Kind of based off of something I ran across on the Know Your Meme site. Apparently there was a transparency report released by Google a few days back with some concerning information. Long story short, various government agencies and companies asked Google to remove search listings that are politically confrontational or youtube videos portraying certain official groups in a bad light, to the tune of 6,321 removals in 6 months. Now, while it’s hard to place blame with Google (cause when some government officials ask you to do something, it gets a bit tricky to say no), this does play up the whole “evil corporation that sacrifices the customers’ rights for third party interests”. The real bad guy is the governments and organizations who pressure the companies (ie bullying) into compliance. (though Google should grow a pair and say no)
So basically, governments didn’t like what people have to say, Google folds, civil liberties lost. This right here is the whole fear behind the CISPA and SOPA! You know, the government and corporations influencing the ISPs and search engines to censor anything they deem unsatisfactory. That whole Big Brother thing we all worried about before. So yeah, it’s happening for reals now guys. But I guess they didn’t need any official legislation to control the internet afterall. Scary stuff guys! Kind of a loophole in that 1st amendment thing. Granted it’s all legal and compulsory by the company, but at the end of the day, an official governing body shouldn’t be trying skirt their own laws in order to fulfill their agendas. I for one… not happy.
Source: KYM
“tyrands used force back then and tyrants use the law today” -quote from oxhorn brand movies
how true it is! and it goes to show how sleazy the government is for trying to pass legislation to legally do this while the whole time they were doing it anyways… and also how two faced the company is for denouncing internet censorship and SOPA, while complying with the very people they claim to be championing against.
I thought laws were there to proctect us…not to exploit us…………How Naive of me.
silly wowlock… laws aren’t there to help us or keep us safe, laws are there to make sure us peons don’t do the things that the people with money or power do.
I thought laws were there to proctect us…not to exploit us…………How Naive of me.
Oh and I admire the effort Government put into covering up their mess……while they won’t lift half a finger to actually try and PREVENT the mess……… ”Corporate Logic ”
man, there’s some quote somewhere I half remember, but it went something to the extent of “a government shouldn’t be apologizing for its actions, rather it shouldn’t be doing anything that requires an apology in the first place”
something like that… basically… they shouldn’t be trying to screw us.
The government is too intrusive (when isn’t it), and I dislike Google for other reasons (supporting the Egyptian uprising that so many of us were certain would be bad in the end run and which now has resulted in Egypt electing the Muslim Brotherhood).
never had much fun trying to communicate with them… hell, I had to call up the googles for some issue I had at a previous job. long story short, they don’t have customer service… which makes me suspicious how the government got a hold of anybody to talk to. >)
bah, don’t even get me started on how much I dislike Egypt right now…
Laws are overrated and overpowered. Anarchy for the U.S.A.
Also, on an unrelated note, there is a comment I made back at the “ye olde celestial battles of 1313″ (great art and play on words, by the way.) That still awaits moderation. Sorry for wasting your reading time. :P
Anarchy just means that eventually someone like me is going to get enough power together to dominate you all and rule over you with the iron fist of DEATHETERNAL. Anarchy is the first step towards the loss of liberty.
Precisely, anarchy for the U.S.A.
And, since I’m at it, I don’t like England either. Let’s share the anarchy!!!
So you wish for anarchy as a means to destroy all liberty? Then you are my enemy.
Not ALL liberty, only that of those people I have a beef with.
As for being your enemy, HIGH FIVE ON THAT!! :D
hehe thanks!
oh, and sorry about that! just approved it! usually I get something in my email saying there’s something to mod or when there’s a post, but I guess it decided to skip a few. >\
yeah, the real problem with anarchy is that it’s not really a stable political state. kind of like the whole utopia thing, because somewhere down the line, someone will start gaining power and then it’s all back to square one. heck, I’d argue that there isn’t a single political structure that is ironclad and good for the people. they all seem great on paper but idiots tend to find their way into power which just spoils the whole thing. granted, you need some sort of middle person to help facilitate growth and prosperity across all citizens (currently failing), but unless it’s the Plato-ish aristocracy (the one where only the smartest and most ethical people rule), then all others will fall short of their obligations. I guess we have to make due with what we got, but there is a lot of room for improvement.
The Plato-ish Utopia has it’s own problem as well since I can see many people feel like ” Just because you are smarter and more Elite, you don’t have a right to rule over me ! ” .
Hell, I think that ” rule over” part is the main problem. Nobody..and I mean NOBODY , wants to get ruled over ( unless you are a submissive in nature……well you know ) and thats why there will be problems with Any kind of ”testing group” against the population AKA ‘The Government’.
Today, the testing group just not keep citizens in check but exploit them to the fullest and it saddens me that people still blind to most of it while their loved ones die in some meaningless battles in other countries for the benefit of ”Those in Power ” and not the countries they wanted to protect and love….
The Wars are a different subject though I can’t fit my thoughts only in one column !
Afghanistan actively harbored an organization that committed an act of terror/war against America. Any question as to whether that war was both legitimate and necessary is not possible to reasonably argue.
Iraq probably wouldn’t be fully justified by 9/11 alone, but if you look into history you wonder why it wasn’t done sooner. After Iraq invaded Kuwait and before the coalition kicked Iraq back out, the Iraqi military was making preparations to invade our ally Saudi Arabia. That alone is justification for invasion and the neutralization of Iraq as a threat. After the Kuwait conflict ended, the Iraqi Intelligence Service attempted to assassinate President George H. W. Bush when he was in Kuwait. That also is an act of war that alone is justification enough to invade and neutralize Iraq as a threat. Saddam Hussein provided $25,000 in Iraqi government funds to Palestinian families for each child they sent to act as a terrorist suicide bomber in Israel. The direct funding of terrorism against an allied nation is an act of war that alone is justification enough to invade and neutralize Iraq as a threat. Add on top of these reasons for a legitimate and/or necessary declaration of war against Iraq, the real possibility at the time of Iraqi stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. This real possibility combined with intelligence obtained by Russia (I hate Russia and am loathe to use anything from them but this couldn’t be ignored) that Saddam Hussein was planning Iraqi lead terrorist strikes against America post 9/11 with the purpose of resolidifying the Arab world’s view of him as the BMOC of the Arab world provides yet another reason for a legitimate and necessary declaration of war against Iraq. Here are four reasons to legitimately and or necessarily declare war against Iraq. Two of them were past acts of war against the U.S. or our allies, one was act of war being perpetrated at the time against a U.S. ally, and the last is a potential threat of chemical and biological terrorist strikes against U.S. soil. The war in Iraq was both legitimate and necessary.
Meant that to be a response to Wowlock not a new post in and of itself.
yeah it’s really hard to point a finger one way or another… but eventually info gets leaked like pearl harbor or that one passenger cruise boat in ww2 (or was it 1?). we probably wont get a straight answer in our lifetimes though.
there was this thing that came out from Susan Lindauer, a CIA “Asset” or liaison who worked with Iraq and had some interesting things to say… mainly that our guys were really pushing Iraq hard and made it seem like they wanted to go to war rather than work with them. not sure how legit any of it is, but if true then it really makes our side look bad.
anyways, the whole thing was a mess… still is, but hopefully the citizens of those countries involved and turned over can get back into their own lives and not the teen drama that is politics.
hey yeah, sorry bout the structure here, I’m not sure how to do anything like “edit your own posts” and whatnot… guess I could have memberships, but really, who would want the hassle of logging in? wordpress is alright for most things but comment management is pretty fail most of the time. >\
Well you see coffin “inteligence” departments do not work under assumption that if they did not find anything enemy does not have it.
Most of the time they work under assuption that enemy has it anyway and either their agent is an idiot which did not find anything or enemy is that good in hiding it.
Side note- I am a physicist with education in nuclear schiences and engeniering and I say as long as any state has technology to produce nuclear powerplants it has ability to create nukes. (Google “chicago pile” to se in what Enrico Fermi managed to create enough plutonium for nuclear bomb… I could build that at home, granted I do not have access to sufficienlty pure uranium needed, but almost everything else is avaiable on open market)
I would quote from Deep space 9:
Bashir: “If we mine the wormhole, it may mean war with Dominion.”
Sisko: “One thing is certain, we are loosing peace, and that means war may soon be the only option we have left.”
(Federation was offered option to surrender it´s way of life… and everyone found it less appealing than war).
You can´t just reatreat everytime you get confronted by someone… sometimes it really is worth to make a stand and get everyone else a bloody nose.
Well… you know this is a bit dubius… technicaly you are using someone´s hardware when you use google. Or in case of blogs mostly software is allowing you to use someone elses hardware.
And this “allowance” comes with condition that you will abide with people that let you write and publish using their resources. Therefore to put it bluntly- youtube has the right to unilateraly delete everything you put in, you agreed to that when you registered.
Technicaly you ARE a citizen of a state and that means that you agreed to follow it´s laws…
(Putting asside curent problem that “citizenship” is effectively duty one receives when he is born and there is no way out… only real option is to become citizen of some other state… but it is impossible to NOT be a citizen of any state… automaticaly you would be associated with area you were born in.)
Little experience from post communist country btw… as long as they try to silence the opposition you are fine… that will mean they actualy fear what you can do, and that gives you some options to do anything.
However it seems to me that politicians in my country realized that what people write is irrelevant… and if noone “officialy” cared about anything written, noone will care. And it seems to me they are right:
For goverments censorship is really mostly WASTE of resources… and it only anthagonizes people.
You can even look at China… they DO have the ability to actually blok IPs… they do not. They simply filter “searches” (Porn links in IP adress format are quite favourite signatures there btw)… I mostly think it is psychlogical effect- people get idea they “outsmarted goverment” get their minor victory and do not do anything else.
As I say… censoship at any level is only waste of resources. Half of the people will not believe the news anyway, quater will believe it is not the whole truth and there is some other conspiracy, and the rest would vote against goverment anyway… absolutely no point in censoring anything.
pretty much summed up the “Streisand Effect”, the more you try to avert notice to something, the more you make it stand out.