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If you re-read your last sentence it should be clear why this law is being pushed. Joel Send a noteboard - 20/01/2012 09:12:29 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.

Disclosing the identify of US intelligence assets violates US criminal law (ask Scooter Libby.) So does WITHHOLDING the identity of anyone who revealed them to you (ask Robert Novak.)

However, that extradicting people even for crimes THAT serious ranges from difficult to impossible is a primary reason the new legislation seeks to block access to their sites. In the case of DoD data, it is not copyrighted or commercial property, but is not public domain either: Access to it is restricted, and publicly posting it is a crime, just not a commercial violation of civil codes (so far as I know.) The same principle applies though: Since preventing people illegally obtaining and distributing the data is impossible, the new law seeks to do the next best thing by blocking access to it. Within the US. On foreign registered sites. From what I have been able to sort out amid the biased views on both sides of the issue, it does not appear sites registered in the US would even be affected by the proposed legislation (they are of course already bound by existing laws on domestic sites, but those laws have no, or practically no, effect on foreign sites, hence the new legislation.)

Meh, and again I say, "meh." Rioting has given way to dancing in the estreets with the announcement the bills have been pulled, but since the general public will not maintain their focus and interest in coming months like Big Media will, the bills will return and pass in some form. If nothing else, that was guaranteed after the DoJs shutdown of Megauploads under CURRENT law prompted "Anonymous" to launch successful Denial of Service attacks against:

1) The MPAA,
2) The RIAA,
3) The White House,
4) The FBI and
5) The US Department of Justice.

Way to convince the federal government no growing internet problems justify legislatively assuming greater authority and oversight of it. :rolleyes:

"Mr. President, North Korean troops just occupied Seoul, what should we do?!"

"Anonymous just knocked out our servers again because they cannot watch the latest Dr. Who episodes, so I guess nothing."
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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 1133 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 1230 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 997 Views
That is really all I ask. - 18/01/2012 06:26:37 PM 1066 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 1099 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 787 Views
That was constructive. - 19/01/2012 03:29:53 PM 1009 Views
Very nicely summarised. *NM* - 18/01/2012 02:06:02 AM 589 Views
should be interesting - 17/01/2012 12:41:47 PM 955 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 1030 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 1093 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 944 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 944 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 1046 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 1061 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 1039 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 970 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 965 Views
That is a separate issue. - 18/01/2012 04:01:24 PM 993 Views
Thank you for posting that. - 18/01/2012 03:09:07 PM 1033 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 1071 Views
It isn't their job to propose legislation - 18/01/2012 04:12:53 PM 987 Views
No, but they have as much RIGHT to do so as anyone else. - 18/01/2012 05:31:55 PM 974 Views
Strike three. - 18/01/2012 05:37:55 PM 1039 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 1027 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 1047 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 625 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 976 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 697 Views
We get it: You are a polyglot. - 18/01/2012 06:27:48 PM 963 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 495 Views
Or Answers.com, or even the actual sources that are often copy/pasted into Wikipedia... - 19/01/2012 01:07:38 AM 1066 Views
They all did it on twitter - 19/01/2012 01:26:19 AM 1001 Views
I was asleep much of the day - 19/01/2012 02:40:11 AM 1079 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 1080 Views
How does that "rebutt" what was a facetious post in the first place? - 20/01/2012 09:24:27 PM 1173 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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