As if SOPA, ACTA Bill C-30 were not enough, there is a new threat to the information superhighway – from the United Nations, none the less. From The Wall Street Journal:
On Feb. 27, a diplomatic process will begin in Geneva that could result in a new treaty giving the United Nations unprecedented powers over the Internet. Dozens of countries, including Russia and China, are pushing hard to reach this goal by year’s end. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last June, his goal and that of his allies is to establish “international control over the Internet” through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a treaty-based organization under U.N. auspices.
If successful, these new regulatory proposals would upend the Internet’s flourishing regime, which has been in place since 1988. That year, delegates from 114 countries gathered in Australia to agree to a treaty that set the stage for dramatic liberalization of international telecommunications. This insulated the Internet from economic and technical regulation and quickly became the greatest deregulatory success story of all time.
Really?
Does this not illustrate that it is:
time to leave the UN – iff we cannot de-legitimize and dismantle the organization as a whole
time to really push to establish an internet substitute which is diffused, so that there are no pipelines which could be controlled by any regulatory body (the current technology that could be used for this is still under development – and much too slow)
Yeah, I have called for both these things in the past, but perhaps the time is running out faster than we expected…
Over the weekend, this video, purported to be from ‘Anonymous’, was released. It demands that the Canadian Minister, Vic Toews, remove bill C-30 (which would permit civil servants unlimited snooping powers on the citizens via the internet without judicial oversight) and that he step down immediately.
The following video also purports to be from ‘Anonymous’. As I have no connection to that group, I have no idea if it is authentic. However, I do think it is worth posting because it raises several issues worth further discussion:
This video raises the connection between the desire by various governments to regulate arms and to regulate the internet.
This is a deeper connection that one may think, at first glance. But, deep down, both are attempts to take away the citizen’s ability to protect themselves – including, if necessary, to resist their government. Both are ways in which governments make their citizens less secure, more isolated, and more afraid of their government.
Even if you are not as libertarian in your views as I am (I think that monopoly control over infrastructure – even, or perhaps especially, information infrastructure – is perilous to civil liberties), it is easy to see how governments are threatened by citizenry that is difficult to control and willing and able to oppose them.
Firearms are a means of physical self-defense and an equalizer between the strong and the weak. Even a small woman can protect herself from a rapist with the use of a gun: her physical safety is no longer dependant solely on the timely response of the state to come to her aid. This threatens the government monopoly on the enforcement of laws: as every monopoly’s natural reaction would be, the government’s reaction is to restrict this competition.
Let’s be clear about this: government ‘regulation’ of firearms is not about increasing public safety by having many well trained, well armed citizens available in public spaces who would be able to stop law-breakers and thus increase public safety. To the contrary: it is always specifically designed to restrict gun ownership, use, and the very presence of privately owned guns in public spaces. This intolerance on the part of government of guns in private hands – even though this increases public safety – is indicative of the government’s disrespect for its citizenry, with the goal to increase government coercive powers at the root of all ‘arms regulations’.
Information is a weapon and a powerful one.
So is anonymous speech.
The internet enables both.
As a matter of principle, anonymous speech is necessary for the preservation of the very freedom of speech. For example, The Federalist Papers could never have been published had their authors not had absolute anonymity at the time of publication! The bigger the government is, the more dangerous it is to speak up against it openly. Without anonymous speech, governments do indeed become more totalitarian and more tyrannical in nature: this cycle has been repeated so often, it is blatant.
Yet, the ever-growing governments in the formerly-free world now wish to have complete and unfettered access to the information which would identify each and every internet user: to be able to attach a name to every sentence uttered on the internet, from seeking sensitive advice at an online support group to dissenting political speech!
Of course, the governments are also increasing citizen surveillance on so many fronts… There will soon be no arena where we do have ‘presumption to privacy’, not even in our homes and certainly not anywhere else. So, the whole ‘getting a warrant’ might be a mute issue…
Technology is beautiful – but it is a tool, to be used for good or evil. It is necessary that we understand these tools because our society will need to evolve along with them. What am I talking about?
As new technologies arise, we will need to develop laws to govern their use. However, these laws (all laws, really) ought to be focused on protecting the civil libeties of individual citizens – not legitimizing the ways that governments and big business can circumvent them!
‘Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal published evidence that Google has been circumventing the privacy settings of Safari and iPhone users, tracking them on non-Google sites despite Apple’s default settings, which were intended to prevent such tracking.
This tracking, discovered by Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer, was a technical side-effect—probably an unintended side-effect—of a system that Google built to pass social personalization information (like, “your friend Suzy +1′ed this ad about candy”) from the google.com domain to the doubleclick.net domain. Further technical explanation can be found below.’
It looks like this was a bit of a case where one division within Google was working on privacy issues – like the ‘no cookies’ option, while another was trying to inject the ‘social networking’ experience into Google (a bad idea, in my never-humble-opinion: if I want to know what my friends are up to, I’ll ask them – I certainly don’t need Google to pop up a bubble to tell me what they thought of something) and ‘worked around’ the privacy policy with some creative coding. This, of course, completely undermined all the privacy measures and blew up Google’s privacy policy.
Perhaps Google is getting too big to stay healthy…
‘Mojang has one weekend to make your game — live! The indie studio Mojang will be livestreaming all the glory and drama of making a brand new game in 60 hours. Based on a poll of more than 100,000 users, Mojang is tackling a real-time strategy shoot ‘em up with a steampunk ancient Egypt theme!
Pay-what-you-want for the game any time during the jam.‘
If you are not familiar with Humble Bundle, it is the best way to fight online piracy: make it easy to legally buy games online, pay what you think is fair.
Of course, everybody is familiar with Mojang – the creators of MineCraft…
This is big. Powerful lobbyists, working with their allies in government, have put forward what amounts to an unavoidable choke point for your Internet use: two bills aimed at Internet users, and a government decision about the future of Internet access.
If we don’t stop this set-up, you’ll have to deal with bigger bills, widespread warrantless surveillance, and restricted choice.
By signing an OpenMedia.ca petition, you helped push back against new Internet restrictions and Big Telecom price-gouging. But these new challenges require more resources than ever to fight. Will you donate today so we can defend your rights? Your donation will empower the fight for an open and affordable Internet.
These three imminent threats will create an Internet choke point for Canadians, and they’re unfolding right now:
Online Spying: The government has tabled their invasive spying plan (Bill C-30) to mandate that every Internet provider must hand “authorities” access to the private information of any Canadian, at any time, without a warrant1. Despite appearances the contrary, they are still pushing this through parliament.
The Internet Lockdown: Through Bill C-11, Big Media lobbyists are seeking the power2 to compel telecom providers (who will now have surveillance capabilities) to cut Internet access for no good reason, remove or hide vast swaths of the Internet, and lock users out of their own services.
The Cell Phone Squeeze: Big Telecom giants are lobbying the government to turn over control of mobile communications—which experts say are the future of Internet access—to just three giant companies3. This will lead to rising prices, even worse customer service, and more easily controlled surveillance.
Steve and Lindsey, on behalf of your OpenMedia.ca Team
P.S. We created a media sensation this week and your petition signature helped start it all! Your team here at OpenMedia.ca has been run off our feet with media requests! Please chip in so we can keep up the pressure. We’ll report back on our progress to everyone that contributes.
Footnotes
[1] The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has written that the online spying bills could “undercut the future of freedom, innovation and privacy”
[2] Big Media is pushing for C-11 to include the power for courts to issue injunctions ordering ISPs to block access to websites. Many proposed amendments also include rules that mean accused (i.e. not necessarily convicted) “repeat infringers” could have their Internet connections terminated. The “enabler provision” may also be expanded in such a way that could be used to target legitimate websites that host user generated content. Those websites—including YouTube—could be penalized for hosting content that Big Media controls.
[3] Montreal Gazette: Spectrum auction called a threat to new entrants
[4] Conservative supporters, including some conservative MPs, have denounced the online spying bills.
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JotForm is a web company that lets people easily generate forms for whatever they need. Now, their domain has been siezed and their site has been blocked in a SOPA-style action. From the JotForm blog:
‘UPDATE: Many people on the comments assumed the content was posted by us. This can happen to any site that allows public to post content. SOPA may not have passed, but what happened shows that it is already being practiced. All they have to do is to ask Godaddy to take a site down. We have 2 millions user generated forms. It is not possible for us to manually review all forms. This can happen to any web site that allows user generated content.’
(Emphasis added by me.)
So, here we have yet another confirmation that despite of SOPA itself having been scrapped, the practices it was normalizing already exist and are being followed by state agents.
Oh, I know I cannot write this up in a way to do this topic justice – mostly because it sends my blood pressure so dangerously high. After all, blind rage is the only reasonable response to a minister claiming that those whodare to voice reservations about a proposed law that would make mincemeat out of civil liberties are no better than child molesters.
Because that is exactly what he is saying.
OK – I’m about to loose my temper…again…and not finish this post…
ARRRRGGGHHHH!
Resorting to the ‘do it or you hate children and kick puppies’ is the last resort of a bully who knows he cannot defend his position based on the issues!
AAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!
YES! It actually IS supposed to be difficult to deprive people of their liberties: that is why cops have to follow all them silly rules!!! Taking the rules away will not make one child safer, while at the same time, it will make all of us a little less safe!
THAT is the root of the problem: the system lacks accountability!
Actually, that article just might explain a lot about the minister’s attitude: they have already started to build a huge electronic surveillance system. Parts of it have been operational for years!
All the bluster now is to hide that they have as yet to pass the laws to make it legal…
The Big Three are ripping us off and using the money to manipulate Canadians and the government.
As we’ve been saying, the Big Three cell phone companies have a plan to price-gouge Canadians by shutting out small competitors1. Now they’re unleashing a misinformation campaign to muzzle your voice.
For example,
Rogers recently bought and paid for a trumped-up study2 that wrongly implies Canadians (you) can afford to pay more for telecom services.
Rogers just took to the courts to argue that Canada’s false advertising rules violate the telecom giant’s freedom of expression! This after being caught red-handed and fined $10,000,000 dollars for misleading cell phone advertising.3
With these two acts of extreme arrogance, Rogers has demonstrated that they will go to ridiculous lengths to tighten their stranglehold on communications and raise prices.
Some say mobile is the future of the Internet and communications. We have to stop the Big Three from creating a command and control communications market with tight contracts, content controls, price-gouging overage fees, and disrespectful customer service.
P.S. Unlike Big Telecom, we listen to Canadians. Some of you have expressed that we should provide more details in our messages. We heard you—here’s some more detailed background information:
Cell phone companies require low-frequency wireless spectrum to deliver the latest mobile devices to customers. There is a new block of 700 MHZ spectrum that will be available for use through an auction later this year and the government is about to decide who will have access to the spectrum.The Big Three providers are sitting on more than enough spectrum to do deliver their services to Canadians (including those in rural areas). They want the government to take a do nothing approach and allow the Big hree to control essential spectrum and shut out independent competitors. You can also check out CTV News coverage of this issue here.
Lemay Yates recently released a report, bought and paid for by Rogers, that suggests Canadians have better Internet speed, availability and pricing than our global counterparts. But this research directly contradicts many other independent reports (from the OECD, Harvard, the New America Foundation, Akamai, and more) that show Canada falling woefully behind on key metrics like price and speed.
According to the Vancouver Sun: “Rogers Communications Inc. is asking an Ontario court to strike down part of a federal law requiring a company to have ‘adequate and proper’ tests of a product’s performance before advertising claims about the product — on the grounds that it violates its freedom of expression.”
OpenMedia.ca is a non-profit organization that relies on donations from people like you to operate. Our small but dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way to make your voice heard. Please donate today.
