Israeli Bill Would Allow Secret Blacklists For Websites 132
jonklinger writes with the lead from his report on a move to hamper internet freedom in Israel: "Israel is to attempt, again, to pass a bill that authorizes police officers to issue warrants to Internet service providers to block or restrict access to specific websites involved either in gambling, child pornography or copyright infringement. The bill itself proposes that such administrative procedures shall be clandestine and that court decisions shall be made ex-parte, where some of the court's ruling will not be even dislosed to the owner of the website, and the court may hear and use inadmissible evidence."
Slopes were made for slippin' (Score:4, Insightful)
Oooh secret courts! Censorship! Illegally-obtained evidence!
So much for "never again". We have become our enemy.
This is how it should be... (Score:1, Insightful)
Each nation should be able to legislate and govern internet access in the way it sees fit; and best suite for its citizen's good. What's good for the US may not be good enough for Israel or even the UK, China or India. Just because the internet as it has eveolved so far is inter-operable across nations, does not mean it should be governed by a single set of rules, protocols and conventions.
Re:This is how it should be... (Score:5, Insightful)
While there's potentially merit in your argument, I think most people worldwide would agree that "government censorship through secret court proceedings using illegal evidence" is not a beneficial protocol for... well, any country. This proposal isn't a slippery slope, it's a canyon drop-off, and at the bottom is "government-approved communication" and "arrests without trial for dissenting speech".
Re:This is how it should be... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is how it should be... (Score:5, Insightful)
Irony. You'd think that a country home to so many Jews would remember how well that worked in Germany.
Re:This is how it should be... (Score:5, Insightful)
While there's potentially merit in your argument...
No, there's no merit to censorship. Its all about control and who rules. End of discussion.
Re:Slopes were made for slippin' (Score:5, Insightful)
I like how all of these current politicaly hip ideas " gambling, child pornography or copyright infringement" to regulate are all being lumped into the same bill.
I hate to say this but they are all nothing alike, and the reasons for blocking each individualy differ quite a bit. To make it secret is even worse. Why don't you do the internet a service and educate people about these issues directly.
Should some things be blocked, taken down, raided, removed from the group think, yep, definately child porn, but lets not erode everything else to do it. It can be done responsably.
I suppose you will take down WALL STREET's webs since their all about gambling. Or the myriad content producers who violate their own rules. (disney recently in the news asking google to filter its own results out of the web)
Re:Wherever their culture draws the thin line... (Score:2, Insightful)
this is the problem.
its not that some clear delineation exists between legal and illegal behavior and they just decided to keep it a secret
its a secret because there is no line. there is no distinction between a citizen exercising the right to a reasonable
and polite dissent of policies and a terrorist. if you get to be too much of a pain in the ass you will be silenced.
and if 10 years from now its expedient to circumcise some other behaviors, then you as the government dont need to
worry about any kind of messy legal analysis or political process...you already have a blank check to do whatever the hell you want.
Re:This is how it should be... (Score:3, Insightful)
I always love the "freedom of speech may work in the US but its not necessarily appropriate for my country..."
Freedom of speech isn't the only thing at issue here; consider a company known to clandestinely distributing malware / legitimate software that monitors user's activities by reporting back to its servers. I'm talking about CarrierIQ which is installed in many mobile devices; reporting back keystrokes, messages etc., getting access to data even before it is encrypted on the device.
There was lots of noise about a year or so ago as I recall; followed by total silence. The Trevor Eckart's video revealed potential abuse of several federal laws, and yet the company seems to be operating unscathed.
Now, the Israel govt. has the choice to bring legal proceedings followed by lengthy trials etc.; but seeing as this matter has been hushed; might feel the publicity might not be worth the effort. So it could simply issue a blacklist order on all ISPs to simply blacklist the offending IP address and be done with it; pending investigation. This is not a Freedom of Speech issue; more of a national security issue.
There could be many more such scenarios.
Re:hitler would be proud (Score:2, Insightful)
the jews are now acting worse then nazis all they need do is start a genocide oh wait ..palestinians anyone....
Israel is not just Jews. This story is about the political power in Israel, it has nothing to do with Judaism.
Re:hitler would be proud (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't recall Israel saying they wanted to kill all Palestinians. The converse however is not true.
Re:This is how it should be... (Score:5, Insightful)
>Each nation should be able to legislate and govern internet access in the way it sees fit; and best suite for its citizen's good.
They way you phrased this, someone could interpret you as saying that all governments act in the best interests of the people they govern.
That can't be what you meant, though, because I know nobody's *that* naive in this day and age.
Re:hitler would be proud (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't recall Israel saying they wanted to kill all Palestinians. The converse however is not true.
There certainly are extreme factions within the Palestinian community who want to kill all Israelis, just like there are extremists in Israel which want to kill all Palestinians. Wasn't it Rabbi Meir Kahane who called Arabs a "cancer" that had to be cut out of the flesh of Israel? How do his utterances differ from those of the most hateful of the Hamas extremists? The man advocated the abolishment of democracy in Israel in the event that Israeli Arabs became more numerous than Jews to secure the dominance of the Jews because otherwise, by the rules of democracy, the Jews would get outvoted. To me that sounds like a pretty close description of the apartheid state in S-Africa. There are ignorant fanatics on both sides, your attempts to try to convince us that the viewpoints of the most extreme of the Palestinian fanatics are the views of all Palestinians everywhere just serves to highlight how intolerant and ignorant you are yourself.
Re:hitler would be proud (Score:0, Insightful)
Actions speak louder than words, and Israel's actions are unambiguously saying they want to displace or kill all Palestinians.
Re:hitler would be proud (Score:1, Insightful)
Unless of course you're in the 20% of the Israeli parliament that's Arab or one of the many parties that doesn't care about religion or is anti-religious.
Israel is a Jewish state like America is a Christian country. I.e. they're not really.
Re:hitler would be proud (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant - It's official Hamas Policy.
The Fatah charter said it until 2010. Now it doesn't specifically name Israel or Jews, but still outlines the struggles against the enemy that must continue, so take that for what it's worth.
Re:hitler would be proud (Score:4, Insightful)
Technically correct, and completely symbolic and irrelevant.
Israeli policy in the West Bank has typically been to take land by force and demand that the Palestinians do nothing about it. Israeli policy in the Gaza Strip has been to blockade all shipments to the area and to forcibly prevent anyone from leaving, and then periodically "mow the grass" (this is the Israeli term for their periodic indiscriminate bombing of Gaza).
Any reasonably fair way of looking at the conflict in the Levant acknowledges three basic facts:
1. Both Israelis and Palestinians have been absolutely brutal, including attacking and terrorizing civilians.
2. Israel is currently winning by a wide margin. For instance, in the last dust-up, approximately 1200 Gazans died, and approximately 10 Israelis died. Or you can look at who controls what land [thehypertexts.com]. Or you can look at the casualties over the last 10 years, which give Israel approximately a 6:1 advantage.
3. Neither Israel nor Hamas nor Fatah operate within the bounds of international law.
Re:This is how it should be... (Score:1, Insightful)