I had prepared a huge reply, going over all your "arguments" and straw-man accusations, and then I realized it didn't make sense to continue. You have to be trolling me:
So Cuba, by charging this guy, claimed jurisdiction over what foreign governments could decide to do;
For crying out loud, no, they didn't claim jurisdiction over what the US decided to do. They claimed jurisdiction over what Gross decided to do in Cuba, which was to enter as a tourist while (not so) secretly being an american agent acting on plans to overthrow/destabilize the government. It seems you are incapable of comprehending that. That is not a mere opinion, that is fact. All parts of that sentence are factually true, not even you deny it, yet you refuse to accept that it is true. I have had to state this in (nearly?) every post I've replied, and you still won't acknowledge what the charge was. If you are not willing to acknowledge even factually true statements, it is stupid on my part to even try to argue the rest of your points. If you have evidence that he wasn't in Cuba when he was arrested, or that he wasn't acting as an american agent, or that his actions weren't meant to destabilize the goverment, go ahead and present them, preferably to Gross' lawyer.
Oh, good point. I wish I could edit the original post. They use POP3 + SMTP. The ISP runs a Horde+IMP webmail server, but it is a used only as a last resort (too complicated/slow/expensive over dialup). They do need persistent storage, those 15 Mb fill up very quickly. CDs/CD drives last long enough, I'll look into that live-cd solution. I hadn't thought of it. And unfortunately... yes, I'm serious.
On another note: where do they live that they don't have access to slightly higher-speed 3G internet? I've travelled through third world countries, and cell-phone-internet seems to be almost omnipresent in some form or another.
The cellphone provider there (only one, uggh) just recently began selling email access (just to their own pop servers), over 2G, I think, at about $1/Mb. No mobile internet. Roaming from another provider can cost up to $20/Mb. That's why I'm focusing on working with what they have.
Is there a way to plug a dial-up modem to an ipad? I've thought about getting them a wifi router connected to a usb modem (is that even possible?) and somehow giving them a way to dial out, but that seems even harder. Still, if you know of a system for that (e.g., if openwrt has usb modem + ppp support), I'll look into it. At this point, no idea is a bad idea!
Unfortunately, SSH or VNC require a direct TCP connection. They are firewalled (I should have called them "ESP: email service provider" rather than ISP), except for that mail server. We can't even jabber/irc/anything.
My really question is this. How do they get viruses? most viruses require a constant high speed connection. without it the virus itself can't do much.
There are two main ways: email attachments and USB drives. Almost every USB drive in that I've seen in that country has an Autorun.inf that installs one virus or another (sneakernet: usb drives are the main form of data transmission over there). I disable autorun every visit... but either I'm doing it wrong, or the "techs" they hire enable it again.
Original poster here... apparently I clicked "Post anonymously". Oops.
Their "ISP" (note the quotes) wont allow web access other than to the web interface (running Horde/IMP) of their email server. They are stuck with SMTP/POP3.
Gmail optimizes for low bandwidth links.
I didn't know that! Is it something I need to configure? When I visit and manage to access the internet for a few minutes, gmail has been unusable (even google's search page takes over a minute to load. Uggh). So hints on how to optimize gmail for very slow links are helpful, not for my folks, but for me.
Has it ever occurred to you that it's possible Cuban Law is simply wrong on this point?
Has it ever occurred to you that the Cubans have the right to defend themselves? Because that's the right you are denying them. When the US interest are attacked, you don't ask for justification to invade your attacker. Yet when Cuba is, you claim that Cuban law is "wrong" for wanting to defend themselves.
Since you're talking about practice the actual letter of the law is irrelevant. What matters is convictions. Name one whose been convicted.
Seriously. Name a single person convicted of being an unregistered foreign agent who was not a citizen of the US.
The Cuban Five. Notice how I ignore the "not a citizen of the US part". Being a citizen of the US had nothing to do with the convictions: they were convicted for failing to register as agents, for "conspiracy to commit espionage" (even though the prosecution couldn't prove that any secret document was leaked) and "conspiracy to commit murder" (even though they had no way of knowing the outcome).
You set up arbitrary rules that effectively stop Cuba from defending themselves (like being free to enter the US without registering and being citizens). You asked earlier, that's what I meant by arbitrary. The Cubans don't play by those rules, because those "rules", besides made up, imply "just sit there and do nothing while we invade you." You cannot unilaterally make up a rule that benefits you and then claim foul when the other party unilaterally decides to ignore it.
You realize you;re talking about thought crimes. He didn't have to do anything, but those thought he thought while he was in Washington DC were anti-Cuban, so he can be charged with thinking them while he was in Havana.
Sigh. Again. He acted in Cuba. And it's rich that you speak about thought crimes, given that the "conspiracy" charges are essentially thought crimes too, and you don't seem to have any problem with those, as long as they are not directed against your agents. But again, irrelevant, he wasn't convicted for sitting in DC thinking about what he was going to do. He was convicted for going to Cuba and doing his part in the conspiracy.
In international relations when something pisses you off you don't bitch about in press releases for 25 flights, and then go straight for the jugular.
Read some history. They didn't "bitch about it in press releases for 25 flights", they denounced it, repeatedly, to the US authorities, only to be ignored until they took action.
If you're Cuba, and you want the thaw to continue, your job is let them get away with most of it and demonstrate you aren't trying to piss the US off in the rare occasions you do respond.
What else can I say. Read that document. That's just one decade. They have suffered through 6. They have gone through diplomatic channels repeatedly. And whenever they respond, some of you claim that they shouldn't have. Of course they wanted the Cubans to react, the thing is, the outcome would have been the same if they had reacted to any of the previous or future incidents.
Don't be ridiculous. Might has nothing to do with it.
Of course it has. You claim that the US has every right to keep provoking them, and that they don't have any right whatsoever to respond, under the threat of further violence or continuing embargo. And even if they don't do anything, the US still claims the right to harden the embargo (Torricelli act, 1992).
Note that both the exiles in the planes, and the Congressmen who insisted Gross be sent on his mission; wanted Cuba to over-react. It was their plan.
Either the Cubans are too stupid to see that, or Cuba's plan is to continue the embargo indefinitely.
I think the core of our disagreement rests on your conception that it is legal for countries to ban hostile agents. This is not the case.
And there you go again, denying Cuba's sovereignty. You may not like it, but it is Cuba's law. If you are a foreign agent acting in Cuba with the purpose of overthrowing the government, you can be convicted in Cuba. Even if the US, and even if no other country, has a law prohibiting crimes against the state (which I doubt!), Cuba can still have that law. It is not "my conception". Cuba has that law. You don't like it? You deal with Cuba, rather than just cover your ears and shout "lalala I can't hear you you have no such law".
We require foreign agents of all powers, even Canada, to register with the authorities, so they can be charged for not registering
So, in practice, your law bans covert agents like Gross. You convict them for failing to register, the Cubans convict them for being covert agents.
But if we banned agents of a "hostile power" we'd be de facto banning other countries from being hostile powers, which even we acknowledge can't be done.
That is nonsensical. Banning hostile agents in your territory has no influence whatsoever over anyone who is not in your territory. And, as you said earlier, you already outlaw being a covert agent of a foreign country.
The logical extension of this is you can't convict foreign agents to multi-year jail terms simply for being part of a plan to oppose your government.
Again, it was not only for planning. It was for acting on those plans. If he had taken violent action (say, murder or bombings), would you agree with the attacked's sovereignty to convict him? If so, what's so different with a non-violent, but also illegal action, with respect to the attacked's sovereignty?
The remedy for such plans in international law isn't that the agent gets nabbed, it's that the attacked country gets lots of sympathy for it's retaliation against the attacker's government.
Cuba retaliating against the US. That's rich. The closest thing Cuba can do in retaliation to the US is... arrest the agent.
or sentence one of your guys to 15 years hard labor, or whatever.
(Hard labor? "our" guys? I do not know what are you talking about. I don't know who "your" refers to.)
And he's much less likely to try because ending the embargo doesn't actually help the US, and the Cubans have a history of being very passive and easy to get along with until you ease up on the embargo.
This is obviously a "might makes right" situation. US provokes, provokes, provokes again, and when the Cubans finally react, you say that "the cubans are easy to get along with until you ease up on the embargo". The collorary is that, in your view, the Cubans should ignore all hostilities and ju
It's pretty fucking dishonest to claim Cuba was only "minorly deterring" foreign agents with a 15-year sentence and then argue he has never implied "a 15-year sentence is not only typical, but minimal."
I apologize then. I did not claim that the sentence was "minor", just that the deterrent effect is minor. I was agreeing with you when I used the word "minor". I do not think that any jail sentence would be a deterrent remotely comparable with getting the US to the negotiation table. In fact, if you go back, you'll see I said exactly that, it is preferable to negotiate (again, agreeing with you), than to keep him jailed, but given that the US (and you) refuses to even acknowledge his crime, this deterrent, as minor as it is, is better than no deterrent at all. Again, I did not mention the sentence in any of my statements, on the contrary, since my first post, I expressed sadness. From other posts in this thread I've learned that Gross knew much more than I thought at first, but even then I'm saddened.
As I said, if you had any other explanation for thinking that I had said that, I was glad to hear it ("please share"). You did. I withdraw the accusation regarding the dishonesty, at least with regards to this point, but please re-read my statement(s) until you convince yourself that I never mentioned his sentence and that I just merely agreed with you regarding the non-optimality of the situation.
a) being an agent of a hostile power, b) having a goal of overthrowing the Cuban government, and c) smuggling communications equipment.
No, I did not accuse him of (a). He was accused and convicted (not by me) of being an agent of a hostile power in Cuban territory. I cannot fathom why you keep dropping that part of the accusation.
If Cuba could ban a), then the US could legally execute the entire Cuban bureaucracy because they are all agents of a power that is hostile to us.
To do that, they would need to enter Cuba and kidnap them/drone them. That is not comparable at all with what happened with Gross. Gross entered Cuba. He was arrested in Cuba. Again, I cannot imagine why you ignore that it happened in Cuba, not in the US. That said, the US has a history of doing exactly that (drone strikes, extradition, invasion, coups, assasination plots. Castro has been in the receiving end of many failed assasination plots by the CIA). While I would not dare to guess why they haven't launched a drone, it is ironic that you present US inability or unwillingness to take on these extraterritorial actions as proof of anything, given that the US is both able and willing to do so (at least in other cases). But again, this is offtopic, given that Gross was in Cuba.
then any Cuban charges based on Gross's being a CIA contractor are clearly ridiculous BS.
Did he stop being a contractor while he was in Cuba, doing what the CIA was paying him to do? That would be tough to prove. I wonder what makes you think that after all that planning, he resigned, but kept the money, then travelled to Cuba to act on those plans (even though he was supposedly no longer a CIA agent), then went back to the US, re-joined USAID, did more planning, resigned again, repeating until he was caught. Even if he had done that (which again, seems unlikely), it would be silly not to consider him a de-facto agent.
Ukraine clearly can't charge all the Russian soldiers invading it with crimes in Criminal Court,
Can't or won't? If Ukraine choses to not charge them/convicte them and gets some concession out of it (e.g., troop exchange), good for them. That option is, for now, closed to Cuba.
therefore Cuba does not have the right to charge US CIA contractors for plotting it's demise.
Cuba did not charge Gross for "plotting it's demise" while in the US. Cuba convicted Gross for
Claiming that you are being dishonest is not an ad-hominen attack. You are being dishonest. For instance:
You actually go beyond this, implying that a 15-year sentence is not only typical, but minimal.
No, I didn't. I haven't even mentioned the sentence.
For example, you have claimed flat-out that Cuba has the right to ban other country's agents from doing things even when those agents are on their own territory.
No, I haven't.
Whether Cuba has that "right" or not is completely offtopic, given that the agent in question was acting in Cuban territory.
You further claim that anyone who disagrees with you on any of these points is clearly a hypocrite and not giving Cuban sovereignty the same respect he gives US sovereignty.
No, I didn't. The word "hypocrite" had not been used in this thread before your post. What I did claim was that Cuba's sovereignty implies that they have no obligation to carve any exceptions in how they treat their prisoners just because of the passport that the criminal happens to be holding.
So, you are either lying, delusional, or confusing me with someone else. At a glance, I can't find anyone else saying what you claim I am saying, so I don't think the third option is likely. Now, if you have any other explanation for why you claim I said those things, please share it.
Legally speaking they only had him on the charges of smuggling. Cuba has no sovereignty over the CIA's plans, so it has no right to challenge those plans in Civil Court.
I am sorry. It seems I severely overestimated you. You see, I thought you agreed that Cuba's sovereignty was a given, the question was only whether the law was just. I tried to address the latter, but you wont event concede the former.
So, go ahead, keep believing that innocent Gross was convicted only for smuggling satellite equipment because you refuse to accept that Cuba can and does outlaw working as a subversive, covert, paid agent of a foreign nation in Cuban soil. Keep ignoring that the US has consistently refused to negotiate (in the Gross case, and in many other issues), so you can blame Castro for not following the procedure you want him to follow (which, given the refusal to negotiate, translates to "release him and hope for the best, against all evidence that the 'best' wont happen"). If your ideology or hatred wont let you see these (blindingly obvious) points, I can't imagine anything I could possibly say to convince you otherwise. Therefore, I wont keep trying.
What crime did he physically commit while he was in Cuba?
This has been answered, repeatedly, even by yourself:
All his planing happened in the US, where planning to overthrow the Cuban government is legally mandated by the Helms-Burton Act.
You concede that he was in Cuba, attempting to smuggle illegal contraband (after successfully smuggling more in earlier trips), with the goal of overthrowing the Cuban government, financed by a foreign (and openly hostile) country.
The equipment is perfectly legal in literally every single country on the earth except Cuba and a few other hold-outs
I addressed this in my original post in this thread, naively thinking that you were being honest. Did you fail to read it, or was I too naive? He was not a private citizen smuggling in some satellite dishes for himself or his family. He was acting on the behest of the very country that prohibits the sale and export of the same equipments and services to Cubans. That is a key difference, perhaps not legally, but ethically, that points to the intent behind his actions: not private consumption, but subversion. He wasn't convicted (solely?) because of the illegal contraband, he was convicted for his actions (including the smuggling) as a US mercenary---the contraband was evidence against him.
Your argument is that no President has ever explicitly offered to raise the embargo. That is literally true, but it completely ignores how reality works. (...) President Obama does not have the authority to totally lift the embargo on Cuba. (...) So he tried it, and the Cubans responded by increasing tensions to the max possible at literally the very first opportunity.
The Cubans responded? President Obama sent Gross to Cuba before the Cubans arrested Gross. At no point, it seems, President Obama stopped trying to increase the tensions himself (by expanding US subversive programs in Cuba, before, during and after Gross' trial).
Partly this is due to the complex legal construct called "sovereignty,"
Sovereignty goes both way. You refuse to accept Cuba's sovereignty. The US may carve whatever exceptions they'd like on how to deal with their prisoners (you seem to have constructed a very narrow and arbitrary set of exceptions to support your case), but Cuba has no obligation to do the same.
the problem for you is not the individual guy they sent to your shores, it's that a government with thousands of more agents wants to fuck with you.
Indeed. Therefore, ideally, the Cubans should be trying to extract consessions from the US, because deterring the US government is far more preferable than deterring individual agents. But alas, the US refuses to negotiate in any meaningful way. That's their prerogative, but it leaves the Cubans with no choice but to hold Gross as a (minor) deterrent for future agents. To do otherwise is the same as announcing that CIA agents can work in Cuba with impunity.
now they have another reason to be really pissed off.
They are already pissed off, and either unwilling or unable to change things. You seem to be unable to grasp the relation between cause and effect and the direction of time. Gross is not a reason relations have not improved (as proven by the many years of non improvement before he was ever arrested), he is merely the latest excuse. He is also a convenient scapegoat to claim, with no regard for logic or reason, that the Castros are the ones who want the embargo. There is zero evidence to suggest that an unconditional release will improve relations (and a lot of evidence against it, some of it provided by yourself).
Look at it this way: when Gross committed his crimes, who had jurisdiction?
That's easy. That's very easy. He did his crime in Cuba and was arrested in Cuba. Cuba had jurisdiction! What makes you think otherwise? Do you think a US passport makes you inmune to the laws of the countries you visit? I doubt the US extends that generosity to all foreign criminals caught in US soil. Why do you expect other countries to forgive US criminals caught in their soil?
As for the $20 Billion a year market, of course it hasn't been on the table.
I didn't claim it was. You did:
It would cost them literally nothing to let this guy go, but they insist on keeping him in prison where he can only prevent them from accessing that $20 billion a year export market.
As others have commented, it is not a matter of "righteous indignation". Reducing the tensions has never been on the table, and the Gross case illustrates it perfectly, just not in the way you seem to believe. After all, the covert agent had to be sent before he was arrested. As much as I would like to see him released, your proposal, release him just because he is a US citizen, is nonsensical.
I do not know why you bring up the swap for the "Cuban Five". I didn't. My thoughts (and yours) about the possibility of a swap and their innocence are irrelevant for your argument that (1) Gross is inocent (no, he is not), (2) his continuing imprisonment is the thing preventing the US from normalizing relations (no, his presence in Cuba proves that there was no interest from the US in normalizing relations), (3) that his continuing imprisonment proves that the Castros like the embargo (no, it doesn't) and now (4) that US citizens should enjoy inmunity in foreign countries (no, they shouldn't, and they don't).
When someone has plans to point a nuclear missile at you in your back yard, you do what you can to protect yourself. The net result of the Cuban 'experiment' is a large number of well-educated people who have little or no resources to use that educational wealth.
Did I get that totally wrong from this side of the Atlantic?
Kind of. The embargo started two years before the missile crisis, so unless there was some time travel involved, the missile crisis did not cause the embargo. (Of course, it also didn't make it better.) It started also before the failed Bay of Pigs invasion that forced Cuba to fully ally with the Soviet Union, which paved the way to the missile crisis.
The embargo was retaliation for the nationalization of american properties in 1960, which, to my recollection (but I hated history classes, so I'm probably wrong), occurred in response to the owners shutting down production to destabilize the newly formed government. During the missile crisis it briefly evolved into a full blown blockade. After the missile crisis, it has gotten worse ("due" to the continuing alliance with the soviets), until the fall of the Soviets... when it got even worse (Torricelli act, 1992).
and by December some poor schmuck (Alan Gross) is rotting in a Cuban jail for bringing computer equipment in for Jewish groups.
While I sympathize with the "poor schmuck", your characterization is extremely disingenous. He was a contractor for the CIA (via USAID). He worked under a "democracy-promotion program", for an employer that openly states that Cuba is not "democratic". Those two alone make him a paid agent of a hostile governemnt stirring dissent against the Cuban government. And that was precisely what he was convicted of.
He was "helping people access the internet" in the narrowest sense possible: he was helping only those selected by his employer. In this game, both parties are actively trying to control what the Cubans see (see also "piramideo"), neither can claim the higher ground. If the US were honest with wanting to "help people access the internet", there are far more effective solutions with no risks to Americans. Just allowing these guys (and other providers) to sell their services to Cubans would have been cheaper and far more effective, and would have put the blame squarely on the Cuban government[1]. That they use expensive covert operations to connect a selected few rather than allow the public at large to take the risk themselves (which would cost them literally nothing) is telling. Gross was not, sadly, an agent to help people access the internet, rather, he was pawn in this game of who gets to control the Cuban public.
I do have a lot of sympathy for Gross, though. Everything I've heard about the "poor schmuck" makes me think that he truly believed that he was a force of good, trying to help people, rather than a pawn of an organization whose goals are the opposite. I'm saddened that someone who is probably a good person, doing what he thought was a good thing, is rotting in jail. But he was a paid covert agent of an enemy nation, actively (though maybe unknowingly) working to undermine the Cuban government. He did what he was accused of doing, and your attitude, "they jailed him for helpling people access the internet" doesn't help. Releasing him would send a very clear message: send more covert agents, if caught, we will release them. I wonder how a Cuban agent caught in the US would be treated. Oh, wait, I know.
Your argument about him preventing Cuba from accessing that $20 billion a year export market is unfounded. To my knowledge, that has never been on the negotiation table. In fact, to my knowledge, the US has consistently refused to negotiate, claiming, as you do, that he is innocent (??!!). He isn't, and until the US accepts that fact (e.g., by also dropping other covert programs), an unilateral gesture will only signal "send more". For now, the next Gross will have to consider whether a few million dollars are worth the risk.
I.
[1] Currently, satellite internet users not only have to smuggle their equipment into the island, they also have to smuggle them out of the US, and then go to great length to prevent the equipment from reporting back its location. A few years back I heard of a black-market service in Havana to disable the GPS sensor of DirectTV modems. I have no idea if that is still possible with newer models.
The law is out of date, but the judge is correct in his interpretation.
Honest question: isn't this the point of having a judge interpret the law? I think it is pretty clear that laws don't adapt quickly enough with society/technology and that part of the "interpretation" was to adapt what is written to the circumstances where they are applied. (IANAL, I know nothing of this. In my home country, laws are prefixed with a long list of "because..." clauses, and I was always disappointed that the laws were still upheld even when none of the "because" was relevant any more... and I envied the judge-interpretation thing in the US).
Personally, I think a fair price for mp3's is under 10 cents these days.
Emphasised that for you. Why would you accuse him of a "sense of entitlement" or demand any other explanation for his thoughts? Do you think that every item that is being sold, is sold at a fair price? If you have ever seen the price of an item and thought "that's more expensive that it should be" (which, if I understand correctly, is one of the basis of capitalism, "vote with your wallet" and the like), you should ask your question to yourself first.
Trying to defend the bible on the back of newton is a little insulting.
I don't think he was trying to defend the bible:
The bible has to be interpreted differently than the plain meaning of the words because otherwise it's immoral, self-contradictory, bigoted and doesn't fit with modern understanding, morality or facts.
Be aware that Yoani is not real. Yes, the person exists, but her "opinions" are all paid for (or at least seeking a reward). She does not represent the views or the reality of the Cubans. She is not interested in giving Cubans access to information, she - just like the Cuban government - is at most interested in giving them access to propaganda. It is very hard to get access to information, because everyone wants to pick and chose what to give you. If you read her blog, you will probably notice this... almost poetic posts full of half truths in which any "good" thing is left unsaid.
This is one of the examples. It is true that sneakernet is a major way of exchanging data. It is even encouraged. One time, a government official, in a sickening display of ignorance, stated something along the lines of "everyone can access the internet, they just have to go to a library, ask what they want to know, and the librarian will download the webpage to a floppy". I used to carry not only usb drives, sometimes even up to 3 hard disks, in my pockets. Bringing a hard disk to a university, looking for an IT person and getting him to open one of the computers to insert the hard disk and copy everything they had was a regular occurrence. I was one of those IT persons... my desktop computer was permanently open, until we got an external enclosure just for that purpose. I tried once to set up a couple of "sneakernet stations" so people could come in, explore the ftp servers and download everything they wanted. You don't need encryption, unless what you are transporting is really illegal (a foreign news article is not illegal, child porn is) and you are high profile enough that the police may want to go through the effort of checking your data (unlikely, most don't even know what "data" is).
That said, encryption is illegal[1]. So one could argue that using encryption is more risky than not using it: a news article critical of the government is not illegal, the same news article encrypted is. This is moot, however... it is very unlikely that your data will be checked either way. I carried some data encrypted, mostly password lists or ssh private keys - it would have been highly irresponsible to carry my employer's data in plaintext. Of course, if you are carrying around your accounting book detailing how the CIA is paying you... you probably want to encrypt that, or even better, don't carry it around.
Regarding the export controls: probably the only area in which they are completely ineffective is in software and data. No one in Cuba cares about that. Copyright is ignored to the point that movies and TV shows shown in national television were torrented + "sneakerneted" to the TV station[2]. Same happens with software (to the despair of f/oss advocates). This is the main content of the underground networks: software, music, music videos, movies and tv shows. My hard disks used to contain a mirror of Debian and Ubuntu... and a copy of 1984 and Animal Farm that I was reading at the time, downloaded from the university's ftp server.
(I'm not defending the illegality of encryption, or the export controls, or that the police and the prosecution have too much power and that they can use their ignorance against you... Nor am I saying that it is ok because some of it is also a problem in the US. I am also not defending censorship. I'm just pointing out how deceitful Yoani is, and using the post to explain that the reasons encryption is not wildly used have nothing to do with the US export ban.)
[1] In very silly ways. For instance, to renew the "networking license" for the university, I had to state that no encryption was used, even though using https and ssh instead of telnet was mandatory to get that license. I know, I once stated "Yes, we use encryption, e.g: ssh, https,..." and the license was denied until I submitted the same form without that sentence.
[2] Funny anecdote, when The Fellowship of the Ring first arrived at the university network about 2 weeks after the release, I added a tiny mark during the opening credits, just to check how far it would spread... When it was shown on TV, I looked for that mark... and there it was.
Yes, because immigration reform and equal rights for homosexuals are stupid, trivial issues that are a waste of time that common men shouldn't be bothered with or care about. *sigh*
No, those are not stupid. What is stupid is to spend time on them, get the people excited, and actually argue about it. Specially homosexual rights (I'm not USAian, so I don't even know what immigration reform is all about). I have yet to see an argument against homosexual rights,yet it is argued, when there is no data to support the opossing position. (No, "I don't wanna" is not an argument. An argument is "this is how this group of people will be harm by they having the same rights as I have", preferably with a study supporting that the harm is real). I'm sure there are plenty of topics that are not or cannot be scientifically settled - those are the ones they should spend their times on.
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So Cuba, by charging this guy, claimed jurisdiction over what foreign governments could decide to do;
For crying out loud, no, they didn't claim jurisdiction over what the US decided to do. They claimed jurisdiction over what Gross decided to do in Cuba, which was to enter as a tourist while (not so) secretly being an american agent acting on plans to overthrow/destabilize the government. It seems you are incapable of comprehending that. That is not a mere opinion, that is fact. All parts of that sentence are factually true, not even you deny it, yet you refuse to accept that it is true. I have had to state this in (nearly?) every post I've replied, and you still won't acknowledge what the charge was. If you are not willing to acknowledge even factually true statements, it is stupid on my part to even try to argue the rest of your points. If you have evidence that he wasn't in Cuba when he was arrested, or that he wasn't acting as an american agent, or that his actions weren't meant to destabilize the goverment, go ahead and present them, preferably to Gross' lawyer.
Oh, good point. I wish I could edit the original post. They use POP3 + SMTP. The ISP runs a Horde+IMP webmail server, but it is a used only as a last resort (too complicated/slow/expensive over dialup). They do need persistent storage, those 15 Mb fill up very quickly. CDs/CD drives last long enough, I'll look into that live-cd solution. I hadn't thought of it. And unfortunately... yes, I'm serious.
On another note: where do they live that they don't have access to slightly higher-speed 3G internet? I've travelled through third world countries, and cell-phone-internet seems to be almost omnipresent in some form or another.
The cellphone provider there (only one, uggh) just recently began selling email access (just to their own pop servers), over 2G, I think, at about $1/Mb. No mobile internet. Roaming from another provider can cost up to $20/Mb. That's why I'm focusing on working with what they have.
Is there a way to plug a dial-up modem to an ipad? I've thought about getting them a wifi router connected to a usb modem (is that even possible?) and somehow giving them a way to dial out, but that seems even harder. Still, if you know of a system for that (e.g., if openwrt has usb modem + ppp support), I'll look into it. At this point, no idea is a bad idea!
Unfortunately, SSH or VNC require a direct TCP connection. They are firewalled (I should have called them "ESP: email service provider" rather than ISP), except for that mail server. We can't even jabber/irc/anything.
My really question is this. How do they get viruses? most viruses require a constant high speed connection. without it the virus itself can't do much.
There are two main ways: email attachments and USB drives. Almost every USB drive in that I've seen in that country has an Autorun.inf that installs one virus or another (sneakernet: usb drives are the main form of data transmission over there). I disable autorun every visit... but either I'm doing it wrong, or the "techs" they hire enable it again.
Original poster here... apparently I clicked "Post anonymously". Oops.
Their "ISP" (note the quotes) wont allow web access other than to the web interface (running Horde/IMP) of their email server. They are stuck with SMTP/POP3.
Gmail optimizes for low bandwidth links.
I didn't know that! Is it something I need to configure? When I visit and manage to access the internet for a few minutes, gmail has been unusable (even google's search page takes over a minute to load. Uggh). So hints on how to optimize gmail for very slow links are helpful, not for my folks, but for me.
Thanks!
Has it ever occurred to you that it's possible Cuban Law is simply wrong on this point?
Has it ever occurred to you that the Cubans have the right to defend themselves? Because that's the right you are denying them. When the US interest are attacked, you don't ask for justification to invade your attacker. Yet when Cuba is, you claim that Cuban law is "wrong" for wanting to defend themselves.
Since you're talking about practice the actual letter of the law is irrelevant. What matters is convictions. Name one whose been convicted. Seriously. Name a single person convicted of being an unregistered foreign agent who was not a citizen of the US.
The Cuban Five. Notice how I ignore the "not a citizen of the US part". Being a citizen of the US had nothing to do with the convictions: they were convicted for failing to register as agents, for "conspiracy to commit espionage" (even though the prosecution couldn't prove that any secret document was leaked) and "conspiracy to commit murder" (even though they had no way of knowing the outcome).
You set up arbitrary rules that effectively stop Cuba from defending themselves (like being free to enter the US without registering and being citizens). You asked earlier, that's what I meant by arbitrary. The Cubans don't play by those rules, because those "rules", besides made up, imply "just sit there and do nothing while we invade you." You cannot unilaterally make up a rule that benefits you and then claim foul when the other party unilaterally decides to ignore it.
You realize you;re talking about thought crimes. He didn't have to do anything, but those thought he thought while he was in Washington DC were anti-Cuban, so he can be charged with thinking them while he was in Havana.
Sigh. Again. He acted in Cuba. And it's rich that you speak about thought crimes, given that the "conspiracy" charges are essentially thought crimes too, and you don't seem to have any problem with those, as long as they are not directed against your agents. But again, irrelevant, he wasn't convicted for sitting in DC thinking about what he was going to do. He was convicted for going to Cuba and doing his part in the conspiracy.
In international relations when something pisses you off you don't bitch about in press releases for 25 flights, and then go straight for the jugular.
Read some history. They didn't "bitch about it in press releases for 25 flights", they denounced it, repeatedly, to the US authorities, only to be ignored until they took action.
If you're Cuba, and you want the thaw to continue, your job is let them get away with most of it and demonstrate you aren't trying to piss the US off in the rare occasions you do respond.
What else can I say. Read that document. That's just one decade. They have suffered through 6. They have gone through diplomatic channels repeatedly. And whenever they respond, some of you claim that they shouldn't have. Of course they wanted the Cubans to react, the thing is, the outcome would have been the same if they had reacted to any of the previous or future incidents.
Don't be ridiculous. Might has nothing to do with it.
Of course it has. You claim that the US has every right to keep provoking them, and that they don't have any right whatsoever to respond, under the threat of further violence or continuing embargo. And even if they don't do anything, the US still claims the right to harden the embargo (Torricelli act, 1992).
Note that both the exiles in the planes, and the Congressmen who insisted Gross be sent on his mission; wanted Cuba to over-react. It was their plan. Either the Cubans are too stupid to see that, or Cuba's plan is to continue the embargo indefinitely.
You are being purposedly dense. It
I think the core of our disagreement rests on your conception that it is legal for countries to ban hostile agents. This is not the case.
And there you go again, denying Cuba's sovereignty. You may not like it, but it is Cuba's law. If you are a foreign agent acting in Cuba with the purpose of overthrowing the government, you can be convicted in Cuba. Even if the US, and even if no other country, has a law prohibiting crimes against the state (which I doubt!), Cuba can still have that law. It is not "my conception". Cuba has that law. You don't like it? You deal with Cuba, rather than just cover your ears and shout "lalala I can't hear you you have no such law".
We require foreign agents of all powers, even Canada, to register with the authorities, so they can be charged for not registering
So, in practice, your law bans covert agents like Gross. You convict them for failing to register, the Cubans convict them for being covert agents.
But if we banned agents of a "hostile power" we'd be de facto banning other countries from being hostile powers, which even we acknowledge can't be done.
That is nonsensical. Banning hostile agents in your territory has no influence whatsoever over anyone who is not in your territory. And, as you said earlier, you already outlaw being a covert agent of a foreign country.
The logical extension of this is you can't convict foreign agents to multi-year jail terms simply for being part of a plan to oppose your government.
Again, it was not only for planning. It was for acting on those plans. If he had taken violent action (say, murder or bombings), would you agree with the attacked's sovereignty to convict him? If so, what's so different with a non-violent, but also illegal action, with respect to the attacked's sovereignty?
The remedy for such plans in international law isn't that the agent gets nabbed, it's that the attacked country gets lots of sympathy for it's retaliation against the attacker's government.
Cuba retaliating against the US. That's rich. The closest thing Cuba can do in retaliation to the US is... arrest the agent.
Then they blow a plane out of the sky
...during their 26th attempt to violate Cuba's airspace. I do not condone shooting down the plane in international waters, but you are again being disingenous. They didn't "shot down the plane because they like the embargo". They (over)reacted to a long string of provocations, crafted precisely to increase tensions. "The group saw its defiance of Cuban law and Cuban airspace as an example of civil disobedience for Cubans on the island. (...) Several times during the past year, including on Jan. 9 and again on Jan. 13, Hermanos flew over Havana dropping leaflets (...) Many observes believe that Basulto and other hard-line exiles, unhappy with the relatively light sanctions by Washington, are determined to raise tensions between Havana and the US even further to provoke more stringent reprisals from the Clinton administration. (...)"
or sentence one of your guys to 15 years hard labor, or whatever.
(Hard labor? "our" guys? I do not know what are you talking about. I don't know who "your" refers to.)
And he's much less likely to try because ending the embargo doesn't actually help the US, and the Cubans have a history of being very passive and easy to get along with until you ease up on the embargo.
This is obviously a "might makes right" situation. US provokes, provokes, provokes again, and when the Cubans finally react, you say that "the cubans are easy to get along with until you ease up on the embargo". The collorary is that, in your view, the Cubans should ignore all hostilities and ju
It's pretty fucking dishonest to claim Cuba was only "minorly deterring" foreign agents with a 15-year sentence and then argue he has never implied "a 15-year sentence is not only typical, but minimal."
I apologize then. I did not claim that the sentence was "minor", just that the deterrent effect is minor. I was agreeing with you when I used the word "minor". I do not think that any jail sentence would be a deterrent remotely comparable with getting the US to the negotiation table. In fact, if you go back, you'll see I said exactly that, it is preferable to negotiate (again, agreeing with you), than to keep him jailed, but given that the US (and you) refuses to even acknowledge his crime, this deterrent, as minor as it is, is better than no deterrent at all. Again, I did not mention the sentence in any of my statements, on the contrary, since my first post, I expressed sadness. From other posts in this thread I've learned that Gross knew much more than I thought at first, but even then I'm saddened.
As I said, if you had any other explanation for thinking that I had said that, I was glad to hear it ("please share"). You did. I withdraw the accusation regarding the dishonesty, at least with regards to this point, but please re-read my statement(s) until you convince yourself that I never mentioned his sentence and that I just merely agreed with you regarding the non-optimality of the situation.
a) being an agent of a hostile power, b) having a goal of overthrowing the Cuban government, and c) smuggling communications equipment.
No, I did not accuse him of (a). He was accused and convicted (not by me) of being an agent of a hostile power in Cuban territory. I cannot fathom why you keep dropping that part of the accusation.
If Cuba could ban a), then the US could legally execute the entire Cuban bureaucracy because they are all agents of a power that is hostile to us.
To do that, they would need to enter Cuba and kidnap them/drone them. That is not comparable at all with what happened with Gross. Gross entered Cuba. He was arrested in Cuba. Again, I cannot imagine why you ignore that it happened in Cuba, not in the US. That said, the US has a history of doing exactly that (drone strikes, extradition, invasion, coups, assasination plots. Castro has been in the receiving end of many failed assasination plots by the CIA). While I would not dare to guess why they haven't launched a drone, it is ironic that you present US inability or unwillingness to take on these extraterritorial actions as proof of anything, given that the US is both able and willing to do so (at least in other cases). But again, this is offtopic, given that Gross was in Cuba.
then any Cuban charges based on Gross's being a CIA contractor are clearly ridiculous BS.
Did he stop being a contractor while he was in Cuba, doing what the CIA was paying him to do? That would be tough to prove. I wonder what makes you think that after all that planning, he resigned, but kept the money, then travelled to Cuba to act on those plans (even though he was supposedly no longer a CIA agent), then went back to the US, re-joined USAID, did more planning, resigned again, repeating until he was caught. Even if he had done that (which again, seems unlikely), it would be silly not to consider him a de-facto agent.
Ukraine clearly can't charge all the Russian soldiers invading it with crimes in Criminal Court,
Can't or won't? If Ukraine choses to not charge them/convicte them and gets some concession out of it (e.g., troop exchange), good for them. That option is, for now, closed to Cuba.
therefore Cuba does not have the right to charge US CIA contractors for plotting it's demise.
Cuba did not charge Gross for "plotting it's demise" while in the US. Cuba convicted Gross for
You actually go beyond this, implying that a 15-year sentence is not only typical, but minimal.
No, I didn't. I haven't even mentioned the sentence.
For example, you have claimed flat-out that Cuba has the right to ban other country's agents from doing things even when those agents are on their own territory.
No, I haven't. Whether Cuba has that "right" or not is completely offtopic, given that the agent in question was acting in Cuban territory.
You further claim that anyone who disagrees with you on any of these points is clearly a hypocrite and not giving Cuban sovereignty the same respect he gives US sovereignty.
No, I didn't. The word "hypocrite" had not been used in this thread before your post. What I did claim was that Cuba's sovereignty implies that they have no obligation to carve any exceptions in how they treat their prisoners just because of the passport that the criminal happens to be holding.
So, you are either lying, delusional, or confusing me with someone else. At a glance, I can't find anyone else saying what you claim I am saying, so I don't think the third option is likely. Now, if you have any other explanation for why you claim I said those things, please share it.
Legally speaking they only had him on the charges of smuggling. Cuba has no sovereignty over the CIA's plans, so it has no right to challenge those plans in Civil Court.
I am sorry. It seems I severely overestimated you. You see, I thought you agreed that Cuba's sovereignty was a given, the question was only whether the law was just. I tried to address the latter, but you wont event concede the former.
So, go ahead, keep believing that innocent Gross was convicted only for smuggling satellite equipment because you refuse to accept that Cuba can and does outlaw working as a subversive, covert, paid agent of a foreign nation in Cuban soil. Keep ignoring that the US has consistently refused to negotiate (in the Gross case, and in many other issues), so you can blame Castro for not following the procedure you want him to follow (which, given the refusal to negotiate, translates to "release him and hope for the best, against all evidence that the 'best' wont happen"). If your ideology or hatred wont let you see these (blindingly obvious) points, I can't imagine anything I could possibly say to convince you otherwise. Therefore, I wont keep trying.
What crime did he physically commit while he was in Cuba?
This has been answered, repeatedly, even by yourself:
All his planing happened in the US, where planning to overthrow the Cuban government is legally mandated by the Helms-Burton Act.
You concede that he was in Cuba, attempting to smuggle illegal contraband (after successfully smuggling more in earlier trips), with the goal of overthrowing the Cuban government, financed by a foreign (and openly hostile) country.
The equipment is perfectly legal in literally every single country on the earth except Cuba and a few other hold-outs
I addressed this in my original post in this thread, naively thinking that you were being honest. Did you fail to read it, or was I too naive? He was not a private citizen smuggling in some satellite dishes for himself or his family. He was acting on the behest of the very country that prohibits the sale and export of the same equipments and services to Cubans. That is a key difference, perhaps not legally, but ethically, that points to the intent behind his actions: not private consumption, but subversion. He wasn't convicted (solely?) because of the illegal contraband, he was convicted for his actions (including the smuggling) as a US mercenary---the contraband was evidence against him.
Your argument is that no President has ever explicitly offered to raise the embargo. That is literally true, but it completely ignores how reality works. (...) President Obama does not have the authority to totally lift the embargo on Cuba. (...) So he tried it, and the Cubans responded by increasing tensions to the max possible at literally the very first opportunity.
The Cubans responded? President Obama sent Gross to Cuba before the Cubans arrested Gross. At no point, it seems, President Obama stopped trying to increase the tensions himself (by expanding US subversive programs in Cuba, before, during and after Gross' trial).
Partly this is due to the complex legal construct called "sovereignty,"
Sovereignty goes both way. You refuse to accept Cuba's sovereignty. The US may carve whatever exceptions they'd like on how to deal with their prisoners (you seem to have constructed a very narrow and arbitrary set of exceptions to support your case), but Cuba has no obligation to do the same.
the problem for you is not the individual guy they sent to your shores, it's that a government with thousands of more agents wants to fuck with you.
Indeed. Therefore, ideally, the Cubans should be trying to extract consessions from the US, because deterring the US government is far more preferable than deterring individual agents. But alas, the US refuses to negotiate in any meaningful way. That's their prerogative, but it leaves the Cubans with no choice but to hold Gross as a (minor) deterrent for future agents. To do otherwise is the same as announcing that CIA agents can work in Cuba with impunity.
now they have another reason to be really pissed off.
They are already pissed off, and either unwilling or unable to change things. You seem to be unable to grasp the relation between cause and effect and the direction of time. Gross is not a reason relations have not improved (as proven by the many years of non improvement before he was ever arrested), he is merely the latest excuse. He is also a convenient scapegoat to claim, with no regard for logic or reason, that the Castros are the ones who want the embargo. There is zero evidence to suggest that an unconditional release will improve relations (and a lot of evidence against it, some of it provided by yourself).
Look at it this way: when Gross committed his crimes, who had jurisdiction?
That's easy. That's very easy. He did his crime in Cuba and was arrested in Cuba. Cuba had jurisdiction! What makes you think otherwise? Do you think a US passport makes you inmune to the laws of the countries you visit? I doubt the US extends that generosity to all foreign criminals caught in US soil. Why do you expect other countries to forgive US criminals caught in their soil?
As for the $20 Billion a year market, of course it hasn't been on the table.
I didn't claim it was. You did:
It would cost them literally nothing to let this guy go, but they insist on keeping him in prison where he can only prevent them from accessing that $20 billion a year export market.
As others have commented, it is not a matter of "righteous indignation". Reducing the tensions has never been on the table, and the Gross case illustrates it perfectly, just not in the way you seem to believe. After all, the covert agent had to be sent before he was arrested. As much as I would like to see him released, your proposal, release him just because he is a US citizen, is nonsensical.
I do not know why you bring up the swap for the "Cuban Five". I didn't. My thoughts (and yours) about the possibility of a swap and their innocence are irrelevant for your argument that (1) Gross is inocent (no, he is not), (2) his continuing imprisonment is the thing preventing the US from normalizing relations (no, his presence in Cuba proves that there was no interest from the US in normalizing relations), (3) that his continuing imprisonment proves that the Castros like the embargo (no, it doesn't) and now (4) that US citizens should enjoy inmunity in foreign countries (no, they shouldn't, and they don't).
When someone has plans to point a nuclear missile at you in your back yard, you do what you can to protect yourself. The net result of the Cuban 'experiment' is a large number of well-educated people who have little or no resources to use that educational wealth.
The missile crisis happend two years after the embargo started, and one year a a failed invasion from the US. It has been hardened even after the fall of the soviets (Torricelli, Helms Burton). Even now, it is still actively applied against third countries. Claiming that the embargo was caused by the missile crisis denotes a profound ignorance of history, and a profound unwillingness to educate oneself.
Did I get that totally wrong from this side of the Atlantic?
Kind of. The embargo started two years before the missile crisis, so unless there was some time travel involved, the missile crisis did not cause the embargo. (Of course, it also didn't make it better.) It started also before the failed Bay of Pigs invasion that forced Cuba to fully ally with the Soviet Union, which paved the way to the missile crisis.
The embargo was retaliation for the nationalization of american properties in 1960, which, to my recollection (but I hated history classes, so I'm probably wrong), occurred in response to the owners shutting down production to destabilize the newly formed government. During the missile crisis it briefly evolved into a full blown blockade. After the missile crisis, it has gotten worse ("due" to the continuing alliance with the soviets), until the fall of the Soviets... when it got even worse (Torricelli act, 1992).
I.
and by December some poor schmuck (Alan Gross) is rotting in a Cuban jail for bringing computer equipment in for Jewish groups.
While I sympathize with the "poor schmuck", your characterization is extremely disingenous. He was a contractor for the CIA (via USAID). He worked under a "democracy-promotion program", for an employer that openly states that Cuba is not "democratic". Those two alone make him a paid agent of a hostile governemnt stirring dissent against the Cuban government. And that was precisely what he was convicted of.
He was "helping people access the internet" in the narrowest sense possible: he was helping only those selected by his employer. In this game, both parties are actively trying to control what the Cubans see (see also "piramideo"), neither can claim the higher ground. If the US were honest with wanting to "help people access the internet", there are far more effective solutions with no risks to Americans. Just allowing these guys (and other providers) to sell their services to Cubans would have been cheaper and far more effective, and would have put the blame squarely on the Cuban government[1]. That they use expensive covert operations to connect a selected few rather than allow the public at large to take the risk themselves (which would cost them literally nothing) is telling. Gross was not, sadly, an agent to help people access the internet, rather, he was pawn in this game of who gets to control the Cuban public.
I do have a lot of sympathy for Gross, though. Everything I've heard about the "poor schmuck" makes me think that he truly believed that he was a force of good, trying to help people, rather than a pawn of an organization whose goals are the opposite. I'm saddened that someone who is probably a good person, doing what he thought was a good thing, is rotting in jail. But he was a paid covert agent of an enemy nation, actively (though maybe unknowingly) working to undermine the Cuban government. He did what he was accused of doing, and your attitude, "they jailed him for helpling people access the internet" doesn't help. Releasing him would send a very clear message: send more covert agents, if caught, we will release them. I wonder how a Cuban agent caught in the US would be treated. Oh, wait, I know.
Your argument about him preventing Cuba from accessing that $20 billion a year export market is unfounded. To my knowledge, that has never been on the negotiation table. In fact, to my knowledge, the US has consistently refused to negotiate, claiming, as you do, that he is innocent (??!!). He isn't, and until the US accepts that fact (e.g., by also dropping other covert programs), an unilateral gesture will only signal "send more". For now, the next Gross will have to consider whether a few million dollars are worth the risk.
I.
[1] Currently, satellite internet users not only have to smuggle their equipment into the island, they also have to smuggle them out of the US, and then go to great length to prevent the equipment from reporting back its location. A few years back I heard of a black-market service in Havana to disable the GPS sensor of DirectTV modems. I have no idea if that is still possible with newer models.
The law is out of date, but the judge is correct in his interpretation.
Honest question: isn't this the point of having a judge interpret the law? I think it is pretty clear that laws don't adapt quickly enough with society/technology and that part of the "interpretation" was to adapt what is written to the circumstances where they are applied. (IANAL, I know nothing of this. In my home country, laws are prefixed with a long list of "because..." clauses, and I was always disappointed that the laws were still upheld even when none of the "because" was relevant any more... and I envied the judge-interpretation thing in the US).
Personally, I think a fair price for mp3's is under 10 cents these days.
Emphasised that for you. Why would you accuse him of a "sense of entitlement" or demand any other explanation for his thoughts? Do you think that every item that is being sold, is sold at a fair price? If you have ever seen the price of an item and thought "that's more expensive that it should be" (which, if I understand correctly, is one of the basis of capitalism, "vote with your wallet" and the like), you should ask your question to yourself first.
Trying to defend the bible on the back of newton is a little insulting.
I don't think he was trying to defend the bible:
The bible has to be interpreted differently than the plain meaning of the words because otherwise it's immoral, self-contradictory, bigoted and doesn't fit with modern understanding, morality or facts.
/me laughs
You'll probably not like it. TCP over Hard Disks has a very high latency!
Cuban here (though I'm no longer in Cuba).
Be aware that Yoani is not real. Yes, the person exists, but her "opinions" are all paid for (or at least seeking a reward). She does not represent the views or the reality of the Cubans. She is not interested in giving Cubans access to information, she - just like the Cuban government - is at most interested in giving them access to propaganda. It is very hard to get access to information, because everyone wants to pick and chose what to give you. If you read her blog, you will probably notice this... almost poetic posts full of half truths in which any "good" thing is left unsaid.
This is one of the examples. It is true that sneakernet is a major way of exchanging data. It is even encouraged. One time, a government official, in a sickening display of ignorance, stated something along the lines of "everyone can access the internet, they just have to go to a library, ask what they want to know, and the librarian will download the webpage to a floppy". I used to carry not only usb drives, sometimes even up to 3 hard disks, in my pockets. Bringing a hard disk to a university, looking for an IT person and getting him to open one of the computers to insert the hard disk and copy everything they had was a regular occurrence. I was one of those IT persons... my desktop computer was permanently open, until we got an external enclosure just for that purpose. I tried once to set up a couple of "sneakernet stations" so people could come in, explore the ftp servers and download everything they wanted. You don't need encryption, unless what you are transporting is really illegal (a foreign news article is not illegal, child porn is) and you are high profile enough that the police may want to go through the effort of checking your data (unlikely, most don't even know what "data" is).
That said, encryption is illegal[1]. So one could argue that using encryption is more risky than not using it: a news article critical of the government is not illegal, the same news article encrypted is. This is moot, however... it is very unlikely that your data will be checked either way. I carried some data encrypted, mostly password lists or ssh private keys - it would have been highly irresponsible to carry my employer's data in plaintext. Of course, if you are carrying around your accounting book detailing how the CIA is paying you... you probably want to encrypt that, or even better, don't carry it around.
Regarding the export controls: probably the only area in which they are completely ineffective is in software and data. No one in Cuba cares about that. Copyright is ignored to the point that movies and TV shows shown in national television were torrented + "sneakerneted" to the TV station[2]. Same happens with software (to the despair of f/oss advocates). This is the main content of the underground networks: software, music, music videos, movies and tv shows. My hard disks used to contain a mirror of Debian and Ubuntu... and a copy of 1984 and Animal Farm that I was reading at the time, downloaded from the university's ftp server.
(I'm not defending the illegality of encryption, or the export controls, or that the police and the prosecution have too much power and that they can use their ignorance against you... Nor am I saying that it is ok because some of it is also a problem in the US. I am also not defending censorship. I'm just pointing out how deceitful Yoani is, and using the post to explain that the reasons encryption is not wildly used have nothing to do with the US export ban.)
[1] In very silly ways. For instance, to renew the "networking license" for the university, I had to state that no encryption was used, even though using https and ssh instead of telnet was mandatory to get that license. I know, I once stated "Yes, we use encryption, e.g: ssh, https,..." and the license was denied until I submitted the same form without that sentence.
[2] Funny anecdote, when The Fellowship of the Ring first arrived at the university network about 2 weeks after the release, I added a tiny mark during the opening credits, just to check how far it would spread... When it was shown on TV, I looked for that mark... and there it was.
Yes, because immigration reform and equal rights for homosexuals are stupid, trivial issues that are a waste of time that common men shouldn't be bothered with or care about. *sigh*
No, those are not stupid. What is stupid is to spend time on them, get the people excited, and actually argue about it. Specially homosexual rights (I'm not USAian, so I don't even know what immigration reform is all about). I have yet to see an argument against homosexual rights,yet it is argued, when there is no data to support the opossing position. (No, "I don't wanna" is not an argument. An argument is "this is how this group of people will be harm by they having the same rights as I have", preferably with a study supporting that the harm is real). I'm sure there are plenty of topics that are not or cannot be scientifically settled - those are the ones they should spend their times on.
Ah, "stuck together" was the important part. I missed that. Thank you for the clarification.
ice = more water stuck together
FYI, ice is less dense than water. That's why it floats.