SOPA Protests 'Poisoned the Well,' Says Congressional Staffer 330
Techdirt has a story about statements from Congressional staffer Stephanie Moore, who had some interesting — and somewhat insulting — things to say about the 'net-wide protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). "Netizens poisoned the well, and as a result the reliability of the internet is at risk," she said. Moore went on, "Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did." The article also points out comments from Steve Metalitz, a lawyer who represents members of the entertainment industry: "Most countries in the world already have this option at their disposal to deal with this problem. If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken."
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
The lawyer's comment is particularly funny, too. Most countries in the world already have the option at their disposal because, duh, they censor all sorts of things anyway.
Re:Translation (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Translation (Score:5, Informative)
Basements are not common in Texas, fyi.
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Neither is informed thinking.
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Don't just sit there in front of your computer! Get on down to Texas and show them how to dig a basement into that clay.
Convince them that hydraulic action won't eventually collapse the walls and dump the house into it. There's a lot of Texans who would love a basement. Especially around Wichita Falls and Tornado alley. Ford always said " I need men with the capacity to NOT know what can't be done" Sir, you are that man. Here's a shovel, go save Texas.
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Maybe, maybe not. Probably depends on exactly where in Texas you're located (near Houston, your comment is probably exactly right; around El Paso or Amarillo, probably not). The real reason is cost: basements cost money, and it's a lot cheaper to just pour a concrete slab and build the house on top of that. The reason basements were invented is because your house's foundation needs to be deeper than the "frost line": this is the depth the ground will freeze to in the wintertime. If you don't, your found
Re:Translation (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean this part?
The article also points out comments from Steve Metalitz, a lawyer who represents members of the entertainment industry: "Most countries in the world already have this option at their disposal to deal with this problem. If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken."
In that case, if site blocking were effective in preventing piracy then surely these activities would already be measurably and very clearly falling in all those other unspecified countries that have that form of censorship.
That said, I don't think this is a completely black-and-white issue. A lot of people object to censorship of some/all kinds of speech on principle or feel that blocking is overkill for an activity such as copying a piece of information. However, probably many of the same people would not object to shutting off a command/control site for malware that was bringing down millions of PCs at a staggering economic cost, or to isolating a group who really were trading child porn. Fundamentally, on a technical level, either someone has the ability to block sites or they don't, but on an ethical level it isn't even close to that simple.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a difference between blocking site that is serving malware and blocking one that is pushing an unpopular political idea, displaying images some consider art, or exposing some objectionable behavior by others or similar. In the case of malware the site is part of scheme to illegally convert another persons property for the operators own use.
The thing is the government CAN shut those sites down already and they don't need SOPA to do it. They simply have to gather enough evidence to get a court order to do it. Then they have to conduct some proceeding where the site owner gets to argue they were not doing anything wrong where they state must prove they were; they same SHOULD hold true for sites engaged in distributing intellectual property they don't control.
Nobody I have ever talked to seriously objects the idea the government can shut down a website, when its being used directly in what appears to be some form of crime, and there is enough evidence to support that claim to get warrant from a judge, and its on a TEMPORARY TENTATIVE basis pending the outcome a fair legal proceeding.
What SOPA is about is depriving site operators their rights to due process of law, and reducing it to someone in the executive branch can pull your site at any time for any reason without review, and with little or no possibility of appeal. Which is NOT HOW THIS COUNTRY IS SUPPOSED TO WORK!
Re:Translation (Score:5, Interesting)
However, probably many of the same people would not object to shutting off a command/control site for malware that was bringing down millions of PCs at a staggering economic cost, or to isolating a group who really were trading child porn.
The problem isn't the "censorship" per se (at least, not in my opinion), it's the ridiculous lack of probable cause and due process surrounding this shit. The Jotform takedown was a perfect example of how all of our fears regarding SOPA were completely justifiable [itworld.com]. There should be public hearings before the government is able to declare something a "danger" and knock it off the 'net. The way it's handled now is totally against the spirit of the law and the concept of innocence until proven guilt. Outside of Freedom of Speech (which this SOPA shit directly undermined), and the guarantee of security of our person and property (which the TSA is doing everything it can to eliminate), that's probably one of the most sacred foundations of our entire fucking existence as a nation.
Kind of undermines all of our posturing about security and freedom while we're bombing villages in the middle east back into the stone age when we're playing the same fucking games we bitch about with our own citizens here at home. What I want to know is if the people condoning this bullshit are evil or just plain ignorant...it would save me the time trying to logically converse with them, at the very least.
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It would be more like, a burglar making exact copies of your possessions and then using them, while you retain your copy.
No, in fact, it wouldn't even be like that.
Dude, you totally fail at logic.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Saying it works in Somalia, and needs to be brought immediately to the US, because 'it works there,' is a far cry from an endorsement.
But more importantly, is the understanding of 'If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken,' which again, shows the utter cluelessness of this bill's proponents. These are the people, I remind you, who f*cked with compact discs and the error correction technology, because they woefully believed it would somehow prevent end-users from copying them; and in doing so, made it so one little scratch renders the disc unreadable. They managed to defeat the intrinsic error-correction scheme that is a part of the compact disc's spec, and screw over many of their customers to boot.
Their understanding of technology is super-bad. They are like my younger brother, whose lack of understanding of networking does not prevent him from plugging a network cable from the LAN into the WAN port of any item with a DHCP server, thus kicking everyone off the network. The only thing they are accomplishing with their mad schemes is f*cking up the internet, turning what was once a thriving ecosystem into a wasteland.
Re:Translation (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes we poisoned the well of censorship.
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More like: poisoned the trough.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Translation (Score:5, Informative)
She's not IN Congress. She's a staffer. Call her boss.
In a company, it is common for the secretary to handle more of the day-to-day business than the CEO.
In Congress, it is like that with the staffers. They have tremendous influence over that Congressperson's activities. Often, things go through the staff before they would ever arrive at the Congressperson's desk. They do the nitty-gritty legislative work more than the elected officials do. Mostly this is because of the sheer volume of laws that are created. It is too much for any one person to sort through. A dumb staffer with anti-American beliefs is a real problem. The elected officials rely far too heavily on them.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't be surprised if the staffer actually internalized as her personal beliefs the lobbyists positions she was indoctrinated with for several months.
Personal perception varies, often far from reality.
so Ver Coto V Morden for the SOPA supporters?? (Score:3)
google b5 quotes Ver Cotto for details.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Embarrassment extractor (Score:2, Interesting)
When you go into politics, what kind of device do they ram up where to rip your ability to feel embarrassment out?
Re:Embarrassment extractor (Score:5, Informative)
The "device" is a large wad of cash and cheques which is shoved repeatedly into either the subjects hand or pockets. Other side effects of this treatment include: a deranged mindset, inability to distinguish fantasy from reality, and voluminous stools emerging from both digestive orifices.
Re:Embarrassment extractor (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the trouble with capitalism. Any philosophy which promotes the principle of selfishness is going to encourage behaviour which is harmful to others providing it is profitable - first people do away with morality/decency and just "stick to the rules", then they realise that actually it's fairly easy to ignore the rules too.
Unfortunately, the best progression we've ever had from raw capitalism - the balanced social democracies emerging in '50s and '60s Europe - were destroyed by the neoconservative project's battle commencing in the '70s. And now the latter have the cheek to blame the former.
Re:Embarrassment extractor (Score:5, Insightful)
good post.
really, capitalism is greed. reduce it to what it really is and call a spade a space.
capitalism is greed, in action.
and we are SURPRISED AND SHOCKED that such a system has utterly failed us?
no boundaries, no limits and greed-driven laws and ethics.
its no wonder we are as fucked up as we are! I'm talking about the world, here; since the capitalism disease has spread thru much of the world and the US is intent on forcing it on every last nation, too.
that's what are 'democracy building' is. forcing our levels of greed on the rest of mankind.
nice......
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This is why we have rules and regulations.
But 4 years ago, we suffered under an ignorant that repealed and ruined these powers for 8 years.
Re:Embarrassment extractor (Score:4, Insightful)
When Bush the younger started to gut the EPA and turn it into a White House mouthpiece I suddenly developed a strange and new found respect for Richard Nixon.
That is deeply and truely sad. Perversely symmetrical too.
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This is what someone who hasn't actually studied capitalism thinks. This is the propagandized version.
Capitalism is the other way around. It's people who are free to vote with their dollars. If you want to succeed, you need to provide something with value. The only way to divert from capitalism is to remove its freedoms. You force the money into places where there isn't value. You make people behave according to some arbitrary government agenda rather than market demands. You ALWAYS end up shrinking the eco
Apparently it's you who doesn't understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
"One more thing, capitalism is the only way a country 16T in debt is going to crawl out of the hole"
The only way to get a country into 16Tn debt is by capitalism.
But I guess it melds nicely into the fundamental depravity of religious thinking: give you a problem, then claim they are the only ones with a cure.
"Capitalism is the other way around."
Capitalism is the screed of greed. End of story.
"It's people who are free to vote with their dollars."
And then, to gather power, you get more money. Wich means more power, and the ability to get more money. Which means a continuing descending spiral of greed.
You can't vote with your dollars and not pay for food.
And if you have no money because some rich bastard has offshored your job, you have no say.
Capitalism is the only political system that takes away your rights and claims it to be your fault all along. You really are a horrible piece of slime, you are.
"If you want to succeed, you need to provide something with value."
So you're against inheritance and want it taxed at 100%, right? You want investment dividends removed, right? You want management removed, right? And charging for banking loans should be banned, yes?
After all, the only ones producing the valueable stuff you're selling are the workers, not their dependants and not the leeches who are syphoning money off the working populace merely because they've managed to leech money off someone dead or already wealthy.
"You ALWAYS end up shrinking the economy."
Yes these capitalists investing their dividends OUTSIDE the economy, who don't spend the money in the economy and who are free to remove themselves entirely from the source of their unearned wealth ALWAYS ends up shrinking the economy.
Hell, the difference between Clinton (higher taxes, reduced debt, economic boom) with shrub who inhereted the windfall economy then by removing taxes caused a worldwide recession, and with Obama's spineless kowtowing to the rabid right-wing whereby stalling the economy even further because idiotic parasites like you whine and bitch about government, should show you your unthinking and poisonous mental garbage proposition is PROVEN FALSE.
"There is a huge difference between greed and self-interest."
There isn't.
But capitalism as practiced by people like you don't bother with the self-interest beyond "am I making more money?" and is in no sense different from rapatious greed.
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Capitalism can't get a country into national debt by definition. National debt is the result of the government spending more money than it has. Capitalism is about private ownership of goods and the means of production. What you are objecting to is cronyism. I agree that cronyism need to be kicked to the curb and then beaten senseless, but confusing it with capitalism only leads to further cronyism.
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If the Government had stayed out of capitalism - by not providing the courts that get abused in disputes, not providing protectionist levies on foreign trade, by not providing the "intellectual property" monopolies - I am sure that Government would not be in the red. But would many industries survive without these crutches?
Re:Apparently it's you who doesn't understand. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell, the difference between Clinton (higher taxes, reduced debt, economic boom) with shrub who inhereted the windfall economy then by removing taxes caused a worldwide recession, and with Obama's spineless kowtowing to the rabid right-wing whereby stalling the economy even further because idiotic parasites like you whine and bitch about government, should show you your unthinking and poisonous mental garbage proposition is PROVEN FALSE.
Your view of history is slightly distorted. For one thing, it wasn't Shrub's tax cuts that caused a worldwide recession, it was the Dot-Com bust that did that. That's what happens when bubbles burst. Shrub's tax cuts certainly didn't help the situation (they made it worse), but they weren't the cause. Clinton's policies probably didn't help here; worse, Clinton's to blame for the 2008 recession since he signed the (Republican-authored) bill in 2000 that repealed the Depression-era Glass-Steagal act which would have prevented the real estate boom and bust.
Second, Obama isn't spineless; he just acts that way so he can blame the Republicans for everything that's going wrong. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are equally to blame for the current mess. Just look at this stupid staffer that's trying to promote SOPA: she's a Democrat. It's the Democrats that were big fans of SOPA. It's the Democrats (in Congress; they had a majority there during Shrub's last two years) that wanted to bail out all the giant financial companies and banks. Yes, the Republicans are idiotic parasites too, but the Democrats are just as bad, they just serve different industries.
The main problem with bashing Capitalism is that you need to promote something that you think is better. I haven't seen anything that is; the Russians and Chinese tried Stalinist communism and planned economies, and they were a disaster. China's been industrializing at an amazing rate since they threw off the yoke of planned economies and switched to a free(er) market. The way I see it, the problem with capitalism is when it's either completely unchecked by government, which has a duty to regulate things to maintain healthy competition and prevent monopolies, or in cases where they're unavoidable (water utilities, for example), strictly regulate them or provide them as government services directly, or worse the government is utterly corrupt and bought out by large companies, which is exactly what we have here in America. That's called "Crony Capitalism". The hybrid socialist/capitalist systems they had (and still have, to an extent) in many places in Western Europe seem to be the best systems in terms of stability and fairness.
Re:Embarrassment extractor (Score:5, Insightful)
Would it be nice if there's a better way? Of course. But no such ways are feasible.
Re:Embarrassment extractor (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans are always going to have compassion.
Humans are always going to have rapists.
Humans are always going to have intelligence.
Humans are always going to have illness.
I don't see why greed ought to be the thing to pick to base your society on. And don't forget that humans are nature+nurture - you can play down or reinforce qualities in any community.
Also, how is the xkcd reviewing going? I do tend to picture neckbeards as dilettante libertarians, so thanks for confirming another stereotype. ;-)
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Re:Embarrassment extractor (Score:4, Insightful)
OF COURSE there are better ways.
curbs. curbs on how much power and wealth you can amass.
we have not tried that, not really. we have curbs on the stock market (or, we used to!) and that worked for a while.
no curbs on power in the capitalistic west. let the powerful get more powerful. and, due to that, those below that level sink even lower.
is this really the best that mankind can do? I hardly think so!
we are lazy and have given up trying to make better ways to govern and care for ourselves.
but there *are* ways to fix our broken system. its just that those in power keep the old system since it favors their situation.
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That's the problem with *douchebags*. Shitty people will be shitty no matter the political or economic system.
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You're blaming a politician's flunky knowing where her bread is buttered -- an act which would have been familiar in the days of the Roman Republic -- on capitalism?
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Capitalism doesn't promote the principle of selfishness, it just recognized self-interest as the primary driving force. Like Churchill said about Democracy, it sucks, until you compare it to all the other systems.
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the balanced social democracies emerging in '50s and '60s Europe
Not just Europe. Many Americans who identify themselves as "conservative" would love a return to the '50s United States. What they seem to forget is that that period in US history was one in which the top marginal tax rates were over 90% (instead of the current 35%), unions were the strongest they've ever been in human history, banking and other businesses were highly regulated, and the welfare state was growing stronger. And this was all under a Republican administration.
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Can't be the rear end, that's where the hand of the puppet player is supposed to be put.
Wow you still don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Moore and Metalitz still don't get it. Its not about the Internet or site blocking, its about that fundamental characteristics of our nation. Its about due process and freedom of speech.
Re:Wow you still don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Due process and freedom of speech get in the way of maximizing the bottom line.
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Then maximizing the bottom line is unconstitutional, I guess...
Re:Wow you still don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and putting out a hit-man on your competition in order to 'maximize your bottom line' is also unconstitutional. Just because something gets in the way of maximizing your profits doesn't mean you can legislate your way around such obstacles...... Oh, nevermind, I forgot.... that's EXACTLY how business maximizes profits in this country.
Re:Wow you still don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not American, but I do agree - I thought the point was that the government already has the power to do exactly what SOPA is "for" - it just removed due process requirements to do it.
Courts and the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
The copyright industry thinks that the problem is with due process, as opposed to attempting to apply a concept that originated in an age of printing presses to a society where everyone has the equipment needed to make perfect copies in their homes.
Re:Courts and the Internet (Score:4, Interesting)
You would think that might give the law makers something to think about wouldn't you.
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More to the point, it means foreign courts so that the accused can receive the due process their home nations require.
SOPA isn't just about due process; it's about international law and whether any one nation has the right to impose their laws on other nations. And the USG just is not grasping the essential fact that they do not rule the world, no matter how many nukes and how much the US spends on it's military.
Worst of all, she's in denial about the fact that SOPA wasn't talking about site blocking,
Re:Courts and the Internet (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you also suggest that in the United States nobody can make the argument that the court system is the appropriate for dealing with accusations of criminal conduct in this century?
Considering how vast, broad, and overwhelmingly complex our criminal code is, I absolutely would make that argument. It was recently pointed out that if everyone who is arrested did exercise their right to a jury trial, the system would come grinding to a halt:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/go-to-trial-crash-the-justice-system.html [nytimes.com]
When more people are criminals than the court system can deal with, the problem is the law, not the behavior of the people. Most people are not murderers, robbers, rapists, arsonists, etc., yet almost everyone living in America is guilty of some felony offense. We need legal reforms, we need them to be sweeping and we need them to happen soon.
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agreed, when they say, " Most countries in the world already have this option at their disposal ".
those are dictatorships
Ha! You're just as stupid as we are! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did."
Soooooo, we (Congress) didn't understand a law we wrote (or at least the lobbyist wrote) and all of you protesting didn't understand it either - making you just as dumb as us!
In your face!
Re:Ha! You're just as stupid as we are! (Score:5, Insightful)
That was my thought as well, if they didn't understand the bill any more than the protesters, that's a damn good reason not to be voting for it. These are our elected officials and they're supposed to have more of an understanding of the bills than the constituents do.
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Sounds exactly like every other bit of lawmaking I've seen. Ignorant protesters on one side try to shout down the ignorant protesters on the other side. Even the ones who happen to be right usually don't have the faintest idea what they're talking about. The few who actually do know what they're talking about are indistinguishable from the equal-and-opposite pundits handed to their opponents, except to each other.
It's no excuse for being stupid, and I suppose I'm happy that the right side won this time. But
Re:Ha! You're just as stupid as we are! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, politicians are just elected people of the population. Garbage in, garbage out.
Re:Ha! You're just as stupid as we are! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, politicians are just elected people of the population. Garbage in, garbage out.
Not really. 57% of senators and 38% of Representatives hold degrees in law.. Understanding the law is their area of specialization. The population? Not so much. Further, the people chose each particular politician because they think that he/she would be better at the job than the other guy.
Re:Ha! You're just as stupid as we are! (Score:5, Insightful)
A strategic victory (Score:2, Insightful)
When we do it, it is "poisoning the well", but when they do it, it is a well executed strategic victory and they should all get bonuses.
Translation: If you understood, you'd agree (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, that didn't work in the third grade and it doesn't now that I'm 44.
Re:Translation: If you understood, you'd agree (Score:5, Insightful)
The Main Problem with SOPA (Score:5, Insightful)
"Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did."
So you were passing legislation that you did not understand. That is not why you were elected. You were not elected to be a rubber stamp. If we wanted one of those we could probably have bought on at Staples and it would have been been way cheaper than your salary.
Re:The Main Problem with SOPA (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the problem comes from the fact that laws are being written by lobby groups. If the people sitting in congress can't figure it out, they should call on the public to read and react to it. Every Time.
If there is something underhanded in the laws being debated, the SOPA type protests should happen, and the congress people will realize they have to fix it or abandon it.
For the most part this part of the process is broken. Why are we letting corporations dictate laws that only benefit themselves? If "corporations are people" then they should be jailed and executed for murder anytime a law they wrote results in peoples deaths. This obviously isn't going to happen, so we should stop pretending corporations are people.
Let's bring the literacy rate up, and put an "app" on peoples devices, phones, tablets, computers, etc that allows everyone in their country read bills being proposed, who wrote them, lobbying for them, and actually participate in the process.
The SOPA law as proposed, would break the internet, because pieces of the internet are operated by US corporations, like root zones and SSL signing. If you start arbitraily blocking sites (see India's recent backlash) you're moving responsibility from those that should be responsible (the site operators) to the ISP's (thus raising costs) and DNS registrar's.
Here's a simple blocking-type of solution that doesn't break the internet, nor make it a pain in the ass for ISP's to implement. All home users have a cable or DSL modem (or some other router locked down by the ISP), if a site, like TPB is a huge problem, then null-route that IP address in the router for users. Then list in the end-user router's software what routes are blocked for their own safety. The end-user can then delete these null routes once per reboot cycle if they know what they are doing. Once it reboots, it redownloads the null route list.
Problem solved, users who delete the routes from their hardware, know exactly what they are doing, everyone else just gets a destination unreachable. ISP's don't have to deal with anything other than maintaining a list of null routes. No 3-strikes bullshit, and technically proficient users don't have to hack the hardware or run tunnels to bypass blocked sites. This is the low-hanging fruit.
It's unfortunate that we'd need to block anything, but it's not just piracy sites that are unsafe, there's also malware C&C servers that should be blocked.
Re:The Main Problem with SOPA (Score:4, Informative)
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They usurped nothing, we gave the power to them freely, it comes built into whole "writing the laws" gig. The problem is that they abuse the power for their own enrichment by doing things like rubber-stamping laws written by lobbyists in exchange for campaign contributions and future employment consideration.
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"Congress was criticized for not being tech savvy, but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did."
So you were passing legislation that you did not understand. That is not why you were elected. You were not elected to be a rubber stamp. If we wanted one of those we could probably have bought on at Staples and it would have been been way cheaper than your salary.
Very well said! Furthermore, politicians have a duty to their voters to understand what laws they are passing. Although corporations are now considered people, a politician is supposed to represent the will of the actual people, not the the will of corporations. This was one empiric victory for the individual.
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How do you know a politician is lying? (Score:4, Funny)
Her lips are moving.
It is broken in those countries. (Score:5, Insightful)
But who cares. It's all for the greater good.
The greater good.
The greater good.
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Gobsmacked (Score:2)
Most countries have this (Score:4, Insightful)
"Most countries in the world already have this option at their disposal to deal with this problem. If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken."
Countries like China and Iran. Do we want the Internet controlled like those countries?
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And the big difference with the US is that they have the demonstrated ability and desire to take down sites not just by a court order to ISPs to block access but by changing DNS entries, affecting the entire world rather than just their own jurisdiction.
It would already be broken (Score:5, Insightful)
As if anyone's really UN-educated. (Score:5, Insightful)
Same with EU/ACTA (Score:5, Interesting)
EC member Anders Jessen, Trade, suggested that the negotiations surrounding ACTA were unfair; not because of all the shrouded-in-secrecy/hidden-agenda stuff, but because of 'threats' against governments (hacks on government websites, threats to release data if governments voted in favor of ACTA) and the focus on the 'digital' section.
He suggested that if that section had not been there, ACTA would have been accepted, and that would have been a good thing with regard to fake physical articles such as clothes and parts (specifically pointing out aircraft parts).
Yet it doesn't dawn on him that maybe they should remove the 'digital' section and re-submit. Or, more likely, it does - but he knows as well as anybody else that the 'digital' part is actually the meat and the 'physical' is just to get major manufacturers and their lobbying prowess on board.
Some of that shines through in his statement that Google's revenue is now bigger than that of all newspaper publishers together, noting that in this era you can make copies much, much faster and that 'online users have cannibalized offline users'.
He does admit to some mistakes and that this is a time for self-reflection for the EC as the EP critized him and suggested that next time something is put forth to which a yes-or-no vote is to be cast, they should better coordinate and cooperate with the EP.
Source:
http://www.nu.nl/tech/2841489/europese-commissie-vreest-gevolgen-bij-afwijzen-acta.html [www.nu.nl]
Translated (horribly):
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nu.nl%2Ftech%2F2841489%2Feuropese-commissie-vreest-gevolgen-bij-afwijzen-acta.html [google.com]
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"Most governments in the world" (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. Did she really just justify US policy-making by making a "majority of nations" argument???
There are 87 UN member states that are full-fledged democracies or "fully free" according to Freedom House. There are a total of 193 UN member states.
Which means that even in the United Nations (which doesn't contain all autonomous national entities) ONLY 45% ARE EVEN DEMOCRACIES.
Dear Stephanie, if policy makers used the "most countries in the world" argument to justify policy decisions, the WORLD would be broken.
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Well, according to a former prez of the US it was a "heck lot easier"...
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
"If site blocking broke the internet, then the internet would already be broken"
Most countries aren't at the center of the Internet and most countries don't play such a pivotal role in core Internet technologies like America does.
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The content industry is an entitlement problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the content industry has an entitlement problem. We live in a democracy, not a utopia. Churchill said something to the effect of "a democracy is a terrible form of government, but its the best one anyone has come up with so far"; I am butchering the quote.
The only way for a democracy to ever be a utopia is if everyone agreed with everyone else on everything. That is not likely to happen. We all have rights, and sometimes in exercising those rights we are going to infringe in some mild way on the rights of others. Its unavoidable. One of the stated goals of our organizing document is to promote the general welfare; a big part of that is maximizing each individuals ability to exercise their rights, and putting some minimal controls in place to limit the amount of infringement on the rights of others that occurs. That infringement can't be eliminated so where permitted it should happen in a fair way, in that harm is spread around equally.
The content industry does not seem to recognize that society has already given them all sorts of concessions; which limit the rights of others in order to protect them. They have copyright extensions that go well beyond what the Constitution stated the aim of copyright to be; they have tools like DMCA, the have FBI acting like the own team of private investigators, the have the FCC requiring completely unnecessary content control features in electronics, the list goes on.
None of those things are sufficient to eliminate copyright violations. I think may of them already go to far but in any case the amount of copyright infringement going on out there is at a perfectly acceptable level. Why, well because the content industry is wildly profitable, and while I think private property is the cornerstone of freedom, these guys are not hurting they don't need more protection for the state to hold on to what is theirs. Any good it would do them is in no way proportional the harm it does to others.
Lots of folks are limited by what the content industry already has. Indie artists can't use all sorts of material because is locked up under copyright in perpetuity, small manufactures are locked out of the market because they can't implement mandatory DRM, tinkers are locked out of their hobbies by draconian FCC rules, citizens have the privacy violated by the FBI and others all the time. Giving the content industry the right to completely curb stomp our ability to express ourselves on the Internet, with no process and no appeals; is simply unjustified.
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The content industry does not seem to recognize that society has already given them all sorts of concessions
That is because despite all those concessions, they still do not have the things they want:
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The content industry does not seem to recognize that society has already given them all sorts of concessions; which limit the rights of others in order to protect them. They have copyright extensions that go well beyond what the Constitution stated the aim of copyright to be; they have tools like DMCA, the have FBI acting like the own team of private investigators, the have the FCC requiring completely unnecessary content control features in electronics, the list goes on.
SOPA was gonna do same thing DMCA did in a way, give them more power to enforce their copyright. Problem with DMCA is they have abused its power since day it was signed taking down content they don't even have rights to. More power won't help them fix their broken and 40 year old business model. Time to start living in today guys not 40 years ago
WTF? (Score:3)
Those are two separate areas of understanding. Understanding technology and understanding a particular bill don't necessarily translate, particularly when said bill is 78 pages of legalese in it's final form, and was subject to a number of amendments and changes.
She seems to be confused as to the reason why mob rule is not always right. It's not right when it allows the majority to oppress a minority. Not allowing the majority to be oppressed by a minority is not mob rule.
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mob rule?
like, when The People get railroaded and forced to accept bills, treaties and laws that are NOT in our best interest and would have never voted or chosen them if we had a say in the matter?
I feel the mob, with suits and ties and titles, has been in control of this country the last few decades.
in fact, things might be BETTER if 'fat tony' were to run things. a real mobster, with no false pretenses.
at least with a mobster you KNOW where he stands and he does not pander just to get more election fund
Everybody else is doing it! waaahhh (Score:5, Insightful)
I love the argument that "everybody else is doing it!" Yes: China, Pakistan, India, and Iran block free speech. So why can't we? If it works for them, it has to work for us, right?
but from a lot of the comments we got it became clear that the people who were calling us did not understand the bill any better than we did
This is probably true. It is a frustrating part of fighting any legislation. Most people are emotionally motivated, not logically motivated. They don't understand what the heck they are talking about. Yet you need sheer numbers so you can't say "don't call your legislator unless you have a CS degree and can explain all this." So unfortunately, no matter what the issue, most of the people standing with you don't know what they are talking about. Same goes for most of the people standing against you too.
not just some random staffer (Score:4, Informative)
Reminds me of a Yes Minister quote (Score:2)
"In government, many people have the power to stop things happening but almost nobody has the power to make things happen. The system has the engine of a lawn mower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce."
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Considering the laws that were passed in the more recent past and how beneficial they were for the general population I can only say: I WISH IT WAS SO!
not a matter of breaking (Score:2)
Since when have we cared about the world? (Score:2)
So we want to learn from "most countries" (Score:2)
like China and Iran? Great role models you have there, indeed.
Wait... wasn't there something about the Iran not being a role model but ... what do we call people we don't like today... No, Communist was a few years ago, what again was the boogeyman du jour?
Tough shit (Score:2)
Guess what, you just learned a hard lesson about legislation - if you take the piss too much, the people will outrightly reject it to the point that you won't even get a chance to implement something half as draconian. All someone has to do is say "it's the new SOPA!" and people will instantly hate it.
A Window into the Mind of Washington (Score:3, Interesting)
That's what Moore's comments are. In front of the cameras all of the Washington crowd crows about democracy and rights and thinking of the children and the like, but they secretly despise all of those things and all of us who cherish them. They mock honesty because dissembling is the air they breathe. They hate action because the status quo fills their pockets. They hate freedom because it curbs their power. Think of the worst cartoonish super villain you can think of, then imagine an entire city filled with them, and you have the capitol of the United States. They're all psychopaths.
That's why we need to clear all of them out and do a serious reboot of the country. We know a lot of things now that we didn't know 200 years ago when the first iteration of the Constitution was written, and we've had 200 years to watch the outputs of the first system. We can engineer a system of government that does not select for the psychopaths we have now.
She Must Want More Pay (Score:3)
Tech savvy (Score:3)
This is what happens when the meaning of "tech savvy" gets usurped and people that can use apps in a smartphone get labeled "tech savvy" and think they know enough to make legislation that involves truly technical details about something like how the internet works.
This is the worst argument ever (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe she used this as an argument. If they don't understand the bill, and their constituents didn't understand the bill, there can only be two reasons for trying to pass it:
1) Passing legislation for legislation's sake (Stupid)
2) Passing legislation because you are compelled to by another party that only holds it's own interests (Evil)
So they are either stupid or evil (or both)
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