US Keeps Control of the Internet.

[Towelmaster]

It hasn't effected Towelmaster's typing though

Izdd may havese a dealayed effekkt.,.

[Der Mike]

Again, even the tiniest sliver of actual evidence to back up this claim would be quite beneficial to you backing up your point.

I'm only responding to this one bit, but the US threatened to refuse entry if european airlines didn't provide them with details of passangers flying in including age, machine readable passports, fingerprinting and photographing on entry and meal prefernces for (potentially) use in religious profiling. This was debated at length in europe but forced through by homeland security, otherwise, no visas, and entry refused.
I'm just dipping in here, and if you want further refernces to the actual events I can provide links to news stories covering it, but a quick google reveals the folowing

http://oasis.gov.ie/moving_country/passports_and_visas/machine_readable_irish_passports_and_travel_to_the_US.html

http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39124197,00.htm

I'm not taking sides on this, just providing some information.
Phaze

Fair enough. Seems mind-boggling that they would not require such basic info. But, point proven.

I'm not about to lose any sleep over it.
-=Mike

[AaronB]

Okay, is it just me or does that sound painful?!?

Jan

It hasn't effected Towelmaster's typing though

[Jan]

So I basically stepped into a tounge-in-cheek post?

Okay, is it just me or does that sound painful?!?

Jan

[Nacho]

Towelmaster,

So I basically stepped into a tounge-in-cheek post? Sorry about that!

[phazedout]

Again, even the tiniest sliver of actual evidence to back up this claim would be quite beneficial to you backing up your point.

I'm only responding to this one bit, but the US threatened to refuse entry if european airlines didn't provide them with details of passangers flying in including age, machine readable passports, fingerprinting and photographing on entry and meal prefernces for (potentially) use in religious profiling. This was debated at length in europe but forced through by homeland security, otherwise, no visas, and entry refused.
I'm just dipping in here, and if you want further refernces to the actual events I can provide links to news stories covering it, but a quick google reveals the folowing

http://oasis.gov.ie/moving_country/passports_and_visas/machine_readable_irish_passports_and_travel_to_the_US.html

http://management.silicon.com/government/0,39024677,39124197,00.htm

I'm not taking sides on this, just providing some information.
Phaze

[Der Mike]

Aah, the answer of the unprepared! And thank you very much for the subtlety...

How strange though; The first country that tried/tries to censor porn on the web is the U.S.A.

Provide a single example of us trying to censor porn, outside of not allowing computers in public libraries that children use to be able to acces it, please.

The first country in the world that wants total information-storage re. webvisits, emails sent and received, etcetera, is the U.S.A. (part of the Patriot Act I believe? Perhaps it comes from your 'Ministry of Truth', sorry 'Homeland'?).

That info has always been available. It's not like being able to get it is a new thing.

And wasn't there some unelected stupid Washington-wife call T. Gore who started the Parental Advisory Censorshop Crapola years ago?

Labelling stuff = censorship?

You don't see Americans being ARRESTED for "insulting" a religion. You do see that in other countries. Many in Europe and the number is growing. I know the UK has been working on getting a bill for that passed and enforced.

Come on!
As a matter of fact, Europe is now being FORCED by the U.S.A. to implement all kinds of new restrictions and means of identification. Where did the American resentment against state-control go?

Again, even the tiniest sliver of actual evidence to back up this claim would be quite beneficial to you backing up your point.

I'm not particularly interested in web-porn and I don't email with Al-Qaida, but I believe that those things are an inevitable result of an open network, just like illegal downloads.

The U.N was founded to prevent problems.

Can you name a single problem they "prevented"? The UN is a criminally corrupt organization that the US would be best served leaving entirely, tossing out of our borders, and allowing to wither on the vine of utter irrelevance while we produce a group to replace them.

One of the mechanisms for that is that the whole organisation moves like a snail so as to give diplomacy every chance(even the ones it doesn't deserve). Every now and then that works because hotheads are given the chance to cool down.

Well, provided the country that needs help isn't Israel or the US. In those cases, screw the lot of them.

I don't believe for one moment that the U.N. is suitable for internet-control. Nothing would get done, except 2.435 meetings and then a veto from one of the big members. In this case probably from the U.S.A.

Wow, reflexive anti-Americanism. Typical.

We've controlled the internet. Care to explain what material has been banned?

China is QUITE restrictive. Arabic dictators are VERY restrictive. Europe will go there soon enough to avoid offending Muslims who want to slaughter the whole lot of them.

But America? Yeah, WE'RE the ones you should worry about.

*chuckles*

Because PLeASe don't make it look like the failure of the U.N. is ALLLLL it's own fault. It has been a veto-playground for the 5 veto-nations for 57 YeArs!

The UN has decided that the one state worthy of mass condemnation is Israel. Not N. Korea. Not China. Not Cuba. Not Arab tyrannical regimes.

Israel. No state APPROACHES Israel's sheer volume of resolutions against it and few states warrant such bitching less. An organization where Sudan, China, Arabia, and Cuba have served on the HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION --- in spite of an abhorrent lack of any semblance of human rights in those horrid countries.

Spare me the maudlin caterwauling about the UN. It was useless the day it was started and the US should stop lending the UN some semblance of legitimacy.

Any idea how many proposals were vetoed by the U.S. of A. through the years? Any idea how many of those ideas were very good but were not 'politically convenient'?

Going with their history, not a single one was good.

Any idea how many proposals were shot down because of 'If-I-can't-have-that-you-can't-have-this'-pettiness?
If you want to criticize then be prepared to be criticized and prepare yourself properly first.

For your pointless hypotheticals? I'm supposed to be prepared for you providing no evidence or exmples?

Well, that is pretty much done. I'm quite prepared for that.

Otherwise your words may come across as quite uninformed and foolish. All the information is out there on the web, go ahead. Just don't tell me in a high-and-mighty-superior tone of voice that it's all everybody else's fault o.k.? Thank you.

I know. It's easier to blame the horrid condition of a joke organization on the US, and not the assorted dictatorships that control that horrid organization.

In the real world, Kofi Annan would be in jail for the Oil-For-Food scandal. In the UN? The one person fired has been reinstated, in spite of the largest, monetarily, scandal in worldwide history.

Of course, if the US did half of the crap the EU did, I'd be embarrassed as heck about it.

I have the impression that the news you get about Europe comes through limited channels and/or from limited sources so the confusion is understandable but may I say that you are incredibly misinformed?

Feel free. Being incorrect has never seemed to slow you down in the past.

If not I'll do it anyway; you are. Especially when you go on about 'liberal Europe' and 'tyrannies in Europe' and 'too much tolerance in Europe/The Netherlands', etcetera etcetera.

You don't see America passing laws preventing "insulting" of a religion. You don't see synagogues getting burned in the US fairly consistently while the government does nothing.

But, anti-Semitism is so deeply ingrained in "progressive" Europe that it is more than a little pathetic.

Yes, I'm saying that the Holocaust wasn't exactly contradictory towards European "values" and could easily be done again if somebody wanted.

Your comments about Europe are so far off the mark that I wonder if you get your information from comicbooks or something?

Yet no evidence to dispute any of it comes forth. Just complaints.

I try to be hypothetical - also at the request of the moderators - and you seem to get a perverse pleasure in slagging off Europe. Did we do something to your family?

No, just to a few million Jews. And, well, we in America tired of having to bail you out of your inability to deal with your neighbors.

You don't like the flags?

The Union Jack is pretty enough.

What? Oh, and as far as I know there IS no tyrant ruling any country in 'my' Western Europe... Did I miss a coup-dÚtat perhaps?

Europe's tenuous relationship with the concept of free speech is the height of tyranny.

For the other fellowposters : I have a great admiration for the U.S.A. But not for all of it. I do not wish to come across as an America-basher because I repond to one or two uninformed Americans who think everything is better in Birmingham, Alabamy.

Columbia, SC actually. And reality is a problem for many.

I know that Jan has asked several of us to back off in the past, but I do not stand by when some ignorant non-european uses wrong information to paint us black. I just hope that Jan and DougO will notice that I do not swear at people and that I do not condemn other countries or people by default. Something you still have to learn Der M.

I'll be back when you have.

Goodbye.

TM
"Designated Old-World European Repressive Bureaucratic Communist Bastard"

Toodles. I know you think this statement is supposed to make me feel "Well, maybe I crossed the line".

Failed. Miserably. What I have said is actual and you're upset because it IS accurate. You want to be able to wallow in how bad America is --- but get oh so pissy when somebody mentions the rampant, obvious, and insane flaws in Europe.

Not my problem. Reality is your problem.
-=Mike

[Towelmaster]

Probably be moderated but what the h*ck

Towelmaster,
Hooo boy. You brought politics into this discussion .. didn't you.

Well I take it that when nations talk about this it is rather politicized...

So, what happens when the "cumbya liberal left" gets a foot hold in this door and says "everybody else in the world benefits from the internet and should have a say in it?". Should we let "liberal pet projects control the internet?" You know about them .. the kind they give lip service to, but never fully embrase? Should we let terrorists have control of the internet? Should we let some of those "undesireables" that liberals support, HOMOSEXUALS have their control over the net? So on and so on.

What I wrote is garbage. Just like what you wrote.

Keep it factual, and don't blame it on the religious right.

No it is not garbage, just like my posting wasn't. They are two aspects of the same problem taken to the extreme. I just get so bl**dy tired of saying 'Of course it goes for the other side too', and "Of course not all muslims...etcetera'. To me that goes without saying. Instead of generalizing, I try to make things hypothetical on this forum. And yet some people respond like they were bitten by a snake...

Anyway ; In the U.S.A. I would think the potential religious-right problem would be bigger than the obnoxious-communists-problem. If control would be given to the nations themselves I would be afraid of censorship by the leftists and the fundamentalists in this world. If it would be left to the UN everything would come to a complete stand-still...

BTW Nacho : The example(s) you gave of "liberal undesirables"? There are no undesirables on the internet, it doesn't work that way I think. I do agree that no minority-representatives should ever get control of the internet. Full stop. Not right, not left, not religious, not atheists, no one.

Your hypotheticals are laughable and the premise is not even worthy of a retort.

Aah, the answer of the unprepared! And thank you very much for the subtlety...

How strange though; The first country that tried/tries to censor porn on the web is the U.S.A. The first country in the world that wants total information-storage re. webvisits, emails sent and received, etcetera, is the U.S.A. (part of the Patriot Act I believe? Perhaps it comes from your 'Ministry of Truth', sorry 'Homeland'?). And wasn't there some unelected stupid Washington-wife call T. Gore who started the Parental Advisory Censorshop Crapola years ago? Come on!
As a matter of fact, Europe is now being FORCED by the U.S.A. to implement all kinds of new restrictions and means of identification. Where did the American resentment against state-control go? I'm not particularly interested in web-porn and I don't email with Al-Qaida, but I believe that those things are an inevitable result of an open network, just like illegal downloads.

The U.N was founded to prevent problems. One of the mechanisms for that is that the whole organisation moves like a snail so as to give diplomacy every chance(even the ones it doesn't deserve). Every now and then that works because hotheads are given the chance to cool down.
I don't believe for one moment that the U.N. is suitable for internet-control. Nothing would get done, except 2.435 meetings and then a veto from one of the big members. In this case probably from the U.S.A. Because PLeASe don't make it look like the failure of the U.N. is ALLLLL it's own fault. It has been a veto-playground for the 5 veto-nations for 57 YeArs! Any idea how many proposals were vetoed by the U.S. of A. through the years? Any idea how many of those ideas were very good but were not 'politically convenient'? Any idea how many proposals were shot down because of 'If-I-can't-have-that-you-can't-have-this'-pettiness?
If you want to criticize then be prepared to be criticized and prepare yourself properly first. Otherwise your words may come across as quite uninformed and foolish. All the information is out there on the web, go ahead. Just don't tell me in a high-and-mighty-superior tone of voice that it's all everybody else's fault o.k.? Thank you.

I have the impression that the news you get about Europe comes through limited channels and/or from limited sources so the confusion is understandable but may I say that you are incredibly misinformed? If not I'll do it anyway; you are. Especially when you go on about 'liberal Europe' and 'tyrannies in Europe' and 'too much tolerance in Europe/The Netherlands', etcetera etcetera.

Your comments about Europe are so far off the mark that I wonder if you get your information from comicbooks or something?

I try to be hypothetical - also at the request of the moderators - and you seem to get a perverse pleasure in slagging off Europe. Did we do something to your family? You don't like the flags? What? Oh, and as far as I know there IS no tyrant ruling any country in 'my' Western Europe... Did I miss a coup-dÚtat perhaps?


For the other fellowposters : I have a great admiration for the U.S.A. But not for all of it. I do not wish to come across as an America-basher because I repond to one or two uninformed Americans who think everything is better in Birmingham, Alabamy.

I know that Jan has asked several of us to back off in the past, but I do not stand by when some ignorant non-european uses wrong information to paint us black. I just hope that Jan and DougO will notice that I do not swear at people and that I do not condemn other countries or people by default. Something you still have to learn Der M.

I'll be back when you have.

Goodbye.

TM
"Designated Old-World European Repressive Bureaucratic Communist Bastard"

/Off

[Der Mike]

So what happens when the religious right actually gets a foot in the door and starts to decide what to allow and what not to allow?

Funny, the religious right has been far more tolerant about things they do not like than the "progressive" Europeans are.

Can an atheist still write about it online? Where would these people draw the line for online-porn? As I once heard someone say "porn is an inevitable byproduct of free speech". Will people decide to ban all sex-sites? Or just the deviant ones? What are deviant ones? how do you define the limits of free speech? Can you do that at all?

And I could write a similar story about Iran or China.

I'm just saying ; It's a can o' worms.

It's funny --- tyranny is always descending in America, but it always seems to land in Europe.

Your hypotheticals are laughable and the premise is not even worthy of a retort.
-=Mike

[Nacho]

Towelmaster,

So what happens when the religious right actually gets a foot in the door and starts to decide what to allow and what not to allow? Can an atheist still write about it online? Where would these people draw the line for online-porn? As I once heard someone say "porn is an inevitable byproduct of free speech". Will people decide to ban all sex-sites? Or just the deviant ones? What are deviant ones? how do you define the limits of free speech? Can you do that at all?

Hooo boy. You brought politics into this discussion .. didn't you.

So, what happens when the "cumbya liberal left" gets a foot hold in this door and says "everybody else in the world benefits from the internet and should have a say in it?". Should we let "liberal pet projects control the internet?" You know about them .. the kind they give lip service to, but never fully embrase? Should we let terrorists have control of the internet? Should we let some of those "undesireables" that liberals support, HOMOSEXUALS have their control over the net? So on and so on.

What I wrote is garbage. Just like what you wrote.

Keep it factual, and don't blame it on the religious right.

[Nacho]

Der Mike,

As long as the uselessly corrupt UN stays away from it, it'll be safe.

Yep. That is what this is really about. An ineffectual entity trying to take over the internet. Just as they have screwed up the UN, they are trying to screw up the internet, and by-gawd, we can't let them do that.

[villarestall]

Business or local government? There is a big difference.

Actually just did a little digging on this, and it's the banks that are banning them in the UK (NatWest Bank and Halifax Bank) because they "may offend muslims".... my mistake, I guess this is more a case of political correctness run amuck once again.....

ttfn.....

[The Puzzled Pak'Ma'Ra]

... You guys heard of the "Stainless Steel Mouse"? :

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1106/p01s04-woap.html

.. Blogs are huge in China now (like just about anywhere else), but bloggers are taking their chances. Certain words, deemed 'dangerous' by the government and the Communist Youth League, typed in are automatically edited out when entries are uploaded

... I've used the internet in China - The sad thing is, most Chinese are in denial. I say, "I can't even open American MSN", and they say, "Must be down now for maintenence". Yeah - it's 'down for maintenence 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

... China is an extreme case, but even here in Japan, many politicians are pushing to increase censorship on the net, and they are succeeding.

... very worrying

[Andrew_Swallow]

hehe..... not yet..... they are already trying to ban "piggy banks" as a means for kids to save their pennies in the UK (i think) for that very reason.....

Business or local government? There is a big difference.

[Towelmaster]

So what happens when the religious right actually gets a foot in the door and starts to decide what to allow and what not to allow? Can an atheist still write about it online? Where would these people draw the line for online-porn? As I once heard someone say "porn is an inevitable byproduct of free speech". Will people decide to ban all sex-sites? Or just the deviant ones? What are deviant ones? how do you define the limits of free speech? Can you do that at all?

And I could write a similar story about Iran or China.

I'm just saying ; It's a can o' worms.