Web Hosting For Privacy Activists? 285
BritishColumbian writes "I'm thinking about setting up a Web site driven by user submissions. I was wondering which locations have the most liberal (i.e., libertarian) privacy laws. There are some great hosts in the US, however there have been so many FBI requests for user data that I don't want a server hosted under US jurisdiction. Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions as to a suitable jurisdiction? It doesn't look like Sealand's HavenCo is guaranteed to be privacy-friendly any more."
ob (Score:4, Funny)
here's what I do (Score:5, Funny)
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I hope your server doesn't try to "signal" the server in the next stall
Re:here's what I do (Score:5, Funny)
Why not? Can't servers one day dream of being a senator, too?
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Look, I can't help it if my server has a wide stance!
Re:here's what I do (Score:5, Informative)
Re:here's what I do (Score:5, Funny)
Power over I Pee?
Re:here's what I do (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:here's what I do (Score:5, Funny)
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Unfortunately... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Funny)
and then kept on laughing.
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of countries in the EU will bust you for anything that they consider "hate speech" not that I wouldn't mind never having to see it myself it is still political speech. Considering Europe's history I can understand why they are more than a little sensitive over hate speech. Canada also has hate speech laws last time I checked. I am not sure about all the countries in Latin America but most get a little bent over criticism of their governments and or the Catholic Church.
The middle east? Well just don't make fun of Islam and you will be just fine. Africa? Well that probably depends on the nation. Not a great history of Human rights in most of those Nations.
Asia? Well China is a big no. Japan, and Taiwan I have no idea. Austriala and New Zealand maybe a as liberal as the US but I think they are closer to most EU nations according the Wikipedia they are.
Switzerland maybe?
The US does tend to be more strict on sexual content but is probably still one of the most free when it comes to Political speech. Of course an anti-war protester being asked to go to a free speech zone or get a permit really doesn't care about an neo-nazi in France being put into jail for wearing a patch.
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:4, Interesting)
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The US is good on free speech but it is not good on privacy which is the point of this article. As far as privacy is concerned, Privacy International ranks [wikipedia.org] both Germany and Canada very highly. I'd recommend Canada to get around Germany's prohibited speech laws.
And considering that this article was submitted by "BritishColumbian" I'm amazed he/she didn't consider their own country, which has some very good privacy protection.
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Don't you see the benefit in hosting somewhere that's not under the jurisdiction of your government, even if you think their laws are relatively good? It seems an activist might.
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Bwahah ahah ahahahaha hahahahah ahahaha
Bwah ahahaha hahaha haha hahaha
Bwa hahahaha hahah ahaha
Bwah ahah ahahah
Bwah ahaha
Haha
Now that was a good one. Seriously.
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Australia has quite repressive libel laws. If you get sued for libel, there is the presumption of guilt (i.e. the defendant has to prove they did not commit libel). On top of that, a court case a couple of years ago allowed an Australian to sue (under Australian jurisdiction) a publication for libel due to what they had published on their US website. The judge had ruled that
It all depends on the type of content. (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, you're going to have to pick the least-bad option. The idea of 'data havens' where conventional meatspace law doesn't apply is sadly seeming more and more like a lost concept. It seemed possible during the early 90s, when government and the big corporate interests really hadn't caught on to 'the Internet,' but now that they have, it's going to become more and more regulated, just like every other area of human endeavor. It was fun while it lasted, I guess, and it'll make a neat story to tell our kids about, but the party's basically over.
Where you want to go depends on the specifics of what you're doing. Political speech, particularly political speech directed at other countries, is relatively well-protected both in the U.S. and the E.U. Although I'm pretty unhappy with the current security paranoia here in the U.S., I think it's unlikely that you'll get in trouble unless you actually start advocating 'direct action' (terrorism) or have a cozy relationship with people that do. In terms of formal legislative safeguards on political speech, the U.S. has a more absolute freedom-of-speech doctrine than many European countries and Canada.* Where you will run into trouble in the U.S. (viz political speech) is when you are saying things that can be construed not as speech but as 'action' or as appeals to action. Saying things that are highly politically unpopular in the U.S. may get you put under surveillance or monitoring, but probably won't land you in a lot of legal trouble or get you locked up. Bottom line: if you're looking to deny the Holocaust or write nasty-but-true things about just about anyone, the U.S. is the place to do it.
Where the E.U. becomes the superior venue is if you're doing things that would be a crime under certain U.S. intellectual-property laws drawn up by the megacorporations that essentially own large chunks of Congress. Hollywood is a double-edged sword: it likes freedom for political speech, but really hates freedom if it might negatively impact this quarter's bottom line. Thus while you can advocate genocide in the U.S., linking to copyrighted material may land you in prison. For that sort of thing, you're better off in Europe, probably as far north as you can get. (E.g., Sweden.) You're also probably better off in Europe if you're looking to do something that's edgy and involves sex; I'm not sure that the laws per se are a whole lot better, but overall attitudes may result in those laws not being used as aggressively to bludgeon you.
There are more minor specialty venues that you might want to consider if what you're doing involves money changing hands. Antigua in particular seems to be a popular choice for shady financial-transaction sites (cf. 1MDC) as well as gambling. Exactly how tolerant they'll be of (U.S) copyright-violating material, as a result of the recent trade decisions, remains to be seen. I wouldn't hold your breath for a Bittorrent Free Zone, though.
I admit to not knowing a whole lot about privacy laws in Asian countries but I get the impression that they're more restrictive than the U.S. in many cases. One datapoint: 2chan, the popular Japanese imageboard, is run out of the U.S. to shield it from Japanese authorities and law.
Really, I don't think there's any place you can go where you'll get 'total freedom,' except maybe Freenet (and it's really slow and impractical to use). You need to think hard about what type of content is going to be the most problematic, and then choose a hosting location that's going to be least hostile to it.
* To wit: Many European countries prohibit certain types of political speech under the guise of 'hate speech' laws and anti-Nazism/fascism policies. Although Canada isn't nearly as bad, their Bill of Rights-equivalent document, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, "guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society," a cave
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Thanks for your time writing that.
Re:It all depends on the type of content. (Score:5, Informative)
There are some laws that loosely requests that members of a bulletin board shall be known, but I have never heard about anyone being even brought to court in such cases and the verification is at most an email address, and considering the volatility of email addresses that's no big problem. The "Freedom of speech" is relatively strong, and as long as you don't actively push for breaking the law in ways that can be considered worthy to being brought to court it's no big issue.
Having a system with a moderation (maybe like the Slashdot moderation) may still be a good idea to be able to cool down anything that goes over the edge.
There have been some fuzz earlier about the Swedish site Flashback [flashback.net] for promoting cracks and computer criminality, but it actually hasn't ended up into anything of substance. Maybe you even can have your own forum at that site! In most cases the police will just look and thing "Well - another set of nuts - and go for some more coffee...". Considering that there are bigger fish to fry and the end result of the Pirate Bay story it will take a lot of pressure before anything happens if somebody in the US wants to do a crackdown. And it's likely to hit the newspapers too even before there is time to do something... And essentially the police is more into the watching part and avoids the acting part since it means paperwork. And they have better things to watch for than a bulletin board where the most of the discussion will fall under the freedom of speech anyway.
Crimes that will put you on the radar of the police are more like driving under the influence (0.02% limit), speeding (fixed speed cameras at random locations on major roads) and drugs, both narcotics and illegal sales of prescription drugs but I don't think that the first two of these will apply for a web server hosting anyway.
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Hint: You can host a video of yourself peeing on the Swedish flag, but if you want to host a video showing yourself peeing on the symbol for Allah or the Quran, you are likely to struggle. It is interesting because it's true.
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The main problems with freenet are:
1. Websites are static, there is no change once they are uploaded although you can check for newer ones, forums and such cannot exist (although there is a kind of usenet system which is more of a dodgy hack that a proper system)
2. Slow, messages can take days to reach the boards
3. Missing data, since data is retained only by the amou
Russia (Score:3, Insightful)
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Diversify and Don't use your home country (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're doing something poli
The outcome speaks for itself. (Score:3, Interesting)
I included a direct quote from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but here it is again, including the preamble:
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Tor (Score:5, Informative)
OTOH, you could just create an account on blogspot while you're on Tor, and only post to it via Tor. That should keep you kinda safe, as long as you don't reveal yourself on the blog.
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Do you always click on "OK" when a bad certificate warning comes up on your browser?
Re:Tor (Score:5, Interesting)
A better idea would be to just keysign all your posts, but even then, do you want undeniable association to your posts? If its worth using tor for, maybe you're better off letting your messages stand on their own merit instead of needing the trustworthiness of your 'anonymous' name.
Nearly free speech (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nearly free speech (Score:5, Informative)
Otherwise, there's always Freenet. Decentralized anonymous content hosting. Not quite The Web, but if you need it, it's there.
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Their website disagrees with you. [nearlyfreespeech.net]
We do not accept cash payments; you may use cash to obtain money orders from the United States Postal Service, Western Union, and many other vendors in the United States. Internationally, we recommend the use of American Express worldwide money orders denominated in US Dollars.
If you wish to pay us anonymously, contact us in advance to request special arrangements. As we have a very protective privacy policy, such requests will be granted only if there are extenuating circumstances.
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Avoid NFS unless you want blood on your hands. They provide services to Redwatch - a site where the identities/names/addresses/personal information of libertarian protesters are posted. They're then freely available for use by right wing vigilantes to go and attack them (and it has happened):
As a recent customer of NFS, I would have been disappointed if they denied services to Redwatch.
I don't know much about U.K. politics, and I probably do not particularly care for their political views. But in any case, on their website, they state that "Redwatch does not encourage violence against political opponents - we never have done, we never will do" [redwatch.net], for what it's worth (probably not much, but IMHO, enough for a web host).
And the evidence you stated is very little: all you have are a handful of anec
xs4all.nl (Score:5, Informative)
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Its cold down there though (Score:3, Funny)
Nowhere (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's say you find a hosting company in a country that is very libertarian and will not comply with any request for info.
The routers to that place can be sniffed here in North America (or anywhere along the route) and voila the trick is done. Not as easy as getting logs but...
If your subjects are that hot, then an easy break-in into the premises of that hosting company. (or a bribe). Remember Watergate?
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Re:Nowhere (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Nowhere (Score:5, Insightful)
This is essentially how most commercial webhosts in the U.S. operate as it is. They'll protect you if you're just irritating some guy whose only weapon is to write angry letters, but the second you tick off someone with a lot of lawyers and cash to burn, you're up the creek without a paddle.
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But who says their business would be predicated on a guarantee of security? Extreme privacy is a niche market. Most people just want a fast connection. You are unlikely to find an ISP anyw
The issue at hand is the government. (Score:2)
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You can host nowhere. Think about it. You can't host anywhere, but you can host 'nowhere'.
All you need to do is find somewhere which counts as 'nowhere'.
stay anonymous (Score:5, Insightful)
I know a place (Score:2)
how does this work (Score:4, Insightful)
Having it hosted in a safe are only protects the hosting company. The FBI will not get anything from them, the next step is for them to contact you (if they can figure out who you are).
Atleast that way, you know when the FBI is trying to get info about you or your users.
Canada (Score:3, Informative)
Btw, if privacy is really your concern, you should at most co-locate and use disk encryption, etc. Also, if you aren't in the physical US, you should consider hosting the site yourself. That's really the only way you'll know for sure...
Sealand or Tor (Score:4, Informative)
You have a few options, the first being Havenco [havenco.com] in the micro-nation of Sealand, which is an old WWII off shore platform that claims sovereignty. They have not, however, been recognized by other states, leaving their international legal status in limbo. They do claim, however, to not be under the jurisdiction of other nations laws.
Your second and cheaper option is hosting via Tor [torproject.org] network. There are a few blogs and other sites hosted via Tor, although there are some technical difficulties involved.
Be aware, if your privacy blog angers a powerful entity such as China, they can choose to just block all traffic to your site, rather than forcing your site offline.
--Boycott Nokia [nrwspd.de] - Stop corporate Greed. Nokia, connecting people with the unemployment line.
Cyberbunker Republic Alternative (Score:2, Informative)
IANAL (Score:5, Insightful)
And you might consider consulting one (if you have the money). You might also consider exactly what sorts of liability you'll be exposed to and search for jurisdictions with the most lax regulations in that area. You say that your site is going to be driven by user submissions . . . are you worried about copyright? You say you're worried about the FBI requesting user data, is there any particular reason you think the FBI will ask for your user data (that is, will you be requesting submissions on political/revolutionary/Islam topic areas? I suppose one could even piece together a user submission website dedicated to the discussion of criminal activity and how one might go about practicing crime . . . clearly an exposed place to be).
Also remember it isn't only the FBI that can compel disclosure of user identities. The Think Secret/Apple, Inc. lawsuit proved that. A foreign jurisdiction might make it really hard for the government to get at user data, but make it really easy for private parties to do so in a lawsuit. Also consider, however, that if your servers are in a foreign jurisdiction then U.S. constitutional guarantees may not apply (you might say that they don't apply here anymore, but I would submit that they protect you at least a little bit). That could mean that if the government wants your user data, and the servers are outside the U.S., they could tap/hack/physically break in and get the data they want w/o even the pretense of judicial sanction, and w/o even the possibility of court action for you.
My point here is that jurisdictions treat privacy differently across subject areas and differently depending on who's asking or taking the data. Find the subject area that your website most squarely fits under, and then find a jurisdiction with the most protective privacy laws, on the whole and against everyone you're scared of, for that subject.
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I'd say no matter what the hosting solution is, the server being compromised is a significant risk. (I'm sure the Three Letter Acronym organizations can get in if they try hard enough). So you'd want the people posting to be using an anonymous p
Greece? (Score:2, Informative)
Sweden? (Score:2)
Freenet! (Score:2)
Depends of the local laws (Score:2, Interesting)
I run a small web host in Canada that hosts Cannabis related sites. I had to ask my server provider first if they allow that kind of traffic and their said they are ok with it and will only give out info with a signed court order. Same goes for me. Unless you have a signed cour
Why worry? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course I'm joking, but good luck finding a place 100% secure, anywhere in the world.
riseup.net (Score:3, Interesting)
From their Privacy Policy:
Please delete your user data (No contact info means that they can't be forced to give something which isn't there. Drawback: forget your password, you're screwed)
We keep minimal logs
We do not share data with anyone
We will defend your data
We will not monitor your communications
Your data is encrypted
(No, I am not affiliated with them, just found out about them this week myself)
Recent 5th Amendment ruling (Score:2)
How would an encrypted, passworded filesystem work as a means of privacy? Granted, the server admin would need to be present at boot time (and for every reboot) either to input a password or connect some kind of storage with a key file. The latter option isn't as secure, because courts could subpoena that media. However, there was a recent court ruling (SCOTUS?) which said that a person cannot be compelled to divulge a password on the grounds that doing so would cause self-incrimination, and is uncon
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It really depends on what information you're trying to protect. Users' identities? Content of posts? Should you be on the web at all?
traffic still passes through american servers (Score:2)
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Consider the nordic countries (Score:4, Informative)
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Greenland are all pretty protective about their citizens privacy. Provided your sites contain only "controversial" (but not illegal) content, you would definitely be in the clear!
Illegal content would be: child pornography, copyrighted material for which you do not have the distribution right, neo-nazi propaganda and holocausts-denial. Pretty much everything else is accepted. Including blasphemies drawings
Germany is also a good bet - but you would have to add "scientology" to the list of illegal content
- Jesper
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- Jesper
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Morbo welcomes our new German overlords. May death come swiftly to their enemies!
Advertisement for Swedish ISP... (Score:2)
<ad type="ISP">
Check out Bahnhof Internet [bahnhof.se], specifically http://integrity.st/ [integrity.st]
They guarantee:
</ad :-)>
Most secure hosting solution (Score:4, Insightful)
If I were you, I would first recognize that no matter how careful you are, there will always be a chance of someone (the govt, your web host) with the authority to take down the physical server hosting your website. So I would physically host the site in at least 3 different countries. Use DNS to spread the load on the different locations (all are active at any point in time). If one of them get taken down, update the DNS accordingly to redirect traffic to the other locations, and start setting up one more server in another country (have the technical procedure clearly described and easy to follow so multiple people you trust can follow it). Of course you need to have the user content posted to any location automatically replicated to the others. (Notice how this sounds much like NNTP).
If someone succeeds into getting administrative access to your DNS records, register a new domain name and get the word out to communicate it (IRC channel where you guys usually hang out, a post to some other forum, etc). Or just communicate the IP addresses prominently.
Good luck to someone trying to take down something hosted as described above ;-) Choose the right 3 countries and, because of red tape, no governments will ever be able to successfully cooperate to take down the 3 physical servers at the same time.
Not what he's asking. (Score:2)
Uncensorable Hosting (Score:5, Informative)
First, any provider can and will give in to pressures. Just because they're not "in" the United States doesn't mean that they won't be leaned on by the United States.
Every provider connects to someone else. Otherwise, you being on your residential Cable/DSL/whatever wouldn't be able to reach Rajhed's IndiaPorn.
Being that it is true, the gov't could simply lean on American held companies, or companies with American interests, to find out who you are, find out what's on your servers, or simply get you unplugged. Just because you host at Sealand, in central Siberia, or whereever, you still run the risk of provider A strongly encouraging provider B to do something about it.
Been there. Done that. Got the Federal agent sitting in my office about it. Of course, I played stupid until I found out what the hell he was talking about, and then made some phone calls to find out the rest of the story.
Second, what the hell do you think you're going to say, that will get the feds knocking on your door, on the hosting facility's door, etc, etc?
I run http://freeinternetpress.com/ [freeinternetpress.com] . If you read what we say, and have said for years, by all the legend of the National Security letters, we quite likely should have our phones tapped, servers confiscated, and been visiting Southeastern Cuba for more than a few days.
In reality though, we've had every (like, EVERY) intelligence agency in the world read our news. That was scary at first, but I made some friends (through other means) who had worked in intelligence, and they broke the bad news to me. The feds aren't watching us because they're interested in getting us. They're watching us because we are a good news source. Even though we've NEVER had a single contact regarding Free Internet Press, we're read every day. Above that, you'd be surprised to find out how many intelligence agencies there are out there. It took us quite a while to decode a lot of the hostnames, even when we ran them up and down a few of our grapevines. My favorite that I still like to brag about is eop.gov . They were monthly visitors.
I haven't bothered to re-check our logs to see what odd hostnames come in any more. It's entertaining, but serves no other purpose.
I'm VERY close with my hosting company. (like, VERY). I'd know the moment they were sniffing around, mostly because I'd be the one to open the cabinet door for them.
If it came down to it though, we'd just dump the hostname off to another server (I have a few spare hosting accounts in my pocket, all under different people's names, at different facilities), and put it right back online with a big notice "WE GOT SHUT DOWN BY THE FEDS, Here's the documents!"
If I didn't do it, there are a dozen or so other people with enough access to do it for me. Like, if I ended up in Southeastern Cuba, with an orange jumpsuit, a blanket, and a copy of the Koran (they issue 'em to everyone, from what I understand).
So, what's going to keep you from landing in hot water?
1) Don't say you're going to kill someone.
2) Don't threaten to blow something up.
3) Don't make claims above and beyond anything you're really willing to do.
For example (EXAMPLE!) if you were to say, "I'm going to blow up the Whitehouse tomorrow", if you're not serious, you're stupid for saying it. If you are serious, you deserve to get beaten down and thrown in jail for a long time. While I'll disagree with
No Provider (Score:3, Informative)
I ran one of the major DeCSS sites back when they were being taken down by the dozens (and new ones appeared quicker than that). In the turmoil, I offered one of about ten or so reliable static points, simply because I didn't have a provider at all - I worked at the company hosting the site, and I was one of the guys in charge of the server farm, and would have been among the first the lawyers would've talked to in case of any serious trouble.
Go work for an ISP and make sure you know the people in the legal department. Oh, also: Make sure it's not a company server, but a private server for which you have an agreement that it'll be hosted, cost-free, as part of your employment. That's how I've done it at several companies, and the only thing I'd do different today is to make sure I get that in writing.
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luckily for you, unless you are in iran or china, no one is going to do that
Right, because oppression is a magically constrained force that stops at national boundaries. It flies around the world looking for countries to land on, and says to itself, "Iran, China, those look like good places to settle
Re:any government can oppress (Score:4, Insightful)
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Hey, I'm gonna start using his argument for everything: that was 60 years ago!
The human genome has changed significantly in 60 years, and those old behaviors are all dead and gone. Hell, my grandfather is 80 and he looks NOTHING like he did in those pictures from the war. Proof that his DNA changed.
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All history up to current day adds insight into the different kinds of points of view people may have. In fact, actions of humans in the past are the ONLY data we have to work with when you really think about it. No one "knows" what is going to occur in the now or the future until it has happened and we see the causation or at least the correlations.
To use the Godwintastic route this has gone, consider the Reichstag Fire Decree [wikipedia.org].
Remind you of anything? or at least the beginnings the
yes, i hope history doesn't repeat itself (Score:2)
here, what you didn't learn from history [wikipedia.org]
Re:world governments (Score:4, Funny)
go after terrorist organizations, child pornographers, etc.
if you are hosting such things, you deserve to be hunted down
but with your jibe at "libertarian" one assumes you are the usual privacy absolutist who simply doesn't understand the government has no interest in you. it inflates your ego to think anyone in society or the government actually feels threatened by you
it is of course evil for governments to oppress people just for speaking their minds
luckily for you, unless you are in iran or china, no one is going to do that
people actually do evil things in this world, and governments actually go after them for that. and that's a good thing
Right on!! I am all in favor of the government doing everything they can to hunt down and kill terrorists, child molesters, and people who type in all lower-case and consider periods optional.
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Well, to be fair, the absence of punctuation may be due to the possibilitty he's a fan of the William Shatner School of Composition where one
needs to stop
and pause
before anything is said
for
dramatic effect.
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Indeed.
Re:how about hosting overseas in Singapore? (Score:5, Insightful)
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We are significantly more free than we were in 1789.
The problem is... (Score:3, Informative)
It might be good for holding material that infringes US copyrights as that is something that harms the US but for privacy, you need a nation that actually cares about privacy.
A few European nations seem the best bet right now like Sweden and Switzerland. Alternatively, look for rather backwards nations that have internet access but whose gover
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They can still broadcast over cable or satellite etc.
Of course, one of the reasons the government did this was because of the support, by this TV station, for the armed overthrow of the government. Which in the US, I imagine, would get you locked up.
Let them transmit over cake (Score:2)
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It's really starting to annoy me, that people like you have your heads so far up your own asses that you'll berate the Venezuelan govt for responding