US stakes out 'net battleground ahead of ITU meeting America is once again steeling itself to defend the Internet from the gasp of the ITU. A White House blog post by State Department officials Daniel Sepulveda, Christopher Painter and Scott Busby says the US still believes there are countries and groups that hope to use ITU mandates over the Internet as a means to impose local …
Re: Governments shouldn't control 'content, technologies or services'No, monopolistic ISPs should. ..... thomas k.
Any advance on meritocratic autocratic ISPs, thomas k.? And do you imagine that their command and control of Internetional Service Provision can be in any way wrestled and wrested away to rest elsewhere? The alien posit here is that such would be just an impossible pipe dream [a fantastic but vain hope (from fantasies induced by the opium pipe]
Let the US bashing posts come, if not for the US, Europeans could be buying head scarfs and veils for their wives and daughters already when ISIS takes over, since Europe is ruled by lamers, even too naive to realize they were spied upon. It is hard to understand that Germany did not offer Snowdon asylum after he revealed Merkel was overheard.
USA the land of the free and capable, i rather be spied upon by them, then censored by the heirs of Mao, the Russians or some "political correctness" gag from Brussels.
Sorry, byt the very day US agencies started to spy like those in Russia or China, US was no longer the land of "the free". Fear is always a bad counsellor.
Even if you are very afraid of terrorists or the like, you have to understand that freedom and democracy exposes you more to their initial attacks - and you can't do anything unless you destroy the very freedom and democracy you took so long to build. It's far better to be hit by a terrorist attack than losing freedom for ever and live in fear. That doesn't mean that those taking advantage of freedom to kill, private preople of freedom, and create destruction should not be destroyed.
But fear is always what non-democratic government use to get power and maintain it - beware of those telling you you should fear, and give them too much power and ask to renounce to your freedom to protect you...
Better share the blame, we do the UK's domestic spying for them and they do it for us. This has been going on since the 90's at least since the first WTC bombing and before.
More and more I feel they are correct to look over the shoulders of millions because there are thousands that NEED to be watched all the time and there really is no other good way.
IT IS NOT BETTER to be hit by a terrorist attack OR to lose freedom forever. It IS better to find out what those scum are up to by any means possible, where they are & what they are doing and let a couple of JDAM's fall on their heads. Terrorists wouldn't think twice about you, no reason to feel guilty about them.
We didn't start it but we are damn sure going to finish it.
Ignoring the mix of future and present tenses...
"if not for the US, Europeans could be buying head scarfs and veils for their wives and daughters already when ISIS takes over, "
I'll amend.
If not for the US blowing up countries because of the risk of oil supplies being restricted under the pretence that they could fire a bottom of the range missile, with a payload capable of any real damage well beyond it's physical range by some several thousand miles, then Europeans would never of had to worry about ISIS.
Fixed.
Regarding Snowden, naive, ..... here be an alternate take of the games that can be played by agents in that genre ..... http://homment.com/3K3xdsYD7a
"Let the US bashing posts come, if not for the US, Europeans could be buying head scarfs and veils for their wives and daughters already when ISIS takes over, since Europe is ruled by lamers, even too naive to realize they were spied upon. It is hard to understand that Germany did not offer Snowdon asylum after he revealed Merkel was overheard."
Prove it.
The US lost the war in Iraq. And it was the UK, Canada, France and Germany that have done the bulk of the actual work in Afganistan. The US just ran around and made life difficult for the rest of the coalition.
Trevor, Please shut up and stick to the stuff the Register pays you for. With friends like Trevor Pott who needs enemies?
Rabid anti-american bullshit from an El Reg hack is getting to be really tired and should be moderated. The "war" isn't over in EITHER country yet, only in the mind of the "polling" president could it be "over". BTW, sad to say but "friendly fire" and collateral damage happens in every war, it always has. Why don't YOU prove we lost an unwinnable war? You can't "win" any war when you are hamstrung by backseat presidential quarterbacking and an unidentifiable enemy that is all of a sudden your ally when they want to get rid of a competing religious sect.
Toronto is a known hot bed of radicalised islamic terrorists. Try half the complexes off the the Don Valley parkway to start. What will they call the Canadian branch of ISIS when they come for the "Infidels" there? You should know....
I see no reason whatsoever not to be anti-American, nor are you providing me any reasons whatsoever.
As for "Toronto being a known hotbed of radical Islamic terrorists": bullshit. But there were plenty of Americans that left to fight for Allah. Guess they didn't appreciate your amazing country quite so much as you think the world should, hmm?
There are a bunch of really bad people in this world - ISIS amongst them - but America sure as hell aren't the good guys either.
In many countries the Internet is seen as a dangerous vector do disseminate dangerous ideas like "freedom", "democracy", "human rights" and so on. And there will be strong attempts to be able to block them.
The US position is right, but it acted more or less the countries it complains about - not to the extend of blocking contents - but illegaly spying on people yes. There's less risk to end in a "re-education" camp somewhere, but NSA activities were against the very idea of freedom in a democracy.
Thereby the US position became weak, very weak, and allies it spied on won't be very willingly to help.
The government and congress should really undersand and assess the damage NSA did, it is a bigger damage that any terrorist attack could deliver - US lost its reputation as the "country of freedom and democracy", and the effects of this self-inflicted damage will last long, very long, much more than any terrorist group fear.
Tragically true. Those who govern in the US have completely lost the gift to see themselves as others see them. They see no inconsistency with asserting their moral superiority while violating the basic principles upon which their claim to the moral high ground rests.
Let's say you make a home movie and make it available on the internet. No matter where you are in the world, or where the internet servers involved are located, the long arm of the law of the USA may reach out for you.
-if it includes any unauthorized music in the background or even just a TV on in the background it can be censored, people can have civil suits filed against them, and any internet services involved my also be in trouble.
-if it includes anything of a sexual nature, depending on the age of the participants and the various ages of consent in various jurisdictions, and depending on the specific acts involved and the various standards of decency in various jurisdictions, it can be censored, and people can be charged with crimes, and any internet services involved may also be in trouble.
-if it includes anything of a politically sensitive nature (say advocating for communism in the past, or advocating for islamism in the present, or even just environmentalism and/or anti capitalism), it can be censored, people can be "interviewed" by security forces and from there anything can happen to them, and any internet services involved may also be in trouble.
Internet services being in trouble can be anything from fines, having domain names taken, payment processing ended, physical servers taken, other assets frozen, right up to criminal charges against staff and management or even rendition or even assassination.
The USA can't go on about freedom of speech while any of the above is true. And if it is claimed that these are reasonable restrictions on freedom of speech (which I don't necessarily entirely disagree with), then why are white power websites advocating Nazi ideals considered fine when they are blatantly illegal in other countries. Once you go down the road of saying that some content should not be allowed, and the USA is quite a way down that road already (along with pretty much every country), then where do you draw the line, and just whose laws can be considered valid.
It is obviously not the case that the USA has Freedom(tm) and other countries don't. It is only a question of degree.
If we made movies or music HERE and you stole it, why NOT! That does NOT equate to the loss of freedom of speech. A home movie does not count unless it shows some illegal act.
Don't break US law if you don't want to suffer the consequences. Really quite simple. Same as in yoiur country. BTW, you think your laws supersede ours? I beg to differ.
Here is what freedom of speech is according to the Constitution.
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they ALL get the right to use it. We don't have "hate" speech legislation here. In the USA you are entitled to SAY anything you want. Notice I did not say "do" anything you want. Given that we've had several bouts of home brewed islamic terrorism IE several shootings and a beheading, expect you should want to convert to another religion.
Better expect that people WILL be listening. If "they" don't like the color of your spots, you just might get what you are asking for. One good Jihad deserves another!
Governments come and go. We can say the same things about you as you do about us.
The NSA "debacle" as you call it is quite justifiable considering what we know now. That the UK is part of the equation makes it even more so.
When Terrorists stop hiding behind Islam, behind children and women, stop pretending to be ordinary citizens, then maybe some this can change.
Otherwise everyone is punished for the crimes of a few and that's the way it always has been.
When it comes to controlling content, off the top of my head, according to the leaks they carry out MITM attacks (getting credentials, drive-by downloads), change comment content in newspaper websites and forums, and even set up fake Facebook servers. They're on very shaky ground.
You need to pull your head far enough out of your arse to see that hoovering up data and censoring content are two completely different problems for a free people. One infringes on them, the other makes them not free at all.
Let's assume something not in evidence, that an ITU could be established that could maintain a free internet in the face of Chinese and Russian censoring of the internet. How would that materially affect the US, China, or the Russians from hoovering up data from the internet? Answer: not one iota. Spy agencies are employed to do things that would otherwise be illegal. The best you can manage on this side of the Great Divide is to have people who mostly don't abuse the illegal things they do.
Which means the only real question here is: is the internet more or less likely to be censored in the hands of the US or the ITU. Given the way things work at the UN, where human rights abusers routinely chair the committee on human rights and where anti-Semitism is mostly blocked by the US veto, the answer is leaving it in the hands of the US. It might be the choice of utopians, but like Churchill's observation of democracy it is the worst choice except for all the others.
Yes it can, assuming the people at the other side of the table are capable of holding two ideas in their head at the same time:
1. USA was wrong to let the NSA act illegally.
2. USA is right to argue against governmental control of the Internet.
Idea 1 is of course a very strong argument in support of idea 2.
Governments shouldn't control 'content, technologies or services'
I'm ready to repeal CALEA when you are. That's a Clinton presidency/Democratic Congress law that requires communications companies to include wiretapping technologies.
Also, the DMCA restricts content, and the CFAA makes it dangerous to interact with services online.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
