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Re: Just because the news does not mention something does not automatically make it non-applicable. DomA Send a noteboard - 19/01/2012 10:39:40 PM

Again I am reminded of Wikileaks obtaining Pentagon lists of Al Qaeda informants in Pakistan, which they then posted on their site.

i don't know why you keep trying to bring this back to issues of national security like a broken record. It's apples and oranges. Those new laws are not even concerned with shutting down websites that leaks state secrets. You're the only one who misinterpret them this way. The media in and out ofyour country are not even mentionning any national security angle - its laws catering to demands made by Hollywood and the veideogame industry.
Yeah, existing civil law worked SO well then. :rolleyes: Personally, giving the government authority to block Wikileaks in the wake of something like that seems reasonable to me; it is just too bad they could not block it globally.

The issue is primarly one of extradition, not of not having a legal framework already in place to charge Assange criminally in a US court..

Shutting down Wikileaks was useless, hundred of sites would have picked their stuff up as soon as it was done. It's not because the US government could't shut it down.

Yes, the problematic nature of extradition is why the new laws would grant the power to shut down access to foreign piracy sites, because extradicting their operators is often difficult or impossible. If the feds had shut down Wikileaks and other sites redistributed the posted data they could be shut down just as easily. Though, correct me if I am wrong, but the new laws would grant any authority to shut down those whose registry is in the US anyway, only those with foreign registry. Seems like there is a fairly simple built in workaround.



We had this one hour radio show discussing the topic two days ago, with guest American legal experts on it (plus one specialist of American politics). They specifically discussed the angle of "national security" as the host brought it up (he asked specifically if the US government could invoke these laws to censor sites like Wikileaks last year, if it provided the US with new legal tools to deal with cyber-terror or other cyber-threats to national security). The experts all agree: that's totally outside the scope of those laws, and they also agreed those laws don't touch on matters of national security at all. Those new laws as they stood were designed specically to adress piracy and breaches of commercial and corporate copyrights in answer to the demands of Hollywood (that financed Obama's campaign) and the videogame industry. One of the lawyers said fears your governement could use PIPA or SOPA to deal with sites like Wikileaks were unfounded (what Wikileaks published isn't even copyrighted or proprietary material). Under PIPA/SOPA, they can't "close down a foreign website" anyway. All they can do is make its DNS unreachable directely. It would be a child's game to reach the site nonetheless (you just need to know it's IP address which would become widely known very rapidly), it just wouldn't show up anymore in search tools like Google and company. The US don't have the technical means to totally shut down a site like Wikileaks outside the US, and SOPA/PIPA don't give it those means.

Beside, the felony in Wikileaks' case was committed by the American guy who leaked the material, not by Wikileaks, a foreign site with foreign proprietors, that bought and published it, nor the worldwide media that relayed the information from Wikileaks (including the New York Times, officially a media partner of Wikileaks, that wasn't charged with anything....). If the US prosecutors thought they had grounds to charge Assange with anything, they would have tried to get him extradited (which could have been complicated, given a great deal countries including your closest allies won't extradite anyone to the US if he faces the death penalty, and I'm pretty sure it includes Australia) but it appears Assange hasn't broken any American law anyway.
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English Wikipedia Anti-SOPA Blackout - 17/01/2012 08:31:46 AM 2194 Views
Yeah, man, because currently copyright holders have no recourse, am I right? - 17/01/2012 11:47:35 AM 1017 Views
"altering the infrastructure of the Internet so as to render RAFO virtually inaccessible"? - 17/01/2012 08:12:27 PM 1134 Views
I'll go ahead and ask before I get my panties in a bunch: do you understand these bills? - 17/01/2012 09:09:22 PM 1231 Views
I admit I have not looked into it much - 17/01/2012 11:42:30 PM 1081 Views
And yet you're still arguing the matter. - 18/01/2012 02:34:04 AM 1185 Views
I love you. *NM* - 18/01/2012 03:41:03 AM 671 Views
heh, thanks. I usually find myself pushing minority opinions. Nice to be "appreciated" for once. *NM* - 18/01/2012 04:01:10 AM 654 Views
Can i second the adulation? - 18/01/2012 04:07:17 AM 902 Views
I too (three?) appreciate the common sense and reasonable explanations. *NM* - 18/01/2012 04:12:59 AM 652 Views
Thanks guys. - 18/01/2012 04:39:00 AM 1077 Views
Right, because the argument is not just over THIS bill but, apparently, over ANY bill. - 18/01/2012 11:09:13 AM 1085 Views
Alternatives to SOPA/PIPA have been proposed for months now. Please stop arguing this. - 18/01/2012 05:42:10 PM 998 Views
That is really all I ask. - 18/01/2012 06:26:37 PM 1067 Views
"sensitive federal content"? Provide a source justifying this claim and it's relevance, please. - 18/01/2012 05:59:47 PM 1094 Views
I would not have thought a source necessary. - 18/01/2012 06:24:44 PM 1085 Views
Okay, I'm with Aemon now. - 18/01/2012 07:36:21 PM 1100 Views
OK. - 18/01/2012 10:16:16 PM 1125 Views
Surreal. It's like you're a spam-bot or something. *NM* - 19/01/2012 01:23:35 AM 788 Views
That was constructive. - 19/01/2012 03:29:53 PM 1010 Views
Very nicely summarised. *NM* - 18/01/2012 02:06:02 AM 589 Views
should be interesting - 17/01/2012 12:41:47 PM 956 Views
Could be; depends on a lot of factors. - 17/01/2012 07:38:55 PM 1026 Views
See, that's one of the biggest problems that people aren't understanding. - 17/01/2012 09:31:38 PM 1031 Views
So tell them that. - 17/01/2012 11:54:19 PM 1185 Views
Could've done without the snide rejoinder, but, good. - 17/01/2012 02:20:08 PM 949 Views
I love the black banner, like some kind of internet Holocaust. - 17/01/2012 08:03:27 PM 1094 Views
Are you aware that SOPA/PIPA has nothing to do with hackers and everything to do with copyright? - 18/01/2012 02:08:56 AM 945 Views
There seems to be some overlap. - 18/01/2012 01:08:22 PM 1050 Views
Re: There seems to be some overlap. - 18/01/2012 08:13:15 PM 945 Views
Re: There still seems to be some overlap. - 18/01/2012 10:27:32 PM 1206 Views
Re: There still seems to be some overlap. - 18/01/2012 11:30:39 PM 1047 Views
Just because the news does not mention something does not automatically make it non-applicable. - 19/01/2012 04:08:58 PM 1073 Views
Re: Just because the news does not mention something does not automatically make it non-applicable. - 19/01/2012 10:39:40 PM 1062 Views
If you re-read your last sentence it should be clear why this law is being pushed. - 20/01/2012 09:12:29 PM 1333 Views
Re: If you re-read your last sentence it should be clear why this law is being pushed. - 21/01/2012 03:19:49 AM 949 Views
Welcome to the 99%, Dom - 21/01/2012 08:52:41 AM 1043 Views
They taste good with sprinkles. - 21/01/2012 10:00:35 AM 1040 Views
Er, what Ghav said. - 18/01/2012 02:30:37 AM 961 Views
Sorry, protecting Pirate Bay and offshore gambling are not compelling counterarguments. - 18/01/2012 11:38:08 AM 1015 Views
Okay, another analogy: - 18/01/2012 02:04:12 PM 957 Views
A technical examination of SOPA and PROTECT IP - 18/01/2012 08:32:44 AM 971 Views
"As a disclaimer, I am not a lawyer, I'm a sysadmin." - 18/01/2012 12:47:16 PM 1227 Views
wow, you are totally correct! - 18/01/2012 03:45:54 PM 967 Views
That is a separate issue. - 18/01/2012 04:01:24 PM 994 Views
Thank you for posting that. - 18/01/2012 03:09:07 PM 1034 Views
Wikipedia has already convinced me - 18/01/2012 03:26:01 PM 843 Views
Trying to stop this legislation without proposing an alternative is trying to stop ANY legislation. - 18/01/2012 03:44:18 PM 1072 Views
It isn't their job to propose legislation - 18/01/2012 04:12:53 PM 988 Views
No, but they have as much RIGHT to do so as anyone else. - 18/01/2012 05:31:55 PM 975 Views
Strike three. - 18/01/2012 05:37:55 PM 1040 Views
That is fine; that is what people SHOULD be doing. - 18/01/2012 06:03:59 PM 847 Views
Things being better now than they would be under SOPA seems like a legitimate argument to me - 18/01/2012 09:04:18 PM 1113 Views
Against SOPA, sure; against ANY new law, no. - 18/01/2012 10:46:48 PM 950 Views
Re: Against SOPA, sure; against ANY new law, no. - 19/01/2012 12:15:48 AM 1028 Views
That is a poor approach to drafting legislation, at best. - 19/01/2012 04:37:22 PM 1043 Views
About "proposing new legislation" - 18/01/2012 04:45:08 PM 1103 Views
So true - 18/01/2012 05:08:45 PM 1048 Views
Not to go off on a tangent about combatting piracy... - 18/01/2012 05:38:12 PM 953 Views
Entirely agree *NM* - 18/01/2012 06:13:13 PM 645 Views
That was an excellent post. *NM* - 19/01/2012 11:18:19 PM 626 Views
Re: About "proposing new legislation" - 18/01/2012 05:59:55 PM 1182 Views
For those who want a short, one page explanation... - 18/01/2012 05:41:49 PM 977 Views
Yeah, so I use Russian wikipedia for a day. Or German wikipedia, or French, or Italian... *NM* - 18/01/2012 06:23:36 PM 698 Views
We get it: You are a polyglot. - 18/01/2012 06:27:48 PM 964 Views
Or just hit stop right before the script runs. *NM* - 18/01/2012 06:52:40 PM 689 Views
Or just disable Java. *NM* - 19/01/2012 01:58:03 AM 557 Views
That's not as much fun though. *NM* - 19/01/2012 02:13:44 AM 684 Views
Exactly, this way its kind of a game. *NM* - 19/01/2012 02:20:37 AM 496 Views
Or Answers.com, or even the actual sources that are often copy/pasted into Wikipedia... - 19/01/2012 01:07:38 AM 1067 Views
They all did it on twitter - 19/01/2012 01:26:19 AM 1002 Views
I was asleep much of the day - 19/01/2012 02:40:11 AM 1080 Views
Oh, no; now Congress will be inundated with complaints from lazy college students! - 19/01/2012 04:40:12 PM 1117 Views
13 previously unopposed senators now do not support SOPA. - 19/01/2012 11:36:15 PM 1081 Views
How does that "rebutt" what was a facetious post in the first place? - 20/01/2012 09:24:27 PM 1174 Views
a joke can, indeed, be rebutted... - 21/01/2012 09:07:32 PM 1076 Views
Oh, draggie, I ALWAYS see what you do there. - 21/01/2012 10:01:58 PM 1033 Views

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