Amnesty International vs. Internet Censorship

An anonymous reader writes "Amnesty International has a new online campaign against governments which censor websites, monitor online communications, and persecute citizens who express dissent in blogs, emails, or chat-rooms. The website, Irrepressible.info contains a web-based petition (to be presented at a UN conference in November 2006) and also a downloadable web gadget which displays random excerpts of censored material on your own website."

Petition vs. Solution

What we need isn't a petition that corporations and governments will ignore. What we need is a working FreeNet, and not in java, but in some truly open source language.

Everyone pray to the FOSS infrastructure gods! That'll more likely help than any petition ever will.

rhY

Re:Petition vs. Solution

By now most people should know what will end up happening with this "Free(dumb)Network". Governments will disallow under harsh penalties usage of such a network. They will all claim security takes precedence over privacy. The problems with this current infrastructure aren't the lack of available tools to ensure privacy (PGP, SSL, S/MIME, VPN, etc), the problem is with the people who 1) don't understand the underlying need for privacy, 2) lack of standardization in implementing these tools. How niche would it be to create a "Secure ISP" based service where everything was encrypted on the wire before it left your network? Wouldn't be all that difficult but most common people wouldn't understand the need for it if it slapped them in the face.

Outside of that, what would end up happening with a "niche provider" would be the interaction with a "non niche" provider who wasn't providing security. They overlap and that will forever be a problem. Here in the US as we all have seen, what will likely happen in one of these Free(dumb)Networks is, the gov will spew the catch phrase Osama and all things terror and knock this notion down the drain. I'm a huge privacy advocate and believe in security to the fullest, but even I feel there is no need for an all inclusive "SecureNet". The typical network transaction does not warrant the network and application overhead needed. I do know however that when I need something said securely, processed securely, transacted securely, I don't rely on any protocol, person or program. Rather I rely on myself which is the main and most fundamental point on the security food chain.

As for the notion of a petition, it will go nowhere with this crapaganda of things terror related. To an extent I agree with some portions of governments pickings when it comes to security and privacy, but I also know governments' current actions are likely to create smarter criminals. This is evident in the computer security industry where viruses are now utilizing encryption schemes to hide themselves and their actions... Imagine clusters of terrorists doing the same... So to a degree I empathize with governments... They just don't have a clue, but at the same time their actions will be their stepping blocks.

Re:Petition vs. Solution

You've got it mixed up. The boogeymen of the internet are the paedophiles. Terrorists are the boogeymen of the airports and courts.

Re:Petition vs. Solution

The problems with this current infrastructure aren't the lack of available tools to ensure privacy (PGP, SSL, S/MIME, VPN, etc),

How do these protect against an oppressive government?

As far as I know, Freenet is the only way to publish something, and for everyone else to view that something, without the government being able to tell who published it and who's viewing it.

2) lack of standardization in implementing these tools.

And then you complain that Freenet is too standard?

How niche would it be to create a "Secure ISP" based service where everything was encrypted on the wire before it left your network?

And then decrypted at the ISP before it leaves their network? Seriously, what does that buy you? And why couldn't the government come in and demand the ISP's records?

The point of Freenet is, unless the government comes out and says you can't do it, no one can control it. Once it's widely implemented, the ISP is literally unable to turn over records of your activity to the government.

the gov will spew the catch phrase Osama and all things terror and knock this notion down the drain.

I don't think they could. Most of the population wouldn't buy it -- we don't like wiretapping, either. All we need is enough content on the network that most people want to use it, and that could be much more successfully bootstrapped if it weren't for the performance issues -- Freenet sucks down as much bandwidth and CPU as you throw at it, and is still much slower than browsing the web over VNC on half-speed dialup.

Now, it may prevent other countries from adopting it so quickly, but imagine if the US, Canada, and Europe put so much content on Freenet that it essentially became The Internet. China would have to let it through or effectively be cutting their country off from any Western content at all.

The typical network transaction does not warrant the network and application overhead needed.

That's the point. So, when the vast majority of freenet traffic is "typical", it's that much more impossible to find the atypical.

Hope they stop insanity

I hope somebody can stop insanity like tracking all e-mails or even paying taxes per e-mail as suggested in EU.

Are they genuine or hypocritical?

"Amnesty International has a new online campaign against governments which censor websites

So, are they also going after all those "enlightened" governments that censor "hate speech" and neo-Nazi crap, or are they selectively enforcing their policy?

Re:Are they genuine or hypocritical?

By now, you should have realized that society at large is not ready for a "personal responsibility" framework. I have found that people will go to great lengths (in both denial and self-harm) in order to ignore the possibility of there being such a thing as responsibility for what you do.
Until this changes, they will be more than happy to sponsor censorship-happy governments. The more the gov't handles, the less responsible they will be. Then, when something bad happens, they just wish to fix it with extreme prejudice, lock it away, try to forget about it, and pass more legislation: apparently we're not forbidding enough things.
And why the hell are you a nazi anyway? Why do you support pro-nazi speech? Don't you think of the children? ;)

Re:Are they genuine or hypocritical?

The mere fact that a government is seeking to engineer how people think, speak and dress when it comes to Nazism is a Fascist tendency in its own right. Fascism operates under the tenant that people can't be trusted to think for themselves so the government has to regulate how they think and act for the good of the state.

The irony of rabid suppresion of Nazis is that many governments are leaning if not out right rushing to Fascism today. China, U.S., U.K., Australia, Russia and Israel are on the top of the Fascism scale in my book. Are they Nazi Germany, obviously not though China is pretty close with internal policy. Fortunately China at present seems to have no interest in aggressive warfare, a Fascist trademark, they are so busy just getting rich the old fashioned way. The U.S. has a superficially freer society though its getting less free every day, but its makes up for it on the Fascism scale with rampant militarism and advocacy of aggressive, preemptive war making.

Its my suspicion the world's governments need to suppress Nazi sympathizers because they want to return to Fascism as the world's dominant form of government, but to do that they need to erase the association between Fascism and the extreme turn it took in the 1930's and 1940's. If they outlaw and suppress the most notorious and superficial symbols of Fascism then OBVIOUSLY they must not be Fascist and Fascism must not exist today. If you make the false assertion that to be a Fascist you must wear a Swastika, and you outlaw the Swastika so no one wears them, then it follows there must not be any Fascists, right? It is an interesting con game.

The world's governments and media are in complete denial that Fascism could ever flourish again when in fact it is flourishing, its just no one will speak the name and on the Internet Godwin's law will be invoked, Godwin's law being the ultimate weapon to prevent anyone calling a spade a spade on the Internet.

The only time you hear anyone being called Fascist lately, is the Bush administration seems to have settled on Islamo-Fascist as their new buzz word since they've completely worn out the 'T' and 'R' keys on their keyboards using the word "Terrorist" a hundred times in EVERY speech and press release for the last 5 years, to refer to EVERYONE who is not "with them" in the "either you are with us or you are against us" equation. I would say there is another pretty heavy dose of smoke screen in their recent use of Fascist in describing their enemy. If there enemy is Fascist then that MUST mean that they are not, though in fact they are at least leaning that way.

Israel is another interesting case study. It was a state born out of the crucible of Fascism, but they treat Palestinians as sub human and with such contempt that it must ring a bell with Jews who lived in Europe in the 1930's. Just last week Israel's Supreme court affirmed a law effectively banning a Palestinian from marrying an Israeli citizen, a law so much like the Nazi prohibition of intermarriage with Jews. The law is not exactly predicated on race since its real motive is to prevent Palestinians from ever becoming the majority withing Israel. You see Palestinian are reproducing at a higher rate than Israel's Jews, especially if you count the occupied territories. so there is an imminent danger they will become the majority. Since Israel wants to maintain the facade it is a representative democracy it must do everything in its power to prevent Palestinians from becoming the majority, because when they are either Jews surrender power at the polls or for all practical purposes Israel is an apartheid state, which is pretty much already is, with a minority controlling power through non Democratic means and ethnic "cleansing". This is a key motivator from the withdrawl from Gaza. Through withdrawl Israel can claim that all the Palestinians there are no longer a part of Israel while Israel still maintains a choke hold on every aspect of their day to day lives.

Re:Are they genuine or hypocritical?

As the other guy said, it depends where you live. Denying the holocaust can land you a jail sentence in many western European countries, and the European Court of Human Rights has upheld such convictions despite the free speech provisions found in Article 10. This issue goes far beyond violent neo-Nazis. Certain historical theories, however stupid or silly they may be, are illegal to speak of. With discussion of certain events essentially banned, who knows whether any legitimate theories are being suppressed? It can also be quite dangerous to criticize Jewish religion or Jewish culture. Don't get me wrong, I think Jews catch way too much flak when compared to Christians, but that doesn't mean that there aren't perfectly valid reasons to attack their beliefs and their customs--e.g., I think that circumcision performed on any child not old enough to decide for himself is barbaric (other than for medical reasons. Long-term medical reasons such as very slightly lower STD transmission and penile cancer rates are not not valid because by the time he's old enough to worry about such things, he's old enough to make the decision himself.), the foundation of Israel was one of the all-time stupidest fucking ideas ever conceived and western nations should not support their holy war (even if they weren't the ones who started it), their dietary restrictions are dumb, their culture is too male-centric, power-centric and money-centric, and (like most other Abrahamic religions) observant Jews tend to be arrogant, ignorant, deluded, and bigoted.

I can say all of that without thinking twice because the one freedom America hasn't completely sold out is the freedom to criticize or insult whomever you wish. If I were in France (or Germany or Switzerland or Poland or Belgium or Austria), I would think very long and hard before I said anything like that in public. If it was a very public statement, such as a speech or academic paper, likely I'd have to consult a lawyer first and he'd probably tell me to tone down my language.

Simply put, that's fucked up... and it's doubly fucked up for an allegedly free western democratic nation. The USA certainly has its share of freedom-stomping, un-democratic laws on the books, but I certainly do hope Amnesty International doesn't neglect to go after oppressive and unproductive "hate crime" laws in western Europe.

Re:Are they genuine or hypocritical?

A casual look at their web site makes it look like they're more concerned about governments that engage in hate speech than about governments who censor it. For example, part of the runup to the Yugoslav civil war was official propaganda pandering to and inflaming ethnic hatred. If you have a strong stomach, look up what Zimbabwe's government is saying about gay people.

Hypocrisy, or sensible priorities?

Re:Are they genuine or hypocritical?

No. In other words speech should be free until it incites violence against others. Perhaps that is a difficult concept to grasp as so many here have failed to understand that.
Good job. You've just outlawed verbal support for the colonials that wanted to rebel against the British Crown (ever heard of the American revolution?) including the founding fathers. You've just outlawed every other revolutionary movement (including anti-colonial, anti-imperial, and pro-democratic movements) as well. You've outlawed verbal support for communism, which depends on the proles rising up and violently beating the crap out of "the rich." You've also outlawed verbal support for socialism, which is dependent upon involuntary taxation, which is possible only when violence can be used to coerce people to pay their taxes (e.g. if you don't pay your taxes, men with guns will come to your house, and take you to jail; if you resist, they'll beat the crap out of you). Just the other day, there was a Slashdot thread where people were seriously discussing violently overthrowing the American government; I guess Slashdot can be banned now as well, and all those people can go strait to jail. We can go on, and on.

Would you defend my right to try to convince people that you should be dragged into the street and shot?
I'd give you a microphone so that the whole world can be exposed to your "extraordinary" logic.

From the summary :

"Amnesty International has a new online campaign against governments which censor websites, monitor online communications, and persecute citizens who express dissent in blogs, emails, or chat-rooms."

Emphasis mine. Every government does that, and it's unlikely that any petition will end that. Why? Because not all of that monitoring is done with 'Evil Intent'. I'm not going to complain because the police are watching IRC rooms as part of operation Avalanche or whatever. I'm not going to complain when they shut down some idiots website telling someone to go poison the water supply.

This may not be a popular view with the yanks, but not all censorship or eavesdropping is inherently bad. The problem is making sure there are controls in place, so that that power can't be abused. The other problem is trust.

Re:From the summary :

Thank you for providing an example of doublethink. Now go back to 1984 please.

If the government wants to censor child pornogrophy, terrorist websites, and related things, it's fine with me.

So tell me who gets to define "child pornogrophy [sic]" and "terrorist websites" for the purposes of this censorship that is fine with you. Is Slashdot a terrorist website because of all the free thinking liberals that post here?

Re:From the summary :

You're making the assumption that we who don't believe in Internet censorship all believe there should be child porn on the web. Not true at all.

Child pornography is a crime. It is illegal in every industrialized society that I know of, and shutting down these websites is merely an extension of the enforcement of said laws. Similarly, a website clearly made to recruit terrorists is in violation of International Law. Again, shutting down this website is merely enforcing a law already in place. No one sane is going to complain when a website for black market goods is shut down.

But when they shut down a website that merely criticizes a government, posts unpoplar opinions, or some other legal content, that is when a problem arises.

Re:From the summary :

P.S. I hate to respond to my own topic, but I needed to add, as the poster above me stated, How do we define said websites? Suppose someone takes a picture of their newborn baby which is, naturally, naked? Is that child porn? What about tasteful nudes of children, or children from a country where nudity isn't an issue at all? Is this porn? What about a website that says "I disagree with Al Qaeda's methods, but I do think they have a legitimate reason to be angry?" Is this a terrorist sponsoring site?

Technically useless.

I must say, I admire their motives, copying censored content all over the web to make it effectively impossible to censor. But their implementation is totally flawed; From the site:
"If you have a website, myspace page or blog, help us spread the word and undermine unwarranted censorship by publishing censored material from our database directly onto your site."

.. but then they invite you to include a javascript file from a central server - what happens when that server gets blocked by a censoring country? All the copies go offline.
Great, amnesty, really great. The cynic in me just wants to say that all amnesty want is to have people "spread the word and undermine unwarranted censorship by driving more people to our website, not by publishing censored material"...

Re:Technically useless.

The purpose of this website is to raise awareness about internet censorship and get people to act upon it. Adding the javascript to your website is all about directing people to Amnesty's for more information. Amnesty is not trying to hide that fact. I don't think that's cynical at all.

Wow - it's getting serious then...

... if an organisation like Amnesty is getting involved in this way then internet censorship is a real threat that we should all be concerned with.
Amnesty really is the hardcore of moral activism.
From blood diamonds to the arms trade, from violence against women to the death penalty, and not forgetting the letter writing campaigns, Amnesty doesn't concern itself with minor issues like Microsoft vs Linux or Google taking over the world.
I think I might actualy do something to contribute this time ...

Needs more blantant anti-US content

Come on people.

We all know that the US is the worst when it comes to censorship and human rights violations.

So why, when I visit that site, do I see a quote from a Syrian site?

Come on people, prioritize.

-john

Useless

Oh, yes. Let's just forward that petition straight to China.

UN: Please don't censor your people, China.
China: We have nuclear weapons, stupid.
UN: Oh, damn.
UN: Hey, Iran. Please don't censor your...
Iran: Uranium, uranium, uranium. Stick it up uranium, UN.

But it's not censorship!

In China, it's state security and public stability. In the EU it's anti-racism, who can oppose that? And in the United States it's nothing short of making America safe for democracy through "campaign finance reform." What kind of commie bastard opposes public safety, supports racism and is in favor of letting others (special interests) run our government?

Slashdot?

And if Slashdot were to be censored, how many of you would then be concerned?

MySpace

Despite claiming to work on myspace, the increasingly more stringent myspace html control doesnt allow the content to be added, censoring if you will the information boxes.

Anti-censorship...as long as you say what we like

Oh thank god. Amnesty International involved! Great, now the anti-censorship lobby will have childish name-calling, double standards on freedom of speech, and glossy leaflets on their side. How I have waited for this day.

I'm a supporter of the anti-censorship side of this debate, but having an organisation that believes in censorship of opinions they dislike really means little. I know this is going to stir people up, but consider this quote (from Wikipedia);

However, the right to freedom of expression is not absolute -- neither for the creators of material nor their critics. It carries responsibilities and it may, therefore, be subject to restrictions in the name of safeguarding the rights of others. In particular, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence cannot be considered legitimate exercise of freedom of expression. Under international standards, such "hate speech" should be prohibited by law.

Now, as much as nationalists, racists and religious extremists are scum, the fact of the matter is that they all have the right to a voice, just like everyone else. One shouldn't ban political opinions you dislike. When people use bigotry as an excuse to commit force or fraud, it is the act itself which is the crime, and deserves punishment, not the motive behind it.

Good luck with that UN thing...

During the last UN conference on the internet, held in Tunisia, Robert Mugabe, dictator of Zimbabwe, got up and said, "There is too much freedom of speech on the internet" and received huge applause from the assembled thugs and potentates.

The UN has a lot of evil members. Don't forget that.

fine, but...

didn't they notice that the German Democratic Republic from the country list doesn't exist anymore?! [wikipedia.org]

Does Amnesty go after the Wikipedia?

Does Amnesty International include the Wikipedia in its list of those censoring dissenters?

Because I and others have been prevented from telling the truth there several times.

AI ain't what it use to be.

Silent about genocide, subjugated poverty and terror; up to and including denial of distribution of UN medicine to children resulting in the deaths of 100K+ under 18 because of political alliances.

Should really clean house before going abroad.

Re:AI ain't what it use to be.

Could you explain/elaborate on that? Are you talking about Amnesty International? Amnesty International is all about the abolition of torture and the promotion of human rights. AI has no ability or desire to deny distribution of medicine to anyone. AI has always maintained a politics neutral standpoint with regard to torture.

Goals of Amnesty (from the wikipedia entry):

• Free all Prisoners of Conscience (a "POC" is a person imprisoned for the peaceful exercise of their beliefs, which differs somewhat from the typical use of the term political prisoner).
• Ensure fair and prompt trials.
• Abolish all forms of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, including the use of the death penalty.
• End state-sanctioned terrorism, killings, and disappearances.
• Assist political asylum-seekers.
• End all forms of violence against women
• Co-operate with organizations that seek to put an end to human rights abuses.
• Raise awareness about human rights abuses around the world.

Should really clean house before going abroad.

Not really sure what you mean by this. Did you miss the "international" in Amnesty International?

Re:AI ain't what it use to be.

That's fucking bullshit. The only reason you think that is because domestic news sources give it more publicity when it condemns the US for "War on Terror" tactics, rather than when it does something boring like talking about massacres in South America or the Darfur conflict.

Have you even looked at the Amnesty International website? Here let me show you a quote from their 2006 annual report that describes, "...widespread rape and killings continued - most shockingly in Darfur - against a background of poverty and disease." Source: http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/globaloverview-e ng [amnesty.org]

Yes, the website does go on to criticize the US for one full sentence, and it also makes damn sure that China's rural policies, torture by Middle-Eastern governments, and incredibly poverty in Africa are mentioned as well.

Also, do you know WHY America gets criticzed for even (relatively, compared to the Darfur genocide) slips in human rights records? This is because Americans - me included - consider their country to be a role model for the rest of the world. We obviously aren't as bad as China when it comes to censorship or Syria when it comes to torture, but why are we even comparing ourselves to that? Does it really feel that good to say, "well, at least we aren't as bad as the Darfur Janjaweed militia?" We hold ourselves to a higher moral standard, and I see nothing wrong when international human rights organizations call us out when we lapse from that standard. If we consider ourselves a symbol of freedom and democracy in the world, we better be able to take flak when we deviate in any way from those principles.

"German Democratic Republic"?

When trying to sign their "pledge [irrepressible.info]", I discovered that they allow me to select the "German Democratic Republic" (GDR for short) as a country.

The GDR [wikipedia.org] was merged 1990 with Western Germany.

Where is AI they buying their country- and address lists from?
 

Sign the damn thing!

I can't believe this. Amnesty, a major human right organisation with lots of members, money and influence takes up internet freedom as a campaining topic and what do slashdotters do? Moan, complain and try to rip jokes out of it.

Believe me, Amnesty has been able to change pretty many things in this world, and for better. Now they are taking up the case of Shi Tao, who got 10 years in China for advancing freedom. Now sign the damn petition, it takes a freaking 10 seconds! Would be great to have 100.000 names on it. Slashdotters could and should help.

http://irrepressible.info/

How about porn?

Will they fight governements that make it their job to make it difficult to put porn online?

Not a short term solution

I am interested in seeing what will happen in November. But for the time being there is a faster solution. anoNet is a VPN network which operates just like the Internet but without the influence of the government. All communications are encrypted and uncensored. People are free to say whatever they want to without fear of persecution. We use the 1.0.0.0/8 IP range, so it is impossible to geographically identify a user based on their IP. It is 100% anonymous. Interested? Visit http://anonet.org/ [anonet.org] for details.

Pr0n?

"and also a downloadable web gadget which displays random excerpts of censored material on your own website"

Dear Amnesty,

First: what is a web gadget?

Second: why does amnesty international want to put porn on my website?

Cheers

"monitor online communications"

Hm ... so AI will be campaining against most of the "free world" pretty soon, judging from new laws in Europe and developments in the U.S.

For those who don't know

Amnesty International has recently adopted a policy where abortion is considered a human right.

What do people here think about this? Is it over-stepping their mark?

Cannot use their javascript in Blogger

Looks like you cannot use their javascript code in Blogger:

Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed:

I guess the forbidden javascript will also be cut out of this Blogger error message quote.

Talk about censorship... :-)

But in fact, if you click the check box to ignore HTML errors, it posts alright.

Not knowing what we can't know

In Australia we are not even allowed to know what is being censored/filtered. The ISP's are given a list and they are not allowed to release it.

This url refers to newsgroups that are blocked: http://www.internode.on.net/content/premium-news/# Are_there_any_newsgroups_you_blo [on.net]

only 7627?

Why, after being a topic on /. one of the webs most visited sites, have only 7627 people signed the pledge? Doesn't /. readers care? I mean there have been several cases of internet censorship presented here on /. - it even has it's own topic here. It clearly shows that there's need for campaigns like this - so why not support it? It's so easy.

Amnesty International's Solution Won't Work.

Amnesty International's solution won't work.

Putting up some censored text does nothing to stop snooping and web tracking. This is a more important problem we have facing the global society.

Between the US and China there has been a rediculous number of infringements on human privacy and freedom of speech. I think the best way to stop the NSA and China's insistence on snooping and restricting is for as many people as possible to start participating in an anonymizing service, like the EFF's TOR Project [eff.org]. It wraps every web request in encryption and then routes it through other servers so noone can tell what the other person is looking for. I wrote a tutorial on putting this anonymizing software on a hidden volume in a USB key for those people who want to be able to surf the web, without big brother tracking them. Make your own DemocraKey [travelingforever.com], and let's take away every government's ability to regulate thought.

Re:official?

Tell me, why I can't find any mention of this in Amnesty International's campaign list? Suspicious... also, why .info?

You mean besides the:

Stop internet repression

Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Websites blocked. Search engines restricted. People imprisoned for posting or sharing information. The internet is a new frontier in the struggle for human rights. Governments, with the help of some of the world's biggest IT companies, are cracking down on freedom of expression. Join the irrepressible.info [slashdot.org] campaign to show that the human voice and human rights cannot be repressed.

Right smack dab in the middle of their homepage?