Germany Legislates For Mandatory Web Filters 309
An anonymous reader writes "Germany's Minister for Families has announced a legislative initiative to force ISPs to implement a government-mandated block list (in English), which will be updated daily. The BKA (Germany's equivalent of the FBI) will be in charge of generating and maintaining the list. As usual, this is being brought in under the 'fight child porn' guise. The minister is quoted as saying: 'We must not water down the problem' in reply to being challenged that this law and technology could be used to censor other content. She then went on to say: 'I can't know what wishes and plans future governments will develop.' She has agreed the principle of the legislation with the interior minister and the technology minister, which in German coalition government terms means it's pretty much a done deal."
Well, someone has to say it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Heil.
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If the brown shirt fits ...
Re:Well, someone has to say it. (Score:4, Funny)
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It isn't Godwin if the topic can be directly related to Nazis.
Germany restricting rights is a topic that historically can be directly related therefore no Godwin.
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Sad but true in a way. Though it doesn't apply just to Nazis there are many other regimes that came before that were far worse and there have been and will be many others probably far worse still(note: I am not defending Nazism only saying that yes in fact things can get worse than that).
The first steps on that road and down most of its length the paving stones are made of personal freedoms taken, especially those that limit speech or aim to limit thought.
I know why Germany is so keen on keeping Nazism de
Re:Well, someone has to say it. (Score:4, Insightful)
funny thing. racism isnt dead in germany. media and false education reflected the picture of a racist now a days. ppl that hate jews or whatever dont feel themselves as racists etc...
a racist/nazi in germany has a shaved head wearing boots and a bomber jacket. --- see the similarity to "how to recognize a jew" back in the NS days? nothing changed in germany.
try it out yourself with only having 3mm hair length... ppl will look at you like you just ate a baby while the german government is taking a fascistoid(?) path... without anyone noticing...
not all fascism looks like that what we already saw in history.
oh and the approach of killing child porn with a filter is in my eyes the wrong way, how about getting the pages down? how about not cooperative country receive an embargo on whatever hurts them? oh wait that would eliminate the tool to limit the freedom of any citizen on our planet...
Re:Well, someone has to say it. (Score:4, Funny)
We all know the old
"Your post advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam."
Is there an equivalent to this old form for child porn?
This news item advocates a
( ) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam.
This idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to this particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
(x) Other legitimate uses would be affected
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
etc etc etc
Has anyone made one yet or should I start?
In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
in reply to being challenged that this law and technology could be used to censor other content. She then went on to say:
"I can't know what wishes and plans future governments will develop."
In other words... MWAAAHAHAAAAAAAAAA!
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MUUUWHAHAHAHAHA.
If you're going to have an evil laughter, do it right, man!
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Your evil laughter has a distinctly Russian accent. I think the previous poster must have learned his evil laugh from a Brit.
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, it's Germany...
MÜÜÜÜWHÄHÄHÄHÄHÄHÄHÄÄÄÄ!!!
SCHNELL!! SCHNELLLLLLL!!!!
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One thing that I'm certain would be a part of future "wishes and plans" to censor (if not already part of the proposed filter) would be Nazi paraphernalia. Of course, it starts with the indefensible neo-Nazi sites and hate groups, but gradually, this sort of thing can begin to erode the historical record.
Could this ultimately help Germany develop historical blind spots?
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other words... (Score:4, Insightful)
For basic philosophical reasons. This problem runs deeper than which party is in power today. Unlike the authors of the American Constitution, modern politicians (and much of the voting public) believe that you are a weak and helpless being who needs to be protected for your own good. Supposedly, you do not have the right to make your own decisions, but you do have the right to force others to take care of you by giving you food, housing, education, medical care, and so on. In other words, you're a baby or a pet to them, not a free adult. Until the public understands this nasty implication of the welfare state, it's going to keep voting itself into oblivion.
(Incidentally, have you been hearing the phrase "It is what it is" as often as I have lately? It's eerily like "Who is John Galt?".)
Re:In other words... (Score:5, Insightful)
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn't a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
Surly the communists were at the time, considered as bad as the Nazis.
Jings crivens & hulp ma boab! (Score:4, Funny)
Och, are ye nae?
A braw bunch o miserable bastids, aye, that they were. Och.
Noo awa wi ye, or I'll put the heid on ye.
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Or, is the Great Purge one of those USA lies?
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One thing that I'm certain would be a part of future "wishes and plans" to censor (if not already part of the proposed filter) would be Nazi paraphernalia. Of course, it starts with the indefensible neo-Nazi sites and hate groups, but gradually, this sort of thing can begin to erode the historical record.
Could this ultimately help Germany develop historical blind spots?
It'll eventually lead to people forgetting what the Nazis were about. And of course, someone will eventually decide that the gov't is hiding something because the Nazis had something right (and the gov't doesn't want you to know about it); eventually it will lead to Nazi sympathizers.
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Being allowed to speak also means being allowed to speak back.
Even though bad ideas are allowed to be spoken in a society with free speech it also means that counter arguments are allowed to be made.
If you restrict the bad ideas from being spoken you also stop the counter arguments and those that would speak them assume the bad ideas are right BECAUSE of the very restrictions against them and thus the system devised to stop those ideas instead reinforces them.
*evil laughter* indeed. (Score:5, Interesting)
What's most worrisome is that the excuse is so, so bad.
Child porn? On the open web? Really?
I'm pretty sure at this point, anyone peddling child porn is entirely doing it through encrypted networks and through isolated darknets even. All the low-hanging fruit of publicly available actual child porn has either been dealt with or can be dealt with in a manner far, far less heavy handed than web filtering. What good does filtering the general web do?
Crying "child porn" is just the sugar to make the poison go down.
And how, Sir, do you know this? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm pretty sure at this point,
How do you know this? Please speak clearly into the microphone, and don't mind the good officer who is getting ready to arrest you.
Re:child porn is the new terrorism (and the old on (Score:3, Insightful)
The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:3, Insightful)
and couldnt handle it... welcome to the new world order
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:5, Insightful)
It really is depressing, so many states are bringing in their own petty versions of the chinese firewall that it's getting close to critical mass where in any country where it isn't done the call will become "well they're doing it in all these other countries!They care about the children there! Protect the children!"
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Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:4, Insightful)
The irony is the Doublespeak.... er talk:
- "We must not allow children to have access to pornography or nudity!"
- "We must start teaching our children about sex and sex-related diseases - even as early as kindergarten."
Um.
So how do I, as a parent and teacher, educate my children about sex & how to avoid disease, if all the sites are being blocked by government filters? Ooops! I swear the pro-big-governent people have split personalities - the left side of the brain doesn't know what the right side is doing, and so we get contrary policies that nullify one another.
Freedom is the answer. "From time to time some persons may abuse their freedoms, but the inconvenience of these abuses is minor compared to the inconvenience of loss of liberty for all persons, also called tyranny." - Founder of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson
I'm less concerned (Score:2)
I'm far less concerned about this. Why shouldn't we block this material? This isn't "free speech", not by a long shot. It's unprotected by the constitution (speaking from a US standpoint), and t
Re:I'm less concerned (Score:5, Insightful)
- It puts in place an infrastructure to block off access to anything. The filters don't care if the list feed to them is child porn or bomb receipts or the political program of the opposition to the government.
- You can avoid stealth censorship under the flag of filtering child porn if you publish the list regularly for scrutinity. But then all people actually interested in child porn will know where to look. That's one of the reasons why any filter list which was used for a longer time was considered secret and not to be published. So this means the filter list will be a secret then.
- It doesn't solve the problem, it makes it worse. If you block the public access to child porn, it doesn't go away, it just is more harder to find. And the people creating it and putting it online are harder to find too.
- People who look at pictures of children to masturbate don't stalk real children to get sexually aroused. And they don't feel an urge to kill the child to cover their tracks.
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But in principle, I have no problem with the government banning unprotected stuff like this. Never, including at our nations founding, was this sort of material considered protected free speech.
I'm sorry, but the founding fathers didn't have child pornography in mind as a possible exception to the rights protected by the First Amendment. In fact, the Supreme Court only ruled that child pornography was unprotected speech in 1981 (or 82?).
Despite the predominant groupthink of the past few years, the possession of certain pictures being considered the most heinous crime imaginable was not always the case.
And it's not a black and white issue. Child pornography has always had a vague and fluid
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If all ( most ) countries censor it will eventually be turned over to the UN under the guise of WTO compliance and the 'firewall' wont be needed anymore. One world government, here we come.
Freedom: i hope you enjoyed it while we had it.
Id say time to break out Freenet for every day use but the ISPs have effectively neutered that route by introducing bandwidth caps.
And depressing isn't the right word, disgusting is more like it.
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Can be and will be are two completely different things.
See the UK block of Wikipedia and Wayback Machine.
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Which is like trying to stop politicians from abusing their power, wait that's exactly what it is.
If it's a public list then the argument is that it's basicly a list of interesting sites for any pedophile who's looking for sites.
If it's not public then it's utterly open for abuse.
Either way if you are told a URL is on the list either you are not able to check if it's really an abuse of the system or you can check meaning the system isn't working.
So take your pick.
A system which can be abused or a system whi
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So take your pick. ,easily abused and an affront to freedom of speach.
A system which is expensive,ineffective and an affront to freedom of speach.
A system which is expensive,ineffective
A system which doesn't exist.
I'll invent System Nr. 3 please ... now give me my funds back and withdraw your stupid forces.
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>>>the pedophiles will just switch to a darknet
We might even see a rebirth of BBSes, where people exchange their stories or photos directly via phonelines, rather than the internet. It's old-fashioned but still very effective. I've downloaded whole 350k movies via the phoneline.
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since access to pornography seems to correlate with reduction in sex crimes such as assaults, I'd have to say that no, it isn't a good thing, not for the children at least. It's quite understandable, really: a pedophile with one hand on a mouse and another in his pants doesn't have a third one to molest a child with simultaneously, and just doesn't have the energy to afterwards.
I've never quite understood why our politicians want pedophiles out in the streets, sexually frustrated and amidst all the temptations, rather than quietly masturbating with pornography and hurting no one; maybe these politicians simply hate children and want them to get molested ?
So, German politicians: why do you hate children so much ?
Ah, I guess that would explain it. I have to admit, thought, advocating a policy that will get children raped just to advance their own career is pretty low, even for a politician.
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So make that illegal, but leave the viewers alone. Presumably there's such material already in existence, and in plentiful numbers according to all the fearmongers, so the pedophiles would not run out of material even if nothing new ever got produced.
But of course it is simple to produce child porn without hurting children: lolicon is infamous, and computer graphics are on the verge of photorealism, even on consumer grade equipment. And in future, with a
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:4, Insightful)
He's viewing a child being molested, or some more or less accurate facsimile of it. Whatever he's viewing, if it's real, it's already happened, and his viewing of it doesn't affect it at all anymore, unless the laws of causality have been overthrown. So why punish him from it ?
Go after producers, leave consumers alone; the existing material won't disappear, and with advancing state of the art in 3D software, it's just a matter of time before more can be produced without harming anyone.
No, I'm suggesting making the "masturbating to existing child porn" a safe option and "molesting children" a non-safe option, thus giving anyone interested in children an incentive to do the former instead of latter.
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There is no way you can block illegal content without destroying freedom of speech. Even if the blacklist is public, there is no way of knowing what kind of content has been blocked.
The right way to treat illegal content is prosecution and/or take-down notices.
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You depend on checks in other countries.
Isn't this rather analogous to how the Amish live? Sure, not everyone could live that way, but as long as everyone else around them is willing to live in a modern way, defend the borders, and run the hospitals it works out great...
What happens when everyone decides to live like the Amish? Uh, oh.
Do you really want your country's political bodies to be held in check by outside interests? What happens if the outside interests decide to adopt similar lists, even collaborate?
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Interesting except that until all the countries in the world decide to unite they will never all block the same sites.
What else can you do but set up checks and balances.
One of those checks would be to keep the black list public.
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One of those checks would be to keep the black list public.
See my other post - I contend that the list would then simply become a government-sponsored guide to all of the free kiddie porn available for free. That and, even if it were made public it would be illegal (and more than a bit yucky) for me to verify any of the sites.
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Talk to a random granny in the UK.
What are the chances do you think that they'll have heard about the blacklists/greylists?
It's a tiny fraction of the population who'll be looking for this kind of thing. Not everyone is a slashdoter. now even if the tiny fraction start noticing it, so what?
If they complain to the media they get called pedophiles,pedophile sympathisers or crackpots and no matter how bad the systems are, how many pages they block which they shouldn't it doens't matter because it's "for the ch
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This is called a slippery slope argument and it is a logical fallacy.
The Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy. But with respect to politics and shaping opinion things are hardly ever logical.
How often do you hear government officials claiming "This lays the groundwork for future legislation regarding..."
Incremental, deliberate, and with the best of intentions.
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Can you use the slippery slope to manipulate people? Of course you can. Logical fallacies are often very good tools for that.
But that is exactly what the the original post was all about. It was manipulating people's emotion Slashdot style.
Being emotionally manipulated and not dealing with facts is always a tool that takes away ones freedom to choose based on facts! It is evil, it is FUD, and it is wrong unless you are willing to live with "the end justifies the means".
I love it when I see it because way to
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So you really don't believe it is a slipery slope in this case?
Would wager money on that?
You really believe that this won't be adopted by more and more countries in the name of "protecting the children"?
Or are you just playing devils advocate and know full well that this will be badly abused and will be utterly ineffective.
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Yes I do think that it is a slippery slope.
Heck Germany already has far worse censorship than this involving political speech. You can not show a Nazi salute on TV, you can not get pro mazi books. Not that I personally would miss any of these things they are valid political speech.
But you can not win trying to protect kiddie porn. It is undependable and guess what folks "protecting children" is a good thing.
What I was doing was trying to point out ways that you could prevent the slide down the slope and ge
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The blacklist MUST be public. If it isn't then yes political speech can be restricted. Frankly it all ready is in much of the EU anyway.
But this makes the whole exercise pointless, in fact perhaps counter-productive. Anyone interested in looking at kiddie porn is going to have a field day surfing the government blacklists. It's like a government-sponsored ad for kiddie porn.
So then you are back to secret lists, which I think is far more dangerous than kiddie porn.
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very true, it makes it totally ineffective.
Public blocklist:
1:It becomes a list of interesting sites to view through a vpn.
2:Pedos add every address in it to their hosts file directing at something else so they'll never be flagged while following links from sites not on the list.
3:Everyone else can either verify that it's not being abused hence making it ineffective or they can't and it means it can be abused.
Private blocklist.
1:Massive massive massive potential for abuse.
2:do I have to go on? that's a good
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This is called a slippery slope argument and it is a logical fallacy.
It CAN BE a logical fallacy. If each stepping is logically supportable, the slippery slope argument is non-fallacious.
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Blocking sites with illegal content can be done without destroying freedom of speech.
No, it's impossible. Once a government starts to censor a certain type of illegal content, the censorship will soon expand to include every other type of illegal content as well (warez, hacking tools, bombing construction manuals, all porn sites without youth restrictions,) followed by content considered harmful (islamistic and nazi propaganda, governmental uncontrolled gambling, information about drugs) and sooner or later include every website the current government doesn't like for any reason whatsoever
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The thing is that if the list is public and they try and slip in a site that shouldn't be blocked then people in an other country will find out and post it on news sites. If the German government blocks Slashdot, Digg, or CNN then you will know that they are censoring political speech.
"Because there's no such thing as "correctly." The whole point is to take discretionary power away from the people and put it into the hands of government."
The Government is elected by the people in Germany at least. The peopl
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I do.
And part of my job as parent is to prepare them for adulthood. Part of being an adult is knowing how to clean yourself after you visit the toilet, washing your body for good hygiene, and of course, sex and the negative consequences thereof (pregnancy, disease, et cetera). therwise all you produce are adult-sized children who know nothing.
It should be revealed, not filtered. By filtering content the government is making my job more difficult. "Where do babies come from daddy?" "Well I'd love to ans
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Can someone explain something to me? If they want to block things harmful to children, and theoretically such things are illegal already, why don't they just arrest those responsible for all this horrible activity?
Oh yeah, the Internet allows you to see stuff from other countries. Hmmm Isolationist much? When does the book burning start? I don't think there is anything new about this kind of world order... except the information media. Sounds like regular old fashioned authoritarianism, or whatever 'ism' yo
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"why don't they just arrest those responsible for all this horrible activity?"
That requires REAL work and you can't abuse it as easily as an Internet Filter.
If it can't be abused, then the politicians cannot is it to get more $ "for their campaign".
Follow the money. You always get your answer.
Re:The world had its taste of freedom... (Score:5, Insightful)
because it is not about Child Porn, it is about control.
they don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
When will legislators learn that censoring the Internet will not fix the problem, it will force it deeper underground. The creeps who want to look at child porn will still have access to it, they'll just get better at hiding it.
But, they do get it (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all about hosing off the slippery slope. This is why the filthy speech movement had to be crushed at all cost. There must also always be a creep du jour to shine a light on the problem, remember. Once we run out of perverts we'll see about YOUR vile proclivities.
Where exactly is child porn legal to host (Score:4, Insightful)
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Where exactly is child porn legal to host to the point where it is easier to filter the entire pipe rather than having the sites taken down?
1.- It's always easier to filter the entire pipe.
2.- Questioning the filter clearly indicates you must be a pedophile. Or a terrorist.
Or both. ... Somehow. .... Maybe you strap kiddy porn to your bombs, or something.
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The internet, being truly world-wide, has countries involved which do not have the same laws that you have in your country. There is -always- somewhere to post those sites you would take down.
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.. to the point where it is easier to filter the entire pipe rather than having the sites taken down?
The legality of hosting doesn't really matter. Consider for a moment how easy it is to implement a national filtering proxy and add an entry to blacklist, compared to how much work actually goes into taking down a site.
After someone reports an offending site to the national authorities, they have to contact the authorities of the nation where the site is hosted (either directly, or by an organization like interpol or whatever). Then that nations authorities have to find out where this particular site is ho
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The legality of hosting doesn't really matter. Consider for a moment how easy it is to implement a national filtering proxy and add an entry to blacklist, compared to how much work actually goes into taking down a site.
Why blacklist it when you could monitor it and nab pedophiles in action? I mean, if we're heading in the police state direction, why not go for effective police state solutions? If you blacklist it, you might find a suspect, but you'd have a hard time proving that it wasn't someone innocently stumbling onto the IP. If you get them downloading pictures, then that's different.
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Absolutely. In Finland, a leading critic of internet censorship had his website added to the list [wikinews.org], and the list also contains [effi.org]:
Der China (Score:4, Insightful)
It appears Germany is returning to the days of East Germany
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The Life Of Others dealt with the secret police spying on the people. That's not the same as censorship.
in a word (Score:4, Funny)
DeutschBags
. . . and in English, she told ISPs . . . (Score:2)
Vee haf Vays, of making you block", and slapped them in the face with her black leather gloves, that matched perfectly with her black leather coat.
Ilsa, she-wolf of the Internet.
FTFA, she also stated: "Die meisten Menschen werden diese Stopp-Seite nie sehen." Which means something like, "Most people will never see this stop (block) page."
Come on! Censor all you want. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing we need to implement a fully encrypted internet is a reason to do so.
And then the real fun will come.
Fuckers.
More people should read "the art of war" and concentrate on the paragraph about not starting battles you're going to lose until they finally understood it's meaning.
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You mean something like Freenet?
Or I suppose I2P?
Or even Tor I believe...
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That one is a looser. How many companies currently use VPNs to connect their offices? How many banks & online retailers use HTTPS to handle transactions?
Banning all encrypted traffic will kill the online economy in about 30 seconds. There is simply no way to handle the banking law requirements for security in an unencrypted environment. Add t
Seamless progression (Score:3, Insightful)
then go after sites that shows models that look underage... a bit more debatable
then go after all porn... something is about to explode
then block "by mistake" the opposite party web sites around next election... oops!
Filtering is not about censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a global push by certain interests to get governments and ISPs to support filtering. The reason has nothing to do with child porn, that is a justification that ensures no-one will complain... would you defend the rights of child pornographers?
The real motivation here from big business is first to block the global trade in copyrighted digital goods: music, movies, TV (Vivendi, IFPI, et al). Second, to sell masses of shiny technology (Cisco et al). Third, to lock down the computer and turn it into a controlled environment where FOSS is not permitted (MSFT et al).
Governments are eager for this because they trust big business to draw the line, and because they do not trust their citizens. They fear the end of the State thanks to a flat global digital economy, and the firewalls are about stopping and controlling that.
Note the Data Retention Directive passed three years ago which mandated the storage of data on every communication (phone call, email, web click), which banned anonymous wifi, cybercafes, and mobile phones, and which was also passed as a tool against "child pornographers and organised criminals".
This would be very depressing, since the State (and don't forget, every State in existence was born in blood) has all the power.
However, the digital society seems to have its first world leader, and IMO the old industrial world, with its censorships and tolls anti-social property models, is already on the way out.
The statistics are mind-boggling. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, let's do the math...
Approximately 23% of the world population is online now. There are approximately 6.7 billion people on the planet right now. So about 1.5 billion people. And let's say 5% of them are regularily active and have contribute 1 web page per month; and everybody else is a lurker and never contribute anything. That's 900 million web pages per year, or 246,564 per day. Now we know the growth is far higher than this, but let's humor ourselves with the low-ball estimate.
Now, let's also assume that someone is going to be looking at these websites. We'll say it takes 20 seconds for them to view and categorize a website for their black list. and let's assume they're slaved to their desk for the entire 8 hours, never blinking. That's 480 minutes of slaving, which gives us 1,440 reviews they can make per day. So to keep up with our low-ball estimate, they need 172 net slaves doing nothing but reviewing web pages. All day. Every day. And they will not stop until all the pr0n is found. Now... stop and realize the numbers are orders of magnitude higher. -_- Also realize that the internet is not the web. There are dozens if not hundreds of protocols to monitor, across many mediums -- cell phones, telecommunications, wifi, and good old fashioned sneaker-net.. e-mails, text messages, picture messages... the list goes on.
This, fundamentally, is the problem with large-scale surveillance of the population. It's too resource intensive. Even if you have algorithms that are 99.9% accurate in identifying "bad" material, with 900 million new web pages per year, that's 900,000 webpages that are incorrectly flagged -- 2,500 people's lives ruined by false accusation. Per day.
And just like sex offender registries and other draconian measures to keep someone who's been "touched" by the system in it forever, as soon as the technology exists to do the same thing to people on the internet... They too shall be endlessly recycled and chewed on by a faceless and uncaring system. And the justification shall be that it's okay to ruin a few innocent lives if it protects the rest of us from the big bad boogie men.
Here's my point, fundamentally. Let's say there are a 200,000 -- in Germany alone -- that are pedophiles. Out of about 8 million. And let's say that you have a method of detection where you run these people through it and 99.9% of the time, it gives the right result. What that means is for 8,000 people -- would guess wrong if you ran the entire population through it. What that means is your "99.9%" accurate system flags about 1 person in 20 as a bad guy when they're not. Of course, this assumes that 1 person per 40 is a pedophile. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's unreasonably high... So that means that the 1 per 20 is an optimistic case. Think about that. 1 in 20 people that the system flags is innocent. When the hysteria over the crime is such that the mere accusation is enough to destroy a person, is this a number we're comfortable with?
And if you're thinking it's "just" a black list.. Don't forget that your access attempts are logged. Just why were you trying to access a site we know to have child porn on it, Citizen?
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Simply blocking the general public from hitting sites creates new opportunities for abuse of power, poor implementation, etc. and doesn't seem to actually do much to advance the effort to stop the exploitation of children. At best it forces it further underground.
Ordinarily, you'd be correct. Inexperienced criminals are caught early, leaving only experienced criminals. So methods of catching criminals become more sophisticated, and eventually the only players are experienced ones. It's logical. But some criminal misconduct is not rational. White collar crimes, theft, burglary, drug dealing -- these are often crimes committed by people who think rationally and consider their risks and exposures. But people driven by passion or emotion -- murder, rape, and assault, of
Useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Voters' apathy has consequences... (Score:4, Interesting)
I am opposed to elitism in general, but people who are so easily manipulated with FUD tactics and those who think voting expresses only ideological affinity, should not be allowed to vote.
Re: (Score:2)
What else is there to do? You can't resist the government, can't overthro
book burning (Score:2, Interesting)
Why would anyone have a problem with burning pages deemed degenerate by ze deutsche government? Only degenerates themselves (who'll be next).
Videogame wisdom.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Goodwin's Law (Score:3, Interesting)
Is anyone keeping tabs? (Score:2)
Is anyone keeping tabs on internet censorship legislation?
Is there a site?
It seems, like "terrorism" was an excuse for anything and everything under Bush and his bitch (Blair), "child porn" seems likewise an excuse for internet censorship.
Opportunistic Encryption (Score:2)
save our children .. (Score:2)
And that is MY government?? (Score:4, Informative)
CDU: Merkel's party, Conservative, currently drifting to the middle. Schaeuble, our Minister for the Interior (which includes police in Germany), is one of the worst surveillance guys, and he's a CDU man. Lots of other 1984 fellows, too. --> No option.
SPD: Social democrats. One of the two big parties (together with the CDU). Currently in a coalition with CDU. Some good guys in there, but many others (including most of their MPs) agreed to laws like this. Used to be my party, but obviously it no longer is.
FDP: Liberal. Have a lot of good guys regarding civil liberties (including three who have repeatedly and successfully went to the courts to struck "Anti terror laws" down). But I don't like their economic model, and above all many of them have no backbone.
Greens: Same as FDP regarding civil liberties and surveillance. Might be an option (although for me they are too naive on the environmental area), but voting greens will mean a SPD-Greens coalition (because FDP and Greens are the smaller parties and usually form coalitions with one of the bigger ones).
Left party: Just a bunch of populists.
The reason why such a lot on internet censorship etc. is being passed now might be our "Grand coalition" (CDU+SPD), which has a strong majority. However when I look at other countries, I see similar problems, so that can't be the only reason.
Unfortunately many people willingly give up their freedoms if the government gives them an excuse (terrorism or child porn), but they just don't see how a filter like that could easily be transformed into an anti-government-criticism filter.
All that surveillance scares me. What the hell is wrong with my country?
PS: For the German-speaking guys around here, have a look at this [www.zeit.de] essay by Burkhard Hirsch (an FDP man). An excellent explanation on why civil liberties are so important.
Germany ... (Score:2)
est. 1949
. . . and Nazi propaganda? (Score:3, Informative)
What *really* creeps me out are these reprints of Goebbels stuff, that are being hawked today: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1871736,00.html [time.com].
The government doesn't seem to need to take any action against that.
The joke is that the publisher is a Britain.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does that creep you out? It's history, it happened. It provides great context to what's taught in class. Wouldn't you want to know what was being said then, so that you can compare it to what's being said today? It's a primary source if there ever was one....
D-oh! (Score:2)
I hate when that happens.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps stirring up opposition IS the idea. A database of civic minded and rational-thinking dissidents should be set up now so We The People know who to keep an eye on, then send to camp (for their protection) when the time comes.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
most governments do have the right to determine what you look at
No, they don't. I never granted them that right. That they do it anyways is due to an imbalance in power. As a practical matter, I have no effective way to stop them (e.g. their army is bigger than mine). That doesn't make it right.
Re: (Score:2)
I never granted them that right.
You don't grant yourself rights. In the U.S., we have the notion that The Creator grants people "certain inalienable rights," and that's fine (unless you're an atheist, in which case I guess you're out of luck). The practical matter of "rights" is merely governmental quid pro quo. Your nation offers you something -- whether it's healthcare, or a high minimum wage, or paid maternity leave, or whatever, and also makes some demands on you: mandatory military service, restric
Re: (Score:2)
You don't grant yourself rights. In the U.S., we have the notion that The Creator grants people "certain inalienable rights ...
You make my point for me. My inalienable rights exist independent of the government. If's up to me to choose what rights *I* grant *to* the government. Deciding what I get to read (on the Internet or otherwise) is not one of the rights I've given away.
Every nation has a different mix, and you get to choose where you live.
Not true. See also: Illegal Immigration. As accidents
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree, right up until the point where making things difficult for evil people impinges on the freedom of non-evil people. When forced to make that choice, I always choose the rights of the non-evil, even if it means allowing some evil to exist. Others, apparently including you, would optimize in the other direction. I doubt anything either of us could say would change the other's mind.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The pretext for this filter was preventing people from viewing child porn. It is not aimed against child molesters or the people who produce child porn. It's aimed - or so the government claims - against Joe Masturbator, not Joe Predator. Hell, if it's successful, it might even turn a few of the former into the latter due to mounting frustration.