White House Pressuring Registrars To Block Sites 569
An anonymous reader writes "While the Senate is still debating a bill that would force registrars and ISPs to block access to sites deemed 'infringing,' it appears that the White House's IP Czar is already holding meetings with ISPs, registrars and payment processors to start voluntarily blocking access to sites it doesn't like. Initially, they're focused on online pharmacies, but does anyone think it will only be limited to such sites? ICANN apparently has refused to attend the meetings, pointing out that they're 'inappropriate.' Doesn't it seem wrong for the US government to be pushing private companies to censor the Internet without due process?"
Change we can believe in (Score:4, Insightful)
Meet the new boss, same (worse?) as the old boss.
Goddamn idealogues seeing everything in black/white terms. This is your fault.
No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
Meet the new boss, same (worse?) as the old boss.
I voted for Obama based on my belief that he would make better decisions than McCain. We tend to forget that the election was not a yea or nay vote for Obama. It was a contest between two contenders.
Has Obama done everything I want him to do? No. Has he made decisions (like this one) that I disagree with? Yes. Am I still happy that I voted for him rather than McCain, the guy who wanted to put the freak from Alaska a heartbeat away from the Presidency? Abso-freakin-lutely.
As for being worse than the old boss, your memory must be failing. Bush was the most corporate-friendly President we've seen. Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years.
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years.
I see President Obama is making great headway in undoing the damage President Bush did. Policies like this are sure-fire ways to improve the status of civil liberties in this country. Or not.
At least with Bush we could fall back on, "hey, the guy's a stooge for corporate interests, what did we expect?" Obama on the other hand is doing pretty much exactly what he promised not to do regarding liberties, transparency, and many other areas that made people want to vote for him.
Somehow we need to put a stop to this practice of appointing "Czars". Anyone who can't pass muster with the Senate shouldn't be calling shots in the Executive Branch.
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Somehow we need to put a stop to this practice of appointing "Czars". Anyone who can't pass muster with the Senate shouldn't be calling shots in the Executive Branch.
>>>
Remember when I said Executive Orders should be unconstitutional? That includes executive orders from czars. It is Congresses' job to make laws, not the executive branch (which merely executes laws). Furthermore the whole of the US government, which includes all three branches, is forbidden from exercising powers never granted to it per the 10th Amendment. That is not just an optional piece of wording - it's the Law - ruling above even the president.
You want to put a stop to "czars"? Make the 10th Amendment supreme. Make "the appointing of czars" a reserved power of the States, never granted to the US. While Congress was given the power to regulate products on the internet (interstate commerce), nobody in the executive branch ever was.
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Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:4, Insightful)
I voted nay for Obama which meant I had to vote for McCain, but the only reason I voted for McCain was because I may as well abstain rather then vote for a third party.
If even 10% vote for a 3rd party, that's potentially 10% less that a winner has to claim they have a clear mandate to steamroller their agenda.
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years.
Dunno about the environment, but the current administration is taking quite the opposite approach to undoing damage to civil liberties.
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Hey, voting for the big-government guy to protect civil liberties sure makes sense to me!
It looks like Americans are finally realizing that big government is damaging to civil liberty and that lawmakers are above the law.
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No! no! we need a really big government to protect those civil liberties for us from being infringed upon by big govern.....ohh now I get it.
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh my fucking god. I am throwing away 5 mod points posted elsewhere for this. You, sir, are the problem.
It was a contest between two contenders.
No it fucking was not. There were 5, count them, 5 candidates who were registered on sufficient ballots to win the presidency. The fact that you are too fucking ignorant to be even dimly aware of what they show outside of CNN is utterly pathetic.
Stop being part of the problem.
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Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Interesting)
Voting for third-party candidates is actually a viable strategy.
The Democrats and Republicans usually craft their campaigns to differ from each other by the minimum possible for there to be a discernible difference. Presidential elections are frequently decided on the basis of a few percentage points.
This means a candidate that has little chance of being elected can actually have a significant influence on the election, if they can attract a few percentage points of votes -- that means one or the other major party candidates will have to adjust their platform to try to draw those voters, or lose the election. Ross Perot (not someone I admire, by the way) had this sort of influence on the Republicans, after he won 8% of the vote in 1996.
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:4, Interesting)
If that actually worked the Democrats would have taken a turn to the left after Nader cost them the election in 2000. But they decided to try to win over Bush voters instead of Nader voters.
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop playing games. Your argument is one for why third-party candidates should RUN, not for us to vote for them. You are simply claiming that it defines a voter group that can be addressed in campaigns.
Until there is a rank-order voting system in place (which is what your arguments really point toward), sensible voters will continue to vote strategically. One of the problems of a winner-takes all system is that a third party candidate will always hurt the majority of his supporters more by taking relatively more away from their second choice candidate.
I suspect your whole line of reasoning as being disingenuous. The original point is that the general republican stance on this kind of speech issue is blatantly worse than that of the general democratic stance. So reacting to this with "nothing's changed" is disconnected from reality. The presence of third party candidates does not change this.
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fairly sure that if people started voting for those candidates, those votes would probably be counted, instant run-off or not. In Canada there are usually more than two candidates in any riding and no instant run-off voting. In my riding it was a close race between three different candidates -- Liberal, Conservative and NDP -- the NDP won.
I think I agree with the grandparent more -- as it relates to politics, the majority of people consume mainstream media almost exclusively (read: Viacom, National Amusements, Time Warner, Disney, News Corp.) and so, lo and behold, they vote for mainstream candidates (read: Democrats, Republicans).
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But in Canada we have a system where each riding you win is worth a seat for your party and the PM is the leader of whichever party gets the most seats. In the states it's a winner take all deal. Whichever party has the MOST votes gets their guy in charge. Independents and third parties make sense for American Congress and Senate races, but for the presidential race you're just going to hurt whatever major party your policies are closest to (ie, if a third party liberal candidate gets 10% of the US vote h
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
I for one can say fuck em both, I voted for Barr.
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the trouble though:
Liberals are a bunch of disorganized, self defeating, introspective idealists. That means presented with 30 different ideas you'll get 30 different candidates who all divide the vote.
Conservatives are structured, team oriented cheerleaders. They stay on message. They circle the wagons. They read the talking points (which are actually catchy) and STICK to them.
Just based on personality the Conservatives would win just about every time. If you just took environmental protection you would end up with:
1) The Cap and Trade candidate
2) The Carbon Tax candidate
3) The nuclear subsidy candidate
4) The green tech tax credit candidate.
On the conservative side you would get:
1) The 'Global Warming is a con to steal your freedom.' candidate
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Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Insightful)
It's too bad you don't have the courage to vote your conscience. If you did, we might get a candidate that you actually want, instead of the second-most-objectionable candidate.
To quote Penn Jillette, "Keep voting for the lesser of two evils and things will just keep getting more evil." [hutnick.com]
-Peter
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to vote along the 'realistic' least evil lines, but over the last decade I've come to regard voters in democracies as complicit in, and responsible for the policies of the ones we vote for. And so I cannot vote for any party whose actions I find unconscionable; I'd carry the stain of responsibility, no matter how small a part, for their actions on my conscience.
I might not get a candidate that wins these days, but at least I'm not getting betrayed by mine or made part of their crimes.
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:4, Interesting)
Write to your state legislature and request preferential voting ballots. The plurality system we have today causes people to vote for one of two candidates that is most likely to win and offends them the least. With preferential voting you can truly vote your conscience without "robbing" your second- or third-ranked candidate of a vote. Some states already have this; see:
http://instantrunoff.com/ [instantrunoff.com]
http://www.fairvote.org/ [fairvote.org]
Re:No, not worse than the old boss (Score:5, Funny)
"Undoing the damage he did to civil liberties and the environment alone will take years."
Especially at the rate Obama is going.
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I count 6 candidates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008 [wikipedia.org]
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Which were based on vague promises and TV speeches. Unlike Obama, McCain had a public promise to shrink the government and a record showing his history of reaching across the political aisle to work with Democrats. He even bashed the Republican Party at the Republican convention. But people got caught up in the culture of personality around Obama, acting on their emotions and the glowing media coverage where he made tons of
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I voted for Obama based on my belief that he would make better decisions than McCain.
And that's why the majority made such a clearly bad decision. Anyone who took a step back from all the talking points could clearly see they had exactly one path available; regardless of who you voted for. There was McCain who told people the truth - which wasn't what they wanted to hear. Then there was Obama who lied, lied, and lied some more and only told people what they wanted to hear. Exact opposites. Once he was in office, Obama very closely followed the plans cleanly laid out by McCain (and other Rep
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Do you even know what socialism is? Because it isn't this.
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Its not USSR style socialism where the companies are run by the state. But it is Nazi Germany style socialism where the government tells the companies what to do or else. Hm, now that I think of it, that is kind of like present day China.
Re:Change we can believe in (Score:5, Informative)
Education is your friend.
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Re:Change we can believe in (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that they called themselves socialist doesn't mean they were, they were fascists
Re:Change we can believe in (Score:4, Funny)
The fact that they called themselves socialist doesn't mean they were, they were fascists
Riiight, and next you're going to tell me that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea...oh those clever bastards!
Re:Change we can believe in (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that they called themselves socialist doesn't mean they were, they were fascists
Exactly! Most people who claim Nazis were socialists because they called themselves socialists should be informed that the coalition of Marxists, Anarchists, Syndicalists, and Liberals who fought together in the Spanish Civil War called themselves...Republicans!
Re:Change we can believe in (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Missed the "Democratic" in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Have we? Maybe, just maybe, politcal groups name themselves things that will appeal to their audience.
They can claim to be Democratic because they have elections. However, since there is no secret ballot, Kim Jong-Il always gets 99% of the vote.
And 1% of the population mysteriously vanishes...
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Everything you said is complete nonsense.
The USSR was totalitarian-communist, not socialist, there IS a difference. A few European nations are socialist (democratic-socialist), and socialism can often be spotted by higher level of taxes, but great level of state provided benefits- in some European countries for example you get free child care, subsidised fuel costs and that sort of thing at the expense of higher taxes.
Nazi Germany was not socialist, it was totalitarian-fascist. Hitler was installed at the b
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You are defined by your hatreds... (Score:5, Insightful)
Socialism - Anything political that is disliked by a conservative.
Fascism - Anything political that is disliked by a liberal.
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No, the idea that leaving our garbage and shit right where we live is ok killed more people than any other idea in the history of human civilization.
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National Health Care, Social Security, Welfare, HUD, there are a whole lot of programs that the US has been starting and enlarging over the last 100 years that are socialist. Like them or not is debatable. Socialist or not is not debatable.
Sure it is.
I would argue that they have more in common with traditional patronage systems (dating back at least to the Roman Republic) than they do with modern socialist thought. All of those programs function to pacify lower social orders to the net benefit of established social elites (it's hard to keep your mansion when people want to murder you, ask Marie Antoinette).
They are wrapped in socialist rhetoric, I would agree, but they are hardly socialist in function (notice how actual socialists are as unh
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Hollyweird REALLY owns the Democrats. So it's not surprising that when crap like this passes, Hollyweird and the MafiAA's hands are all over it, and invariably the sponsor is a Dem. 1976 Copyright Extension, Sonny Bono (may Mary Bono and Jack Valenti fucking rot in hell for that) Copyright Extension Act, DMCA, DMCA2, ACTA, you name it.
On the flipside, the DMCA passed the House by "voice vote" and the Senate by "unanimous consent" before Clinton signed it into law. So it's readily apparent we can't count on
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I don't want to argue for him, but you don't seem to have read what he wrote at all. At no point did he way that some people are inherently superior due to an advantaged birth. He is clearly not talking about a value judgment of individuals at all. Rather he is saying that some people accomplish more, they contribute more, they create prosperity.
And yes, in the end they should have a higher standard of living. Otherwise you are treating people unequally. Look at it from the whole equation rather than just t
Re:Change we can believe in (Score:5, Insightful)
Tyranny's a good word for it.
There's plenty of reasons not to like Obama. Socialism isn't one of them. Throwing words around meaninglessly does not help anything--it just helps to marginalize those with actual coherent complaints and causes more harm. That's my point.
Hate Obama's policies all you like. There's plenty to hate. But hate them for what they are, not for the bogeyman they aren't.
Re:Change we can believe in (Score:5, Insightful)
That reality distortion field is mighty powerful. You don't know what socialism is.
We've had an oligarchical government propped up by a varyingly legal/extra-legal patronage system since the early 19th century (arguably even longer than that, but that's quibbling over irrelevant details at that point). Is that a long enough time? But it isn't a socialist one. It's worse than a socialist one in fact.
Denying it just lets the problem get worse and makes it less likely we'll be able to fix it.
And treating cancer with antiobiotics does nothing. Treating the problems we have as if they were 'socialist' will make things worse, because you're ignoring the real problem in favor of a bogeyman you think you know how to fight.
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Rights are not granted, they are inherent to free people and given up by those not willing to fight for them.
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Change to socialism
We doing this now? Last time I checked, there are literally hundreds of thousands of privately owned businesses, and you can't name me a single solitary industry which government controls every aspect of it, including marketing, distribution, R&D, and everything else (which is the definition of socialism.)
There have been flutters of socialism in this country for decades...completely independent of anything else, we aren't really any more "socialistic" now than we were 10 years ago.
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Err, no, it's not.
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Err, no, it's not.
You sure about that? [merriam-webster.com]
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They are not allowed access to mailboxes, and they lack the legal protection afforded to the post office. It is a federal crime to tamper with US Postal mail, but not FedEx.
Re:Change we can believe in (Score:5, Insightful)
When you grow up and get an education, you'll see that the "left" Dems are further to the "right" than the "right wing" parties found in Europe and elsewhere. But hey, keep deluding yourself into thinking any party gives a flying fuck about you.
Re:Change we can believe in (Score:5, Insightful)
keep deluding yourself into thinking any party gives a flying fuck about you.
I was having a conversation about just that earlier today with a co-worker. Both major parties have proven many times over that they can't be trusted...how anyone can still be a registered Democrat or Republican in this country defies belief.
Re:Change we can believe in (Score:4, Insightful)
And on top of that, if your party gets any traction, the media starts running articles and news clips about how goofy your party is. Liberal or conservative- both sides.
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You do realize that the political systems in Europe now and the political systems in Europe back in 1776 have not a lot to do with each other, right?
And yes, Europe's politics are better than America's. Much better. And yes, it's not just because they're Left, but because they're less authoritarian. The idea of a non-authoritarian party, and certainly a non-authoritarian leftist party, is alien to American political discourse.
What Europe are you speaking of? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it certainly isn't any Europe in reality.
"And yes, Europe's politics are better than America's. Much better. And yes, it's not just because they're Left, but because they're less authoritarian."
Would this be the same "non-authoritarian Europe" that just banned Burqas in France, that has a mass-surveillance state in the UK, and bans firearm ownership in much of the continent? The same Europe where the EU has not only allowed but directedauthorities to gather and save the communications data of Europe [wikipedia.org]
Translation: Big Pharma is bleeding (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how many WH officials worked for or intend to work for Big Pharma companies that don't want Americans to pay the same CHEAP prices for medications that the REST OF THE WORLD pays?
I'm guessing most of them.
Single payer - what we should have done.
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The solution to fight big pharma is reducing patent monopolies to the point they are really maximizing innovation, and easing access of generics on the market.
Chinese online stores that sell counterfeit Viagra are not part of the solution.
No, they cut a deal and this is the payoff (Score:2)
Big Pharma saw the pot at the end of the Rainbow with the Health Care Bill. So they made a deal, this is simply part of the payoff. Of course they will be paying those who pushed the law onto the land with nice contributions to their political campaigns.
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And this is different from all the other generics out there how?
Re:Translation: Big Pharma is bleeding (Score:5, Interesting)
huh.
in my experience... not so much.
In fact, the guy they are busting in colorado was shipping real drugs.
There are plenty of scam sites, but once you get a site that gives you the real thing, you stayed with it.
Cost?
36 Viagra.. 25mg
$360 with a prescription legally...
Go to doctor every 3 months.
33 Viagra.. 100mg (so 132 uses when pill-cut to 25mg)
$100 - go to doctor once every six months.
Thyroid Medicine?
$105 with prescription & insurance
$180 with prescription & no insurance
$50 online.
Dirty secret?
Same medicine legally in Medicine? $20
Same medicine legally in India (by the same damn manufacturer)? $2.00
You can tell pretty quickly if viagra, thyroid medicine, or blood pressure medicine are fake.. you know, in 2 or 3 days your BP shoots back up to 175/100. You can tell pretty quickly if your thyroid medicine is fake, you get really tired and your hair starts falling out. And of course, you can tell within 30 minutes if your viagra/cealis, etc are not real.
---
Now some you can't- cholesterol medicine (Lipitor) for example. Your blood would change in a couple weeks but you'd have to take a test (available for $10 at Walgreens).
Fact is we are GROSSLY overcharged for pills in the U.S. And the government is doin everything it can not to stop bad pills but to stop good pills.
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I think there's a big difference between spammers promoting sites that sell fake drugs, and legitimate online pharmacies which don't spam-vertize and which sell legit drugs. I think there's a compelling interest to shut the former down. I don't think there's a compelling argument for the latter. Honestly, I think it's pretty stupid that 98% of drugs out there have to have a prescription to get. It's not like druggies on the street are getting hopped up on immunosuppressants or anti-convulsants or whatno
Doesn't it seem wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
Does it seem wrong? Yes.
Is it surprising with this Administration, coming from a made-up post that was not vetted by Congress and is not supposed to have any operational power? Not in the least.
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> Doesn't it seem wrong for the US gov't to be pushing private companies to censor the internet without due process?"
No--it seems wrong for the US gov't to be pushing private companies to censor the internet *with or without* due process.
Censorship is only legal in relatively narrow situations. Commercial speech that is not truthful, for example. (e.g. "100s of television stations for free" scams.)
Our argument about blocking prescription sites is basically a slippery slope argument--they'll block other
Due Process? (Score:5, Insightful)
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When the Obama Administration claims the right to ASSASSINATE CITIZENS [salon.com] without due process, I'm not surprised that a little thing like blocking websites doesn't merit due process either.
Don't know why the parent got modded troll. Guess putting your fingers in your ears and modding someone troll is an appropriate response to news you don't want to believe.
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A minor setback (Score:2)
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I've always wondered why we don't just as a group - as a ant hill style mess - just create our own web on top of the existing - run everything through tunnel connections run our own fault tolerant internet on top of the existing.. sure its a fragmenting net but it would be a private and resilient net.
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Can you afford to lay huge amounts of fiber all over the place? Can you get the easements and deals to allow you to string cables either along poles or underground? I thought not. The geek know-how is important, but unfortunately is not enough to build much more than a somewhat more sophisticated BBS.
Remember who funded the original ArpaNet?
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Sadly, this is likely the case. People love to tout the mantra about getting around these things. "We'll just use encrypted channels" they proclaim, but realistically, that only works so long as the government stays within some level of sanity.
There comes a point - not saying we'll get there mind you, just saying that it exists - when that doesn't matter. All they have to do is one simple piece of legislation: it's a felony to engage in the transmission of any content not readable by the government. The
Root servers located in the US would be orphaned. (Score:2, Interesting)
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welcome to most of the United States.
You know, the part that contains the normal everyday Joe's who just go to work, do their jobs, and go home to be with their families / friends.
That's the majority of Americans.
Not the moron's displayed on the national/world media on a daily basis.
In a word: Yes. (Score:3, Insightful)
This all seems very wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Is ICANN tied to the UN or the USA?
This all seems very bad and very wrong. Using online pharmacies as the primary reason just doesn’t wash with me. No one country should 'own' the internet. And without due process you have to really wonder what the hell is going on here. I thought the Australian government was going to far with mandatory censorship but this is pretty frightening.
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Why are we censoring at all? (Score:3, Interesting)
Screw the reason for the censoring. ISP's shouldn't be making decisions on content AT ALL. Today it's online pharmaceuticals. Tomorrow it'll be sites pertaining to Islam, or in opposition of the government. How long do you think it will take our leaders to demand a system by which THEY can add sites or domains to the blacklist directly?
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How long do you think it will take our leaders to demand a system by which THEY can add sites or domains to the blacklist directly?
Not very long. [govtrack.us]
why not pressure visa to cancel the pharmacies? (Score:2)
These online pharmacies want to get paid right? So if you dont want them doing
business in the US, yank or freeze their CC vendor accounts. Can't they do that?
Never mind, thats what a payment processor is. (Score:2)
sheesh.
Story summary bias (Score:4, Insightful)
"Doesn't it seem wrong for the US gov't to be pushing private companies to censor the internet without due process?"
If Bush had been president, this headline would have read: "Doesn't it seem wrong for the Bush Whitehouse to be pushing private companies to censor the internet without due process?" But the Slashdot editors voted for Obama, so they can't make him look bad, even if they disagree with him
Damn straight that's wrong (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, it's wrong. Those powers should only be used to kidnap American citizens and ship them off to be tortured and killed in secret.
Besides, why not just have Cyber Command hack their domain registration accounts? Much simpler.
The WTO will just give more free IP! pharmacies ? (Score:2)
The WTO will just give more free IP! pharmacies are much bigger then on line betting / poker.
Any ways if we where to push it candida may just end with rights to us tv / other media for free.
BIG drugs sucks and we pay more then any other place for meds!
So use the first amendment (Score:2)
These "objectionable sites" may consider adding some political commentary (perhaps a policy statement on the topic of drig regulation) and then if the governement tries to shut them down, sue using the 1st amendment .
The only solution for the government then perhaps becomes a much finer grained block list (specfiic pages) which the web sites can evade by moving stuff around, or, by having political speech on every page.
The question would then be how the US Supreme court would view a "voluntary" block lis
It's His Fault (Score:4, Insightful)
I have an idea (Score:2)
Said this before, I'll say it again... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've said this before and I'll keep saying it...
If you are in the U.S. and you want change, and I really mean serious change, then you have the power to make a difference. All it takes is for you to do a little bit of research and maybe 30 minutes of your time to VOTE. The biggest problem is that we have these two parties who are totally out of touch and/or basically just don't give a rats ass, about the citizens.
Make a change and do the following:
Sure, your guy might not make it in, but hopefully you can sleep better at night and send a message to these scummy politicians that we are fed up.
Re:Said this before, I'll say it again... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been voting for non-democrap/republishit candidates since the patriot act, which violates the constitution.
If republican's are for a smaller government, why did the federal gov balloon during their era.
If Democraps are for a socialist government, why do the give in to every corporate request that they make?
Why are people so clueless that they can't figure out what these a$$holes are up to?
FreeDNS, AltDNS, or equivalent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can they ban a local to your machine (hey, hard drives are LARGE these days) DNS database that distributes listings by P2P for "banned sites"? I may be wrong, but it is a truism that the Internet routs around damage, including censorship.
Just glad I didn't vote for this idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
Second verse same as the first, if this is the "Change" everyone wanted... wow... I'd rather have had bush for another 8 years, started 2 more wars (North Korea and Iran) than have a censored internet, be forced to buy something by the federal government (I have health insurance already, but being FORCED to pay money for something, anything besides taxes, by the government is a step WAY BEYOND the freedoms this country is supposed to stand for).
And he hasn't even rolled back any of the Bush "secret" stuff, or closed Guantanamo. Instead as soon as he was in office he decided all that stuff was great!
Never been a worse president than Obama.
42, or is it 57? (Score:3, Interesting)
Civil Rights For Friends Only (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the Obama Administration Hate Free Speech?
It started with a half-hearted campaign against Fox News. They couldn't censor them so they tried to discredit them. Next the White House called liberal commentary on MSNBC and invaluable public service.
Then comes the Citizens United case. They hate the idea of first amendment rights being given to corporations, but they love it for non-profits and labor unions.
Next, Obama couldn't bring himself to criticize the backers of the ground zero mosque but he couldn't resist trying to prevent a preacher in Florida from exercising his first amendment rights.
Now we come to web sites. Time to try to eliminate the ones we don't like.
Never before have we had such a thin-skinned president, nor an administration so openly contemptuous of rights for those who disagree with them. I suppose tha't not really true, America once passed the Alien and Sedition Act.
This hostility to free speech is a far greater threat to your and my civil rights than the Patriot Act ever was. The current White House threatens freedom more than Dick Cheney and Karl Rove ever imagined. Where is the outcry? Where are the demonstrators? Where are the media campaigns? WTF?
Sure I'll blow all my mod points for daring to post anti-Obama stuff. So be it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure I'll blow all my mod points for daring to post anti-Obama stuff. So be it.
Ummmm, look back up through the thread. I just read everything modded at 5. There was one post that was favorable to Obama, one post that seemed to be favorable to the Republicans (yours), and all the rest that expressed an opinion said either Obama sucks, or both parties suck.
If you're looking for partisans to rhetoric with, you're on the wrong site. The most powerful bias here is not left or right, but "judge them by their acti
Re:Civil Rights For Friends Only (Score:4, Informative)
Burning Qurans is not "free speech" --- it's hate speech, and you fucking know it.
The protections of the First Amendment apply to unpopular, distasteful, and disgusting speech just as to any other. Popular speech doesn't need protection.
The left always stifles your speech (Score:3, Informative)
Conservatives are afraid you don't understand what they're talking about, liberals are afraid you do.
The 1st amendment was first for a reason, and when you start censoring anyone by fiat, and by an unelected political appointee no less, you've opened the flood gates for abuse of power. Why is it that the democrat party and the federal government no longer have a clearly defined line, but rather act in each others own best interest. For example the EPA: The EPA rules by fiat and is a political ally of the democrat party. The EPA does what it can do make sure democrats do well in the polls because the EPA - a branch of the government mind you - knows that when democrats are elected that more money and power will flow into the EPA apparatus. And that's just the EPA. All agencies in the government, unless specifically labeled 'conservative' are run by the democrat party. Many of the agencies are so large that they have taken on a life of their own and operate as a company that seeks power and glory rather than to serve the greater public good. And to that end they know that a vote for democrat is a vote to increase funding, scope and power of the federal government.
The only problem is that the government does not produce anything. All the government can do is tax people who do produce something and spend it on something else, filtering through a never-ending maze of bureaucratic red tape, nepotism and corruption and when it finally reaches its destination, only a fraction of what was taken from the taxpayer actually goes towards the problem in the first place.
No, really, I'm going somewhere with this.
I'm sure there are tons of people who want to rip holes in my argument and tell me that the EPA and the federal government aren't part of the democrat party. Whatever, you have your right to be wrong. Others will say that there is a military industrial complex that is beholden to conservatives. That's wrong too. You have privately owned defense contracting companies that actually produce something. Even if what they produce rubs you the wrong way, they are a hell of a lot more productive than the EPA. They are also private citizens and corporations of the US that are totally within their rights to lobby congress to their own best interests as it is every citizen and corporations[group of citizens] right in this country. Besides all that, Boeing isn't run by the RNC and doesn't really care who is running the country so long as they keep buying death rays from them they are happy to do business with whatever party is in the WH. I'm sure they are very happy with Obama because Obama means more sales for them. And it's hardly controlled by conservatives.
In the supreme court, the last bastion of conservatism. The two ideologies play out here with one side, the conservative side claiming to be strict constitutionalists. And the liberal side of the court is more happy to say the constitution is a living document [wikipedia.org] that can be reinterpreted from time to time as the language changes - in direct contradiction of the framers. I'm not saying that the court shouldn't revisit old decisions and undo precedent, Dred Scott v Sandford [wikipedia.org] for example. But we must adhere to some rule of law. Long ago liberals stopped adhering to the constitution and only bring it up as a weapon to strike out at their opponents with and is something to be ignored while it suits their agenda.
How can you say that the changing meanings of words in a language changes the sprit of the contract that was written long ago? When you
Re: (Score:2)
Correction: Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss.
After selling out to big pharma and the insurance industries with the Health Industry Corporate Welfare Act, why should we expect different?
True health-care reform would have been some variant of the single-payer system that works in other countries to keep costs lower and spread the burden more equitably - not an "If you can't afford (an inadequate) health care insurance plan, we're going to fine you anothe
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are legitimate safety and regulatory reasons for limiting the import of overseas drugs, it's possible that these reasons do not warrant the increased cost for many patients, but that doesn't change the fact that the reasons exist. The same argument can't be made for movies, music, and video games so I would argue that since their current actions have a logical basis and the slippery slope does not, the slippery slope is far worse.