has to find a 'boogyman' to scare
up a new spending program to sell us, anything to
spend the SURPLUS lest they get less tax dollars
and lose politcal power.
Whether you like it or not, your involved in a power
struggle - you can stand up and fight for your rights
to self determination, or you can just sit there and
let someone else slowly take over.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
So Clinton/Gore are a big pair of power-hungry arrogant ninnies - this is a surprise how? The Repugnicans are no better than the Demosplats. Yet, for some bizarre reason, mass media and the general public seem to believe that we only have two choices every four years. I voted for Nader during the last Prezzydential election. I plan to continue voting for people who have at least a measure of common sense, no matter who gets elected, because I cannot in good conscience give my vote to either of the two major parties. If enough of us do the same, it just might make a difference.
I once saw an auction on eBay with this title:
A POUND OF CRACK (THIS IS GOOD SHIT)
It had two bids, but when I clicked on it to view, the auction suddenly didn't exist anymore. They must have found and deleted it between my viewing the list and clicking the link.
- =^o.o^=
>Sounds good to me, you in favor of this stuff?
When it comes to controlled substances, actually, yes. Yes I am.
Jon Katz, your posting as anon coward now?
I know the heat is a tad high on you over your ramblings, but this is just lame.
Even a 5th grader can see the difference between the two situations. Of course I am probably putting too much preasure on you to match wits with a 5th grader.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
My turntable makes 33-1/3 revolutions each minute. How many revolutions does your hard drive make each minute?
Keep on spinning around, dude.
hehehe..power user.
Uh, well, actually, with regard to what is construed as "illegal" by the federal government for some of those items.... ...well quite frankly, no, I'm not onboard with this, internet or not.
it is unconstitutional for the government to plan for the ability to monitor all people using a communications medium
Nice try, but you make it sound like the constitution means that not only can someone not be assumed to be guilty without proof, but they must be treated as if they could not possibly be guilty: no gathering evidence, no temporary holding, no surveillance. Of course, all it actually means is that punishments can't be given before the trial (no "wanted: dead or alive" manhunts). I can't think of anything in the constitution that guarantees privacy of communication.
There are other arguments, of course, and the US has an awful lot of laws...
I'm wondering what EBay would do if I posted that as an auction... "High-quality crack cocaine in individually wrapped 1/4 oz baggies... Reserve price $xyz. Payment by cash in a briefcase at an abandoned warehouse of my choice. Bids from people with negative feedback will be rejected"
(Dear federal agents reading this message: this content is intended as a joke, not as an indication of my posession of and desire to sell a controlled substance. I'm not THAT stupid, OK?)
--> Any fool can criticize - and many do --
At least they didn't mention anything about getting the RIAA involved. I want my MP3!
The internet would be a much safer, cleaner place without the rabid Linux morons.
All of the activities described are already illegal -- they just want more power to control the net.
The Internet is turning into the great equalizer and the traditional media and established political parties don't like it. Unfortunately for us, they still have the power and no qualms about using it. And, almost as if to prove that last point, they picked Janet Reno to chair the committee. This is scary.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Looking at the list: Sale of (guns, explosives, controlled substances, and prescription drugs as well as fraud and child porno) Hrmmm. What of this list would 'most' people object to? not much. The problem is: Who's law? No where am I seeing WHOS law. Local? State? Fed? The law in Sudan? The line " an appreciation of the Internet as an important medium both domestically and internationally for commerce and free speech. " leads me to believe the laws of Sudan can be a consideration. And no where is PIRACY mentioned. You know...taking an image from another site (like the, oh say IBM logo here at slashdot) and using for yourself. Or, that copy of Micro$oft whatever that isn't registered....and that copy of word that says its illegal to run word on a improperly licenced Microsoft product...are you now a law-breaker? How about that 'evaluation' copy of whatever you have on your box. The one that you didn't delete....the one you would have to buy...because you didn't delete it.
What's everyone so up in arms about? What's the big deal?
So, the President has submitted an order to investigate how to deal with illegal activity on the Internet. It gets posted on Slashdot, and people start to go nuts, like it's some sort of oppression.
Relax! It's a friggin' study group!
Would it be better if the U.S. government was, indeed, truly clueless, and never stopped to think about how do deal with things like Internet fraud and illegal gun sales?
Taken point by point, I fail to see how anyone could get really upset about this:
(1a) They're putting together a "working group." Not that it isn't called a gestapo, or a "task force," or anything nearly that sinister.
1. They're going to study how effective the current laws are for investigation and prosecution of illegal activity on the net. Would you rather they just enacted bad, half-baked laws, and never reviewed them?
2. They're going to take a look at the technologies available for investigating and prosecuting illegal activity. Let 'em. I can't get upset because they're taking the time to find out what's available. Would you rather have your government clueless?
3. They'll look at ways to empower parents and teachers to keep their kids safe from crime on the Internet. Oooooh, that's scary. Somebody gimme a picket sign; I wanna protest THAT.
(1b) They want a focus of industry self-regulation where possible. Help! Help! I'm being opressed!
Sometimes I think most people around here are just looking for a way they can feel put-upon. This ain't it.
Yes I am for that stuff and more. Pedo pics dont hurt any kids if they're just that pics. Drugs CANNOT be controlled because there are a million ways to get high and new ones being discovered everyday, the best way is to legalize them and have support groups. This would dramatically reduce crime. People should be able to do anything they want that doesnt hurt another person, if they want to hurt themselves then fine. The president does have too much power, all this control hes doing, ie. echelon, IPI for controlling information, anti-cryptography, gun-regulation, etc is getting me nervous. If he IS going to go dictatorship we will see in 4 months. It would be VERY easy to plan a few strategic Y2K disasters to throw down marshall law and control the populace. Bad things happen when just a few people hold all the keys. And the fact that clinton has his own squad of dirt diggers makes me think everyone in the govt has their mouths shut especially during the terrorist bombings because he has them by the short and curlys.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel