Draft of 'Broadcast Flag' Treaty Now Available 324
The Importance of writes "If you liked the broadcast flag, you're going to love WIPO's proposed 'broadcast flag' treaty (PDF link). The draft treaty will give copyright-like rights to broadcasters, cablecasters and, if the US gets its way, webcasters. As a broadcaster, you wouldn't have to own the copyright in what you broadcast, but you could still stop people from recording your broadcast, reproducing it or distributing it. The treaty also includes DMCA-like protections, in case you try to circumvent the broadcast flag. The treaty is going to be discussed in Geneva, June 7-9. The draft is discussed over on Corante.com and late last year on the DMCA activists list."
"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:5, Insightful)
but you could still stop people from recording your broadcast, reproducing it or distributing it.
I would assume "old" recording technologies such as VCRs and PVRs would still be able to record the signal? (Current protection, Macrovision, is easily scrubbed from a signal.) These bastards have forgotten what the term "Fair Use" is all about.
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but what happens when everything moves to pure digital and they close the analog hole? With "trusted" computing looming on the horizon, stuff like this is very creepy. When they take away our ability to play media on older hardware (e.g., a movie-on-demand whose codec is only available in broadcast flag compatible hardware and whose emulation would be too inefficient to be practical), then we're screwed. I know there will always be ways around this, but it still annoys me. If nothing else, I don't want to see someone be branded "Broadcast Flag Jon" somewhere in Scandinavia.
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:3, Funny)
Heh - Fahrenheit 451 style, we'll soon be memorizing and reciting episodes of "Sister Sister" on a remote island somewhere, far from the prying eyes of the evil broadcast flaggers.
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not as long as I (and about a million other Engineering graduates) know how to build ADCs and DACs from scratch.
Just wait... one day you'll have to go to a DMCA accredited school for those courses and sign legal forms saying you'll only use your knowledge for Good (company profits) and not Evil (fair use)
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:3, Insightful)
We (Average Joes) don't have the millions of dollars the Broadcast Fuckers have. All you can do is not support them. Don't buy a new TV, cancel all forms of TV (satellite, cable) and make sure they know why.
If you see TV elsewhere don't buy from the advertisers you see. Tell your friends and family. People don't like being treated as children and premptively as thieves. Knowledge is your weapon.
Thankfully they can't DRM good ol' paper books.
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:3, Insightful)
But you can vote the palms those dollars grease out of office. Congress can decrease the length of copyright protection just as easy as they can increase it.
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:2)
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:3, Insightful)
Untrue. They know exactly what it's all about - and they hate it.
Re:"Fair Use" What's that? (Score:2, Funny)
I don't see how (Score:5, Insightful)
This really won't change a thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Even after the existing non compliant decoders/recorders/etc on the market are retired to due age or death, newer hardware which ignores such protections would still be available, you'd just have to pay a fair amount.
Re:This really won't change a thing (Score:5, Interesting)
such a flag would pretty much be ignored by most systems if implemented.
At the moment, sure. However I don't doubt for a moment that there is a concentrated effort to develop and patent a chip which all broadcasts will have to pass through before it hits the TV set. The V-Chip is already in TVs but that's just to keep kids from seeing "bad" TV, the next step is having the broadcasters control what we do with the signals, as if we're all children.
nb: I cancelled my cable months ago
Re:This really won't change a thing (Score:3, Funny)
The V-Chip is already in TVs
And that's been such a rousing success [msn.com].
But to be fair, the V-chip was merely implemented to prevent our future citizens from becoming conditioned to violence and growing up to be hardened criminals.
With the broadcast flag we're talking about a much more serious issue to the fabric of civilization - the potential loss of revenue by content owners from unregulated viewing of copyrighted media!
Given it's importance, I expect effective unambiguous government regulations to be
Re:This really won't change a thing (Score:3, Informative)
What's more, some TV stations actually have the right to republish another station's news content... and that is simply plucked out of the air with
Re:This really won't change a thing (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that in early 2005, it will be illegal to sell hardware that does not obey this flag. So, the major changes come at the receiver side, not the broadcaster. It adds complexity and cost to the hundreds of millions of receiving devices. Even though my current PC is completely capable of recording, viewing, and modifying HDTV content, which I've been doing for a couple years now... In order to do that in 2005 and beyond, I need to buy all new hardware, which enforces DRM control as defined by the big media companies.. You want to copy this weeks episode of "The West Wing" to your powerbook to watch on that long flight? No can do.. Not until you buy a new laptop that obeys DRM, and makes sure thieving bastards like you don't have open access to this precious material.
Once it goes into effect, the current ATSC receiver cards will no longer be sold. Eventually, a new breed of receiver cards will come out. They will enforce the flag in hardware, and will not pass the transport stream to your PC, unless it also has hardware support for DRM, and the stream can be saved in an encrypted format.
So, say goodbye to any open source software to modify the transport stream (like I have today, to transcode HDTV to save in DVD format, or edit the streams to remove commercials). Say goodbye to broad innovation in digital TV. This locks the current structure firmly in place.. Disney, Viacom, GE, and Fox have their positions cemented. You'll watch their programs in the way that they allow, you'll watch their commercials, and anyone who tries to circumvent that will have their DRM license revoked and a lawsuit slapped on them.
Yes, there will still be some basic HD receiver cards floating around which do not care about the broadcast flag. But, how does that matter? Any product you want to buy in the future will be crippled, and the flag will give the big media companies an easy way to sue anyone who dares to challenge their stranglehold on digital media.
What about Software Radio (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok.... (Score:5, Funny)
er. wait... I mean, eventually I'll get tired of it and stop watching TV altogether.
Re:Ok.... (Score:3, Informative)
1. it wouldn't be as flexible as a DVD, and probably quite a bit more expensive.
2. I can't store ~300MB episodes like I can ~3MB songs on my HDD.
No fair... (Score:5, Insightful)
I say if you don't have the copyright to what you broadcast, you shouldn't have the right to prevent redistribution.
Re:No fair... (Score:2)
The actual copyright owner who's licensing broadcast rights could stand up and demand that no broadcast flag be used during the broadcast of their content as part of the license given to the broadcaster... but I doubt anybody will. Moot point.
Re:No fair... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No fair... (Score:2)
Re:No fair... (Score:3, Informative)
Uh. What's wrong with this? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see what's so outrageous about this.
Re:Uh. What's wrong with this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Uh. What's wrong with this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Will that make a difference then?
We already can not fast forward through the commercials on several DVDs, even though we purchased the DVD or legitimately rented it, and own the DVD player. This is due to agreements forced upon the hardware manufacturers. It is the law that makes it a crime for you to try and fix this unwanted feature, and that part is entirely wrong.
Also, I don't see how placing additional non-flexible restrictions advances the sciences and useful arts, when your equipment refuses to record clips of various media for debate, parody, discussion, etc.
Re:Uh. What's wrong with this? (Score:2)
"Hey, we've got this great new video on-demand feature to sell you..."
Re:Uh. What's wrong with this? (Score:2)
Too many bosses (Score:3, Interesting)
BAH!
Those who won't follow it can't be forced to and those who will aren't offending anyway.
Taiwan will still be the primary source of bootleg video movie and software and the US will be a primary consumer.
Re:Too many bosses (Score:2, Insightful)
Important things first. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Important things first. (Score:2)
On second thought, lets let these people stick to doing relatively unimportant tasks.
Re:Important things first. (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh yes, it's part of accepted Western culture. Silly me.
K
Re:Important things first. (Score:2, Informative)
Mutilation Mu`ti*la"tion, n. L. mutilatio: cf. F. mutilation. The act of mutilating, or the state of being mutilated; deprivation of a limb or of an essential part.
Sure, it does indeed change the dynamics of sex a little, but from what I understand, a circumcised penis is usually more pleasurable for the woman.
I'm not saying that male circumcision is absolutely and without a doubt not a bad thing, but to comp
Re:Important things first. (Score:2)
I've been hearing this all my adult life, but not once has a woman said this to me personally. I'll keep my foreskin thank You.
DMCA & Such (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to sound all Princess Leia, but they keep piling this nonsense on, and we keep ignoring it/circumventing it (and ignoring the laws against circumvention). At some point the whole thing becomes a joke and enforcement becomes impossible.
That's not to say that I don't think we'd be better off without this stuff. I'd rather not be a criminal, if it's all the same. OTOH, I'm not going to run Windows just so I can watch DVDs that I've bought.
I guess time will tell.
-Peter
Re:DMCA & Such (Score:3, Insightful)
This is all well and good if you're a consumer who just wants to watch the stuff and maybe keep a personal recording or two.
What if you actually want to use outlawed tools for research or political activism or your own art? Then your violations are public knowledge
Re:DMCA & Such (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider a hypothetical political activist that wants to tape broadcasts of the president saying contradictory things on two different occasions, and use these recordings in a documentary. He could just paraphrase the president, but it wouldn't be as effective as actually showing the clips side-by-side. He'd obviously like the largest possible distribution of the resulting documentary, without getting hung up on legal problems having to do with the tools used to capture the original broadcasts.
A court reviewing such cases after the fact has the chance to weight first amendment, fair use, and other concerns, to arrive at a balanced decision in a complicated case. A device plugged into your TV can't do that.
--Bruce Fields
Re:DMCA & Such (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:DMCA & Such (Score:3, Insightful)
as in.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I'm waiting for some smart guy who can understand lawspeek to read the PDF and translate it into a paragraph or so of normal english.
Next they'll want to brain scan you and make sure you don't REMEMBER a tune or news story or a video scene, because you would be avoiding some royalty payments...
Content (Score:5, Interesting)
Good content sometimes makes money.
Bad content sometimes makes money.
Good content sometimes loses money.
Bad content sometimes loses money.
YET people still make money making content WITHOUT restrictions on "fair use". The question is, does RESTRICTING fair use make MORE money or LESS money?
The various media outlets know that CONTENT is going to be King soon, and that Advertisements are slowly going to lose out.
They are trying to prop up revenue streams with bad ideas that aren't going to work. All technological measures can be twarted, and in the long run, do not work.
People will pay for content worth consuming. Bands will have to play more concerts, poets will have to do more readings etc. Recording is/was just a new form of revenue which has approached the end of its useful life, in regards to generating a profit stream.
Now we are going to have to go back to what worked 200 years ago, before we had TV, Radio and the Internet.
reverse the question (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got the question backwards. The point of copyright is to further the people's interest by encouraging the creation of new works. So long as copyright is providing enough incentive to entice people to create more art, then the system is working as intended.
It isn't the copyright system's purpose to maximize profits for creators, but merely to ensure that there is just enough - and no more - commercial advantage to keep them p
Re:reverse the question (Score:2)
No, it was always about serving both. If you don't appropriately serve the author, he isn't incented to keep creating works that benefit the people.
What's happened is the author has been more successful at using his resources to push the benefit line so its much more in his favor. The totally decentralized people haven't been able to muster an effec
Re:reverse the question (Score:2)
People created works before copyrights because they LOVED doing it. People create works today without copyrights all the time, because they love DOING it. Copyrights neither encourages them nor discourages them.
Copyrights have brought us people like Britney and that "painter of light" guy. Artists not concerned with art for art sake, but Artists looking to make a buck.
mix tapes/cds (Score:2)
This would make it difficult to generate your own mix CD for the car...
First, you'd have to check to make sure no one had ever broadcast the songs you wanted to record in the order you wanted to record them...
-bs
Re:mix tapes/cds (Score:2)
but you could still stop people from recording your broadcast, reproducing it or distributing it
should that be "AND" and not "or"???
I don't disagree with either of you, but how do you stop someone from reproducing something from scratch?
-bs
ah jeez (Score:4, Funny)
If I read that correctly, this means that even if I release something for free to the public, they can *still* find a way to prevent people from copying it and distributing it? In that case, I throw my full support behind the lo-techs and their falling cars of doom. Get your VCRs ready. I may even start carrying around 80 gigs of divx files in my head, childhood memories be damned.
Re:ah jeez (Score:2)
http://www.tvtechnology.com/features/Masked-Eng
If you can play it... (Score:2, Insightful)
States of the broadcast flag? (Score:3, Interesting)
In the discussion following a similar article a few months ago, someone posted a list of the different states for the broadcast flag, and their corresponding values (ie. 000 forever, 001 1 hour, 010 2 hours, etc.). However, I've been unable to find it again.
Does anyone have this information that they could re-post here? It's pretty relevant to the current discussion.
not the case in europe (yet) / R.I.P TiVo (Score:2)
something interesting i notice is that the better the quality of the media (be it music, tv, movies) the harder their are being made to be copied. on one end this makes sense as quality and so resell value is better. on the other hand it becomes more and more a pain in the butt to actually enjoy your rightfully purchased art, be it tv, movies, music.
fin
It'll be cracked (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It'll be cracked (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately the industry learned alot from the DVD encryption issue, and now have put in capabilities to revoke keys. So if I'm playing a dvd in a known cracked player, all they hav
Call me crazy, but should we worry about a "flag"? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, here's how I think it will shake out. There will be a small bit sequence in a digital broadcast that says "do not copy". It will be trivial to add that support to hardware, and simple to include that in broadcasts.
AND
Maybe, eventually, some company somewhere will sue people who bypass this signal, or a company who makes a signal filter. When that happens, hopefully they will have the balls to take it through the court system to try and positively affirm the public's rights the way previous cases have.
- JoeShmoe
.
Re:Call me crazy, but should we worry about a "fla (Score:2)
I dont't think they'll give up, I think they'll get really angry.
I'm beginning to wonder whether all of this crap (broadcast flag, forced HDTV switchover, various flavors of DRM) is all part of some huge experience to see just how much consumers of entertainment will take.
On a personal note, I've already given up on the recording industry and will never buy another CD again. The day my Myth bo
Except (Score:2)
Before: A few people did that kind of advanced "hacking", and in small circles
Now: A few people do that kind of advanced "hacking", and everybody gets it over p2p nets.
Where I really don't think they have any idea wha
Re:Call me crazy, but should we worry about a "fla (Score:4, Interesting)
There's no MAYBE in that sentence. It is absolutely going to happen. With the DMCA tied to this, it will be illegal to even try and make a machine that will ignore the broadcast bit. And they've learned from their mistakes from DeCeSS, and failing to sue DVD-John from Norway.
The companies are slowly lining up everything exactly the way they need it to hit a home run and have an iron fist on this right out of the starting gate.
Ever wonder why HDTV is going so slow in catching on? Because they want to get all this crap out of the way to start with.
And the U.S. government will pass ANY LAW they can to make this happen because they have a deadline on selling all the HDTV airwave range to these companies. They desperately HAVE to sell this spectrum to the content companies because it's been allocated in their budgets for many years now.
Re:Call me crazy, but should we worry about a "fla (Score:3, Informative)
Don't forget that the second and most important part of civil disobedience is getting caught and paying for the crime to win the sympathy of the masses. Man I can't wait to see so many of you geeks who like to argue over trivial things go to jail or be forced to declare bankrupcy.
How to kill an industry (Score:5, Insightful)
Theres a massive market for high quality recording off of tv/dvd/hd/whatever. All that legislation like this does is raise the barrier to entry, and thereby cause LESS competition, giving the consumer (fitting word in this example) less of an option.
Besides, if/when it becomes widely known that you cant record your favorite sports game/movie/whatever with these new tools, people simply wont purchase them, and will stick with their old equipment.
And when that happens, theyll blame "piracy."
sue_evil_pirates truth table (Score:3, Funny)
0 1 0
1 1 1
evil_bit
1 forAll evil_pirates
0 forAll good_guys(TM) = {RIAA, MPAA, political_puppets}
broadcast_flag
1 always 1
The second dark age (Score:5, Insightful)
The second dark age will not be caused by organized religion, but by the "content" industries and those politicians that deliberately or unwittingly serve their interests. Their power will come, not from the flawed dogma of authoritarian religion, but from the flawed dogma of intellectual property.
The people pushing this are not creators, in fact, if they really understood creativity they would understand why the whole concept of knowledge as property is so flawed. Walter Elias Disney understood, but those that control today's Disney Corp certainly does not (or just don't care).
The free software movement is a powerful demonstration of why these concepts are flawed, but could be rendered powerless by some of the more potent forms of intellectual property, such as patent law.
We must fight this on the political battlefield, if you haven't contacted your political representatives about this - now is the time.
Re:The second dark age (Score:2)
Re:The second dark age (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't give up before you have even started fighting, that is the only way we are guaranteed to fail. apathy and pessimism are our greatest enemies.
Right of Reproduction (Score:5, Informative)
I have only given the treaty a quick scan, and see no fair use provisions
Article 9
Right of Reproduction
Alternative N
Broadcasting organizations shall enjoy the exclusive right of authorizing the direct or indirect reproduction, in any manner or form, of fixations of their broadcasts.
Alternative O (1) Broadcasting organizations shall have the right to prohibit the reproduction of fixations of their broadcasts. (2) Broadcasting organizations shall enjoy the exclusive right of authorizing the reproduction of their broadcasts from fixations made pursuant to Article 14 when such reproduction would not be permitted by that Article or otherwise made without their authorization.
[End of Article 9]
Article 16
Obligations concerning Technological Measures
(1) Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by broadcasting organizations in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty and that restrict acts, in respect of their broadcasts, that are not authorized or are prohibited by the broadcasting organizations concerned or permitted by law.
Alternative V
(2) In particular, effective legal remedies shall be provided against those who: (i) decrypt an encrypted program-carrying signal; (ii) receive and distribute or communicate to the public an encrypted program-carrying signal that has been decrypted without the express authorization of the broadcasting organization that emitted it; (iii) participate in the manufacture, importation, sale or any other act that makes available a device or system capable of decrypting or helping to decrypt an encrypted program-carrying signal.
Alternative W (2) [No such provision]
Article 15
Term of Protection
The term of protection to be granted to broadcasting organizations under this Treaty shall last, at least, until the end of a period of 50 years computed from the end of the year in which the broadcasting took place.
[End of Article 15]
It's nice to know that we are going to pay for thi (Score:2, Interesting)
I paid for the TV set.
I paid for the PC. (The P is for Personal, remember?)
They came up with the DVD player and the Xbox. Fine, make those gadgets able to read DVD and obey *Their* rules. That's implied.
If they want PCs to read them too, well then, they can't have it both ways!
These TV people and Spammers want the same thing: a Free Ride on US.
Aaarrrrrrrh! (Score:2)
Entitlement (Score:3, Interesting)
We Americans as a whole have become a bunch of self-important, arrogant, whiny twits, who seem to believe that we are owed something simply because we exist.
I know I speak for a lot of people when I say... (Score:3, Funny)
Gravy!
GPL license for entertainment (Score:3, Interesting)
Standard disclaimer - I am an entertainer, and I do both "freeware" shows (open mic nite) and paid shows.
wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
Alternative V
(2) In particular, legal remedies shall be provided against those who:
(i) decrypt an encrypted program-carrying signal;
(ii) receive and distribute or communicate to the public an encrypted program-carrying signal that has been decrypted without the express authorization of the broadcasting organizatoin that emitted it;
(iii) participate in the manufacture, importation, sale or any other act that makes available a device or system capable of decrypting or helping to decrypt an encrypted program-carrying signal.
so... this means that digital TVs would become illegal. Or, in fact, any device that would allow you to actually watch the encrypted TV, since the proposal is that a device which can decrypt the content under any circumstances (even to watch it) is illegal. Period. No exceptions. Only part (ii) here has an exemption for express authorization by the broadcaster. Part (i) makes it illegal to watch TV if it was encrypted (since you have to decrypt it to watch it) and part (iii) makes it illegal to sell a TV.
Y'know, I'm thinking maybe that isn't what they meant. Isn't overbroad legislation wonderful? :-)
Re:wow... (Score:2)
Maybe it's exactly what they meant. If whiny broadcasters were lobbying me all the time about such a trivial thing, I think I'd take a lot of satisfaction in passing a law which 'accidentally' made it illegal to watch their product :-)
Re:wow... (Score:4, Insightful)
Make all TV watching illegal by default, and then selectively enforce this when and where you want to, and now you have full legal control over the television market.
That's why I don't respect the argument that "if they can't catch you doing it, then who cares that they made a benign activity illegal? It's no real harm, right?"
what rights do we have anymore? (Score:2, Insightful)
Taking control from the actual Copyright owner! (Score:4, Insightful)
Do we really need this? What will it solve? Television programming is ALREADY copyrighted. By adding this explicity copying restriction then are calling all television viewers CRIMINALS.
Also. This thing needs a new name. Just like DRM's correct name is "Digital Restrictions Management". Calling this a "broadcast flag" isn't descriptive enough to the average person. It needs to be referred to as something else. "Copy prevention flag", etc...
Also, keep in mind, it's really not preventing only copies to be made. It actually prevents you from even making a FIRST GENERATION recording of a live program as well. Guess what, no more timeshifting. TIVO just got a whole lot less useful. No more instant replays of Janet Jackson's boob.
Memory Augmentation (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they going to make such a device illegal because you might wear it to a concert / movie / theme park and then get to play back your experience again later?
What happens when the technology advances so far that it becomes a sort of implant?
When we begin to become practically symbiotic with such a device such that our competitiveness and our daliy lives begin to depend on it more and more, will we still be told by large media organizations what we can and can't re-experience?
When our human memories become fully meshed with technology (which I expect will happen within the next 100 years), where will we draw the line between our rights to re-experience something from memory and the content producer's right to get compensated for repeated experiences?
Cool Idea! (Score:2)
Now all that will be necessary is to remind them that is Congress that has the power to set copyright terms, and it is they who have the power to elect Congress. Now matter how much money the *A
oh, well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:oh, well (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason broadcasters want this (Score:5, Insightful)
1. They have lost all control of their schedules. With easy, good-quality time-shifting, they can no longer target a particular show for a particular day and time. Counter-programming one show against another is futile.
2. They have to stop people from easily skipping commercials. With any PVR, that's a simple matter of recording a show, and starting to watch it about 20 minutes after it starts.
Instead of adapting to the new reality of the consumer being in charge of their own entertainment, the broadcast networks are forced into these draconian measures.
The first network to use this flag will get a lot of complaints, and lose viewers to the competition. That competition will be most happy to use its lack of the broadcast flag as a major selling point.
Corporate greed created this flag, and that same corporate greed will prevent its widespread use. This whole issue will become a tempest in a TV plot.
Re:and just wait ... (Score:4, Funny)
If they UN ran the internet, the committee would probably be headed by a nation like Tongo seeing how the UN's great wisdom lead to Libya heading up the Human Rights committee.
Re:and just wait ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:and just wait ... (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/naz
Or how about that whole bit denying insurance payouts to survivors of the holocaust?
Yeah, I think the Swiss would work really well there.
Re:and just wait ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, the UN wasn't doing their job with Iraq. The US didn't ignore them, they just couldn't wait any longer. Somehow I doubt that'll take place here, especially if the US's interests are being served.
Re:No. (Score:4)
The US has done everything it can to make the UN completely ineffective. To use their ineffectiveness as a rationalization for a war that was already decided before the 2000 election is a bit like beating your wife and then rationalizing your visit to a hooker because your wife has ugly bruises on her face. Knowing the whole time you were going to see the hooker anyway.
Bush has abused his position. He should be impeached, tried and removed. Preferably in chains.
It's ironic that one of the most un-American people in the country is the leader of it.
That's right I said it.
Re:No. (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, the US was eager to get it taken care of. They had an itchy trigger finger, so to speak. Of course, in the space of 10 years or so, Saddam had racked up 17 UN violations. Pity Clinton didn't take care of it.
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why are you asking me? I didn't say it was acceptable. I think the UN's lack of action was less acceptable, however. Nobody seems to care about that. Guess it's easier to hate the US than it is to see the problem that the UN created.
"Untill you realize that big friend Israel has been racking about double that a
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not exactly, I guess it is easier to blame the UN for the consistant undermining by the former USSR and the USA mostly (China had a bit of a share as well)
Does the UN need reform? definitely. But one of the most needed reforms is getting rid of the veto. That would have meant that France would have been unable to sabotage the discussion about Iraq (maybe with the same, maybe with a different outcome) and it would stop
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
It blows me away how many people are completely unaware of why the UN was created. It wasn't created to be a world government body to solve all the world's problems. It was created to prevent WW III, which primarily involving giving the super powers a forum to work out disagreements instead of declaring war. The atom bomb had a lot to do with why the UN was created.
Veto power was and still is the only
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, you are right. I wasn't thinking of you specifically when I wrote that. Sorry for not being clearer about that.
"It just makes me fucking sick when I see guys who still believe that the people who have clawed their way up to the highest leadership positions in the country really care about morals and not just about money and power."
We share agreement here.
" I arrived at the conslusion that the system does not reward people who care about morals all on my own, imagine that."
I agree with you here as well. I don't think the system is encouraging the right people to come by and be president. Wish I knew how to fix it but I'm still chewing on what the actual problem is. I feel that if you have to win by pointing out the faults of your competitors on TV (be they truthful or not), then anybody who campaigns is negatively tainted.
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
After all, the UN has always stood for freedom.
Until you read Article 29, Section 3.
Re:Taking Bets (Score:2)
broadcast_flag & 0;
There is your less that zero day warez. Damn I'm 1337.
Re:Taking Bets (Score:2)
Re:Protectionism Double Standard (Score:5, Interesting)
Sooner or later, the whole system is going to implode. And it'll be nasty. I doubt restricting people's ability to record their favourite TV shows will be the catalyst... but it's not going to help. (Maybe Ashcroft's anti-Pr0n crusade will be a contributing factor!)