Out of Egypt Censorship, US Tech Export Under Fire 217
AndyAndyAndyAndy writes "After it was exposed that American firm Narus had sold Egypt the Deep Packet Inspection equipment used to spy on and censor its citizens, the US House Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing where Reps. Chris Smith and Bill Keating 'grilled Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg on the sale of this Internet spying technology to an Egyptian Internet provider controlled by the Mubarak regime.' It seems there is now a push for stronger controls and monitoring for technology exports 'that would provide a national strategy to prevent the use of American technology from being used by human rights abusers.'"
Several readers have noted that Hosni Mubarak has now stepped down as president of Egypt. Control of the country's affairs has been passed to the high council of its armed forces, which has some journalists and bloggers worried.
Not so scared of Army control (Score:5, Interesting)
Based on how well the Egyptian army has handled itself these past few weeks and how they tried to stay as independent as possible I think it may actually be a GOOD thing that they are taking over for now. Better the army than the Muslim Brotherhood.
Re:A bit hypocritical to hold hearings about this (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't take this personally.
But for everyone who is trying to give credit to the United States for giving tens of billions in military equipment to a regime that's been murdering it's own citizens for thirty years, fuck you. It's like giving kudos to the NRA for putting guns in the hands of idiots, and then congratulating them the one time someone uses it for good and simultaneously ignoring the tens of thousands of times it ended in tragedy.
And yes, in fact, there have been a few bloodless revolutions [wikipedia.org] backed by military holding Soviet weapons who have received Soviet training, fucking Perestroika being the first one coming to mind. Not that anyone should be imposing their will on a sovereign nation, but Jesus H. Christ. Pick up a book once in a while.
Re:No Time to Worry! (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, we've got it so god damn bad here. Why just the other day a bunch of goons in facemasks busted down my door because I said Obama sucks in a phone conversation.
Fucking perspective - get some you drama queen.
Re:No Time to Worry! (Score:4, Interesting)
With out a *hint* of irony (Score:3, Interesting)
"now a push for stronger controls and monitoring for technology exports 'that would provide a national strategy to prevent the use of American technology from being used by human rights abusers.'"
Where is the grilling of our own country's use of this technology to spy on our citizens? Yeah, I thought so, not a single word. That'd be looking in the past and we never do that. Nope never...
Honestly, this is consistent with what the US has been saying for the past 10 years on any human rights abuse. We've continued to rack up our own abuses and as long as the targets are "terrorists" or "Muslims" or whatever the current boogeyman, it's OK if the US does these things. Meanwhile, out of the other side of our mouth, while we continue these abusive and repressive tactics, we have the gall to point the finger at other countries, ones who we even have supported and ASKED to do our repression because it gives the US some value, we point our finger and tsk tsk tsk, spying, invasion of privacy, these are the things of tyrants and dictators... let the sound of freedom ring...
Nope, not even a hint of irony there...