SourceForge Clarifies Denial of Site Access 396
Recently there were some complaints from certain users outside the US stating that they were no longer able to access SourceForge.net. SF.net (who shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) has outlined the reasons for these bans, and until someone with sufficient power to alter US law or the lists governing who is allowed to access what data from where, there is unlikely to be a change in these bans. It is worth noting that SF.net is not alone in these difficulties, as the same problems have been reported from other repositories, like Google Code. "As one of the first companies to promote the adoption and distribution of free and open source software, and one that still puts open source at the center of its corporate ideals, restrictions on the free flow of information rub us the wrong way. However, in addition to participating in the open source community, we also live in the real world, and are governed by the laws of the country in which we are located. Our need to follow those laws supersedes any wishes we might have to make our community as inclusive as possible. The possible penalties for violating these restrictions include fines and imprisonment. Other hosting companies based in the US have similar legal and technical restrictions in place."
Anyone who can use SourceForge (Score:2, Insightful)
can use a proxy to get at SourceForge.
Re:Anyone who can use SourceForge (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, all of the good OSS proxies have their source code hosted on sourceforge.
10 PRINT "CIRCULAR REFERENCE"
20 GOTO 10
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10 REM IPv6 WILL SERIOUSLY F*CK THIS CODE UP !!
20 DIM DOMAINS(255,255,255,255)
I made a start on the IP to Domain lookup code, I'll let you take it from here.
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There's several open source repositories outside the US where people can get code.
I know for a fact that many cubans download Open Source software from the National University of Mexico
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Ironically I just started my first SourceForge project[1] (uploaded files, created repo etc) before I saw this. Still, I guess it'll be a while before the US puts my country on the ban list...
[1] a win32 python project that allows quick linking of hotkeys to windows (to allow easier switching amongst arbitrary windows - coz I'm just too stupid to learn how to alt-tab quickly amongst 4 or more windows
Time to move the servers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Would moving the servers, or serving certain countries from another one (Canada? Europe?) help at all? This is obviously incredibly shitty.
Re:Time to move the servers? (Score:5, Informative)
If they want to have any corporate entity in the US they have to follow these laws, the actual physical location of the servers doesn't matter (according to the lawyers I worked with).
It really is quite stupid, it just causes problems and doesn't help anything.
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There's nothing stopping a separate legal entity from doing so however. So hypothetically, Sourceforge could fork into separately funded/controlled operations to get around the ban. Correct?
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There are already mirrors of the downloads hosted by third parties in other countries that SourceForge redirects users in those countries to. Sourceforge has deliberately decided not to do so in this case, for whatever reasons.
Re:Time to move the servers? (Score:4, Interesting)
The physical location has no bearing on what the US can do to you if you want to deal with them. Just tell that to the "prince" of pot [wikipedia.org].
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Or, if you aren't cool enough for that, you'll join the long list of journalists and rabble rousers who just get shot in the street.
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Yep, that's what I'm thinking. You're never going to have true freedom unless you have zero government. Even governments that claim to promote freedom are really liars.
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Maybe I should have said, "zero other people".
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Maybe I should have said, "zero other people".
That's absolutely true. In order to live in society, you trade some freedoms for others. In the end, most people feel that the freedoms that gain are worth more than the freedoms they lose. However, you said before:
Yep, that's what I'm thinking. You're never going to have true freedom unless you have zero government. Even governments that claim to promote freedom are really liars.
And that part is wrong, for the reasons outlined above. Society increases the freedoms of its members, who can do things no individual living alone could possibly do. But in order to live in society, you have to agree to live by society's rules, and this means giving up the freedom to, for instan
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If you don't have the protection of a military, any government can censor you! This is the primary reason we put up with governments, after all - to avoid being conquered by someone with a worse government.
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Try photographing or filming the seal hunts and see what happens to you.
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Quite frankly, it really doesn't matter about the laws in place. If you piss off morally dubious, violent people with weapons in a secluded, unwatched area, you're in for a world of trouble.
No, I'm referring to the laws: photographing, videoing, or even witnessing these stupid hunts is actually illegal in Canada (and no, they're not on private property so that's no defense).
As for people with weapons, that's easy: carry your own weapons when you travel someplace where there might be trouble. I'm sure some
Can you say, 'Proxy Server'? I knew you could! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would imagine that at some point in the future, the US govt. will ban proxies as they allow individuals from target countries to circumvent an outright ban.
No Helium for Nazis (Score:3, Funny)
With any luck this will force Bin Laden to have to use Windows O.S. and programs from downloads.com to do his twisted interpretation of Allahs will.
There could be some justice in this yet.
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With any luck this will force Bin Laden to have to use Windows O.S. and programs from downloads.com to do his twisted interpretation of Allahs will. There could be some justice in this yet.
"Al Qaeda's latest offer of peaceful relations with all peoples of the Earth will culminate in a computer controlled robotic presentation of Fiddler on the Roof. The robots are taking the stage now...
*DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL*
It's crashing! Watch it! Watch it, folks! Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Get this, Charlie! Get this, Charlie! It's fire--and it's crashing! It's crashing terrible! Oh, my, get out of the way, please! It's burning and bursting into flames, and the--and it's falling
Ah, that old law again. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fond memories of the form that came up for 128-bit browsers back in the 90s. They always used to ask you to provide your information, and certify that you weren't from a bad country. I wish that was a joke; but no. They really did that. Cuz, you know... somebody who was up to no good would actually be deterred by that. Sheesh!
Any 5 year old can tell all you need is 1 guy to come over and get an ISP account. I'm quite sure that all the countries on the list not only have state-of-the-art OSS/FS encryption software, they have pirated closed-source software as well.
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2 questions:
Relocate SourceForge to China (Score:3, Funny)
I don't think it has any problems with connection to any of those countries....
Maybe you can swap servers with Google...:-)
Wassenaar Arrangement (Score:2)
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But what part? An exception was granted back in 1994(?) for open-source cryptography. It doesn't require export review or control, just an e-mail notification with a URL to the source code.
I'm not sure what else would apply...
You don't fight Internet censorship... (Score:5, Insightful)
...with more Internet censorship. This is ridiculous. Export laws are what they are, but if we're trying to help open up the Internet in these countries, banning them from accessing knowledge hosted on our servers isn't helping one bit.
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This isn't about censorship, this is about denying countries we don't like access to our technology. That said, I agree that it's a stupid law that doesn't do anything at all useful.
Violation to freedoms of Free Software (Score:5, Informative)
Furthermore, it’s a direct violation of the freedoms of Free Software and section 5 of opensource definition:
I hope sf.net reconsider their decision. And at least to stand positively to defend the basic principles of FLOSS.
Re:Violation to freedoms of Free Software (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue is not the ownership or contributing membership of the individual projects. The issue is that by hosting, a copy of the software is being maintained under the control of whomever owns and/or controls the hosting servers. In the case of software hosted by a US company or person, that company or person is held responsible for ensuring that the content of that server follows applicable US and/or state law. This includes export laws. So, by you uploading something to their server, they are instantly liable for that. And for every transmission, that is one export, so charge counts, and thus fines add up fast. To ensure that they exist as a company tomorrow, they have to take this step (as crappy as it seems).
Oh and to those of you suggesting to move the hosting servers, that does not remove you from legal liability. If the servers are under your control, and you live in the US, you still have to follow US export laws. So, just by setting up a mirror server in another country that's on the export list, you're violating the law.
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The US government isn't exactly the most discriminating in its enforcement of law. SF probably isn't willing to ensure that all of the software hosted is properly categorized between prohibited and permissible. I had to recently check the exportability of a product and I'm still not entirely sure I won't get nailed because I just read about somebody shipping plumbing supplies getting fined because they might be used to make chemical weapons.
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The problem is the hosting is in the U.S. Like it or not, that gives the U.S. government leverage to enforce its laws on the organization.
Push sf.net to move to offshore hosting. As long as its servers are in the U.S., sf cannot expect to win a fight with the U.S. gov't.
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As long as SF is a US company, it is beholden to US laws.
It's surprising how many people here think that physical hosting location is relevant, compared to the location of the company; is that not the case elsewhere?
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They can't access their work? There are no copies of this code? That's a bad joke. Like you said, they only host the projects so no real harm done. Host elsewhere. Problem solved. Team Forge FTW.
Also, they never said they would violate a country law to enforce an open source ideal. It doesn't work that way. Copyrights, patents, trademarks - these things can be disputed in civil court. You violate federal laws you go to prison. There is no choice to be made at all.
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but the vast majority of people will pick not going to prison vs providing data to people the law wont allow just because it's 'Open Source'.
Being FLOSS has nothing to do with it, they'd still have to do this if they were hosting proprietary code.
Re:Violation to freedoms of Free Software (Score:4, Insightful)
The freedoms of Free Software apply to licenses, not people or entities. This isn't a violation of any open source license as far as I'm aware. Roughly speaking, licenses will require either nothing in this regard (BSD doesn't force you to give away the code or binaries to anyone at all), or distribution of source code to people who receive binaries (GPL and the like). SourceForge isn't doing this, they're just refusing to distribute anything at all to these countries. This also has nothing to do with the software itself, just the act of hosting it. It's about the service, not the good. No one is preventing you from accessing your own work, just from accessing it through SourceForge's service (servers). Just have someone in a neutral country get it for you; this is perfectly legit and I bet even encouraged by SF.
The licenses themselves cannot include these kinds of limitations (if a licence says you can't run the program if you're North Korean, then it isn't an open source license, and this is what Freedom 5 is all about), but they do not require that users have this kind of openness. In fact, it is unnecessary: since the license lets you redistribute the program, all it takes is a third party to proxy between a restrictive distributor and the destination that he wants to avoid.
You can disagree with SF's take on the subject, but they aren't violating any licenses. If they did export to restricted countries, they would be violating local law. Given the availability of proxies and the like, it would be a questionably useful move. So the US government wants to annoy you; work around it and complain about the US government all you want (and rightly so), but don't blame the people who are just following the law.
Re:Violation to freedoms of Free Software (Score:5, Insightful)
It's highly appropriate that we should hear from somebody on the ground in Syria. One of the points of this law is to gain leverage against the Syrian government, which Washington considers unfriendly. It's a stupid, shortsighted strategy, that doesn't really accomplish anything, except hurt innocent people.
On the other hand, it's a little inconsistent to call SourceForge "cowardly" for not standing up the government. (Note that the wording of any OS agreement they adhere to is irrelevant — no agreement to act illegally is valid.) Would you dare to flout Syrian law the same way? Not to judge your system of government, but you have to acknowledge the consequences would be pretty severe. U.S. law is less so, but they can still put SourceForge out of business and maybe put some of its people in jail.
Sometimes you do have to go to jail for what you believe in. But this isn't one of them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Political Asylum (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Political Asylum (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3788 [brusselsjournal.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Germany [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_France#Disabled_people [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom#The_UK_before_the_European_Court_of_Human_Rights [wikipedia.org]
I'm not saying that Europe is broken and the U.S. is perfect, but people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
-b
Anybody here remember the history of PGP? (Score:2, Troll)
Early opensource implementations of RSA encryption?
If efforts to stop these failed (and there were efforts, and they did fail), I suspect this will also fail.
Nothing to see here folks. Move along. Move along.
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Not for the politician who got to say that he helped prevent "technology from getting into the wrong hands".
Sad but real (Score:5, Informative)
The alternative is to end up like Prof. John Ross of the University of Tennessee [tradelawyersblog.com], convicted of export control violations and sentenced to 4 years in prison -- at the age of 72.
What few in the US recognize is that the rules are even more stringent than indicated by SourceForge. To be convicted of an export violation, one needs merely to discuss a controlled technology with a foreign national on one of the lists [doc.gov] -- which means, in addition to many other individuals, entities, and countries, any citizen of China or Iran. Sending anything overseas is unnecessary to violate the law -- merely speaking to a group containing one such person in the audience (like at a private industry consortium meeting) is all that is needed. And the list of controlled technologies is incredibly long: See the Commerce Control List [gpo.gov], especially Category 3 - Electronics [gpo.gov], Category 4 - Computers [gpo.gov], Category 5 (Part 1) - Telecommunications [gpo.gov], Category 5 (Part 2) - Information Security [gpo.gov], and Supplement No. 2 to Part 774 - General Technology and Software Notes [gpo.gov].
Re:Sad but real (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sad but real (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sad but real (Score:4, Informative)
You have a good point, but citing the case of John Reece Roth doesn't make a lot of sense. Prof. Roth was working on "plasma actuators" for use on US Air Force drones. They were considered military secrets. The terms of the contract he signed forbid the transfer of any sensitive data with foreign nationals. He was warned to keep these documents guarded. He documents acknowledging that the export limitations applied, and that he was aware that the law required him to secret the data. Yet he transferred the information to people he knew were Chinese nationals. It's a pretty open and shut case to me.
If you care, yank your projects (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are an open source coder (as I am), and you are involved with a project on sourceforge (as I was until a couple minutes ago), just ask the principal maintainer to move it to a different site. If they don't, stop contributing. Or, if you really don't care, then just go on with business as usual.
Holy Crap! They're Right Next Door (Score:2)
Did Anyone Look at the Exclusion Lists?
There's a veritable population of excluded 'entities' right here in town!
Many have odd looking names like MAJIDA, AL KAYALI, ABDULAH, FADWA, etc.
Then there's the innocuous MYNET.NET, SYNAPTIX.NET, ...
GPL prohibits that, no? (Score:3, Interesting)
12. No Surrender of Others' Freedom.
If conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot convey a covered work so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not convey it at all. For example, if you agree to terms that obligate you to collect a royalty for further conveying from those to whom you convey the Program, the only way you could satisfy both those terms and this License would be to refrain entirely from conveying the Program.
No, it doesn't (Score:3, Informative)
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Google stops 'playing ball' with China... (Score:2)
Anybody but me see a correlation here?
How typical.. (Score:2, Redundant)
I don't see a single person who is complaining about this, offering to help fund moving SF.Net elsewhere.
Not so easy when you have to foot the bill, is it?
Link without the annoying bar (Score:2)
outlined the reasons behind the ban [sourceforge.net], now with 100% less obfuscation, link tracking, and annoying toolbar!
First Amendment Violation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why wouldn't this be considered a violation of the first amendment? (Not SF.net blocking, but the laws which that censorship is based).
Avoidance (Score:2)
There must be some legal way to bypass such laws. Perhaps having a foreign branch such that they can do what you can not do within the US would be sufficient. Freedom sometimes requires actions that people would not normally take.
Re:Failure of thought (Score:4, Insightful)
The reality of the world is that picking up and moving a company overseas (from a US perspective at least) is not easy, nor cheap.
Re:Failure of thought (Score:4, Insightful)
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IANAL, but I think it would be very hard for any company that does any kind of business in the U.S. if they flout U.S. law. So GeekNet (SF's parent company) would have to move every single U.S. employee over the border. (Which includes the staff of Slashdot. How about it, Rob, Pudge, you guys willing to do the Phillip Nolan act?) And there's still the problem of selling services to U.S. customers.
Come to think of it, since all this comes under the category of "export controls", it would probably be illegal
Seas between US and Canada (Score:4, Funny)
These [wikipedia.org] sure look like seas to me...
Re:Failure of thought (Score:4, Insightful)
The "Gulf of Misunderstanding" has definitely been there as long as I can remember.
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You don;t have to pick it up - SF hosts free software, so incorporate a new business in Sweden or similar that just happens to host a mirror of SF's software. Then sf can happily block anyone (assuming that Sweden's not on the list of terror countries, which is possibly is given the US's idiocy and servile pandering to corporate interests) and provide a link to the Swedish mirror.
SF continues as normal, sf.sweden downloads a nightly changeset, job done. In fact, go one better and federate the mirrors around
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Couldn't SF.net just incorporate in a country other than the US, using non-US citizens as the principals in the incorporation? Then they wouldn't have to deny access to people just because the US says they should.
That's one of the ways lots of US corporate "citizens" manage to avoid US laws.
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I'd be curious.
If you were to print the source code for the things they are not allowed to export to countries the US does not like in a book and mailed it to someone living in one of those countries would that be breaking the law or would it be protected by the first amendment?
Re:Failure of thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all speech is protected, and just because it's in paper form doesn't mean the 1st amendment will be applied by the courts. Protected speech is primarily political in nature. (like it or not)
Our government has decided that certain algorithms are weapons, and thus claims control on exporting them. Within the States, it seems to be a fuzzy combination of 1st and 2nd amendments that protect us. (from my layman's understanding)
Personally, I think such laws are outdated. The enemies of the US surely use proxy servers here to download whatever public code they wish. If proxy servers didn't exist, they'd find another way to smuggle the information across the Internet. I don't know who they think they're fooling.
Re:Failure of thought (Score:5, Insightful)
How ironic that to be free to the world they'd have to move away from the free world.
USA != The free world.
Most countries in Europe and many other countries are still pretty darn free, although American lobbyists are working hard to change that.
Failure of Censorship (Score:3)
More over, suppose you move your servers and company somewhere else. Now, you are on the state department's hate list for doing business with US enemies, and have to deal with that. Worst case, your company could get blacklisted from the US and other western countries. Also, who is to say that wherever you go won't have similar restrictions? People don't like each other the
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That shifts the burden to developers in the US, who would be unable to contribute to projects hosted outside of the US.
That having been said, source code is not a product. It's a blueprint of a product at best. It can also constitute as speech. IANAL, and I haven't read the law in question, but I think restricting binaries is sufficient to comply. On the other hand, nothing short of an outright firewall still might bring the authorities knocking, and result in a costly legal battle, win or lose.
But it's a s
Re:Failure of thought (Score:5, Insightful)
There is not a single land without any restrictions, because every country has laws. However, there are countries that don't have trade embargo's or restrictions in distribution of software with cryptography (both which probably effected SF). In addition some countries value privacy and freedom of speech a lot more. Sweden being a perfect example.
Maybe Iceland (Score:2)
... beginning with tomorrow [internetevolution.com]!
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Some years back, US law was changed so that the export of "technology" was controlled, not just the export of physical goods. You can be convicted of an export control violation by speaking privately to a foreign national about a controlled technology, even while both of you are on US soil. Note that this same conversation with a US citizen is perfectly legal -- we aren't discussing espio
Re:Failure of thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Failure of thought (Score:4, Insightful)
What exactly is the point of ideals if you don't stand up for them?
At least with SF.net we know it's a popularity contest. Make enough noise and they'll do something about it.
Re:Failure of thought (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Failure of thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Moving your entire company to another country is not the only way to stick up for your ideals. Another way is to fight to change the system. Many people with far less power than the sf.net overlords have been able to do this and succeed.
Not everyone has the power to simply pick up their ball and run away every time they run into things they don't like. Sometimes you have to compromise and sometimes you have to try to work the system to improve it.
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What's the point of ideals if you ignore the constraints of reality so much that you never actually get to implement them? Balance, sir!
Perhaps there are steps which they can take to work around these problems that they have not considered and ought to. The effective way to introduce them is something more like politely saying "SourceForge should consider [moving their servers to Uzbekistan]" and not at all like calling them a bunch of fat twinkie-obsessed lard-asses because they haven't relocated there
don't waste your ideals on phantom threats (Score:5, Insightful)
the wise thing for sourceforge to do is simply agree to whatever the usa demands. and then its business as usual. which is: everything is available with no restrictions to anyone remotely familiar with a proxy server
enforcement is impossible, even for the usa within its own borders, so who fucking cares what the lawyers and bureaucrats and diplomats say? they've already been routed around
i'm not saying you shouldn't get upset at the arrogance and the audacity of the american demands, i'm saying a bully making demands without any actual ability to follow through on his threats is nothing you have to pay any respect to, and therefore nothing you should waste much effort or emotion on
you simply pay the asshole lip service, put a big smile on your face, say "yes" to whatever the asshole wants, and then its business as usual, which is: these laws mean nothing. all of the posturing and threats and demands mean nothing. there's NO ENFORCEMENT POSSIBLE
they can't enforce any of it. its the internet age. this is not about exporting video game machines, which can be intercepted, its about the internet, which routes around everything
people: stop getting upset at idiots trying to enforce legal understandings from a previous technological era and just ingore them and their petty demands without any muscle behind them. they can't stop technological change. they are defunct, they just don't know it
don't waste your time getting upset at a paper tiger
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Re:Failure of thought (Score:4, Insightful)
"What exactly is the point of ideals if you don't stand up for them?"
Host the content yourself if you are so ready to expect sacrifice of others.
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Sometimes, you have to pick your fights carefully. In this day and age, all the inJustice department need do is say the word "terrorism" or "9/11/01" to get an indictment and conviction.
I disagree with some - hell, MOST - of the embargoes, but what's to be done beyond protesting? I can point out that with proxies, anyone in the world can download any code that's available on the web. There's no need for me to SUPPLY a foreign national with anything, is there?
Re:Failure of thought (Score:5, Informative)
Because they are based in the US, and they are owned by a company that is based in the US. US export laws apply to both the parent company as well as the child, and sanctions for violating the export laws are severe. Relocating to another country is a possibility, but they would have to start over. The company taking assets (or assets under corporate supervision) to another country would also fall under the same law. So, there's the chicken and the egg problem. Also, most of the countries on the US list are also on similar lists in the rest of the world due to treaties, etc. I'm sure there are some countries out there that would be happy to have you host there and export without limitation (and possibly break copyright laws too). But as the Pirate Bay is finding, those places are fewer and fewer these days.
Oh, and if you're planning on staying in the US and not moving to the country you host in, you're still under the US export laws, as your location is in their jurisdiction. Even if you can find a lawyer to make the argument, plan on spending a ton of money on the defense. And if you have that much money to start with, you wouldn't be reading this :)
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Also I don't see why they can't just transfer the title. Start up a meaningless SF company in Laos. Give all of SF to the new SF. Make US SF a branch of Laosian SF. Profit??
Re:Failure of thought (Score:4, Insightful)
The US has shown before that they'll arrest employees of foreign companies that are in the US for things the parent company did in other countries. E.g. Skylarov/Elcomsoft.
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It rubs pretty much everyone at Slashdot the wrong way so why don't we all chip in to create a mirror site or something based outside the US?
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That's a great idea. You want to pay for them to relocate? They're a business. They were established in the U.S. by U.S. citizens. To pick up and relocate isn't exactly something they can do overnight. Nor is it something they can do inexpensively. They're not exactly a huge profit-center. Not to mention, they're owned by another U.S. company, which must also adhere to U.S. laws and would likely have to relocate with th
Re:Failure of thought (Score:4, Insightful)
I realize it isn't just as simple as moving to Finland. But what you said makes less sense.
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That depends on the definition of success used. If you use the definition "to include the most developers globally" then you would be right. But I suspect their definition is more along the lines of "return on shareholder investment".
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Which would be more successful for SourceForge: near-universal accessiblity, with some politically imposed limits, or universal accessibility to a site that can't handle the load because they can no longer afford the servers and connection they need?
Imperfections don't preclude the US from being the best place for SourceForge to be hosted. I'm sure that if they can find a way to cheaply migrate to a country where the political climate isn't likely to produce this kind of problem in the foreseeable future, t
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma [wikipedia.org]
I never said it would be peaches and cream for them to pick up and go to Finland. I merely pointed out that there is direct conflict arrising between operating in the US and their stated objectives.
I realize it isn't just as simple as moving to Finland.
I think you and I have different definitions of 'simple.' How do you propose they move to Finland? Lay off everyone (like Malda and the other fine folks of Slashdot) and rehire Finns? Or pay to move everyone to a foreign country? That's not a false dilemma, those are the only two options. Neither one of which is anything remotely approaching the common definition of 'simple.'
Re:Failure of thought (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I was looking for a better word than hatred but it does outline one of the main causes of bad international relations. Plus you're a douchesock.
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I thought he'd left already, but there he was, back again, and Big Billy too !!!
Old characters are returning to the Whitehouse more times than a season finale of Doctor Who. I keep expecting Billie Piper to pop up behind Hilary Clinton.