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OH, HELL NO.
Topic Started: Aug 29 2009, 02:59 PM (205 Views)
Gwen
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I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed.
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http://gizmodo.com/5348063/bill-would-give-the-president-control-of-the-internet-during-a-cybersecurity-emergency


NO


No way. uh uh. Fuck this. If this passes, I'm moving to Canada.
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Matto
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a epic comment from that page
 
WHAT TWO OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS:

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
-Thomas Jefferson

"Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival."
-Thomas Jefferson

"The daily advance of science will enable [the existing generation] to administer the commonwealth with increased wisdom." --Thomas Jefferson

"Every nation is liable to be under whatever bubble, design, or delusion may puff up in moments when off their guard." --Thomas Jefferson

"[It is] the people, to whom all authority belongs." --Thomas Jefferson

"The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to." --Thomas Jefferson

"Government being founded on opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson

"Opinions... constitute, indeed, moral facts, as important as physical ones to the attention of the public functionary." --Thomas Jefferson

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them." --Thomas Jefferson

In closing...

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin
Edited by Matto, Aug 29 2009, 03:02 PM.
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Gwen
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I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed.
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Exactly.
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Virgil
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Quote:
 
Look, I tried being civil, and even now, try not to take offense, but really, are you all paranoid idiots?. Furthermore, did you read the article?

There seem to be a few main misconceptions surrounding this bill that have many of you with you panties in a bunch. Let's go through them.

The first is that Obama himself introduced this idea and is requesting this power. There is nothing in this article that in any way indicates that he is involved with this, or even supports this. In fact, the only time he is referenced is in the picture. From this article alone, there is no basis (other than your own paranoia) to say Obama is trying to consolidate power in the Executive Branch or turn the country into scene out of 1984.

The second is that by passing this bill the president will be able to pull the plug on your internet access any time he/she wants to, thereby infringing on your Fist Amendment right to freedom of speech. Another is that this bill grants the Executive Branch the power to spy on your online activities. Again, had you read the article you would have noticed that these are not true. Your blog (unless you for some reason are posting US military secrets) is not "critical" private network, and is not in any way important to the security of the country, and as such it will not come under government control or scrutiny under this bill (although I'm sure it's a very interesting blog). Do not worry about your freedoms of speech, had Obama cared so much about people speaking out against him, he would have censored Fox News a long time ago, just as Bush would have censored, well, pretty much every major media outlet except Fox by the end of his terms.

The third, which is related to the second, is that this bill gives the president complete control over the internet, it's users, and it's information. Again, as those who read the article pointed out, this is not true. This bill proposes giving the president temporary, emergency control over select private servers in the case of an attack, similar to how the government can take emergency control of airports, TV stations, roads, cities, borders, etc., during a national security emergency (for example, the airports were closed for a week after 9/11). These are servers with information that is not government information but is deemed important to national security. Good examples would be data stored on the servers of defense contractors, financial institutions, companies who do government-sanctioned business in Iraq, or any other websites without a .gov at the end but still containing information potentially harmful in the hands of a hostile nation or group. It will not allow the president to deny you access to Gizmodo, /b/, RedTube, etc., and I honestly don't think that the government cares about restrictign your ability to post LOLcats on Facebook.

So I hope this clears a few things up. Please, stop saying Obama is "giving himself more power". This bill is sponsored by a Senator, the president has not expressed any opinion either way, and it's a long way, a long shot, and a lot of rewrites off from being a law. It won't cut off your access to the internet, unless you're tying to hack into servers filled with information pertinent to the security of the country, in which case I hope they do cut off your internet. It also won't let the government censor you or deny you access to certain websites because you disagree with them, as Twitter and YouTube tend to not be places for the storage of next-gen missile guidance systems. I'm not saying I support everything this bill entails, i still think it need a lot of clarification and specification, but generally I think it's a good idea for National Security measure in the 21st century.


I agree with what the person above just said. I mean seriously, the paranoia has got to stop. This is essentially going back to the Republican fear tactic of "pulling the plug on grandma". Seriously, if Obama really gives a fuck about your privacy or cares to invade it, he would have shut down Twitter during the Iranian Election and shut down Fox, Lou Dobbs, and Rush Limbaugh's radio talk show. This is no worst than what the government has been doing for the past, oh I don't know, hundred year? Hell, the USA Patriot Act passed in 2001 was worst than this.
Edited by Virgil, Aug 29 2009, 03:28 PM.

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Gwen
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I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed.
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Obviously it's not PARANOIAOMFGKILLIT bad. But as a gene4ral rule of thumb, I don't find it in ANY case, acceptable to censor the internet. and even if that's how the bill was meant to be used, we've seen multiple times how certain people *CoughBUSHcoughCHENEYCoughInsaneRightWingers* manipulate situations to their advantage and take laws and bills out of context to support their own agendas.

As crucial as net access has become to our society, government censorship on any part of it, in any situation, to our own people is not acceptable.
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Virgil
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I don't agree with the Benjamin Franklin's quote all that much. Benjamin Franklin made that quote during a period after the Revolutionary War and people were still weary of big government. He's right in the respect that we should protect our liberty, but a balance must be struck between liberty and security. It's like how those gun nuts brought their AK-47s and M16s to Obama's rally. It's illegal to bring guns within a certain feet of the president, but those people did it any way because the second amendment and state laws said they could. I don't agree with the way Bush and Cheney handled our nation's security in the aftermath of 9/11 because they overreacted; spying on people, arresting you if you overstayed your visa for one day, torturing, almost dispatching the army to arrest one suspected terrorist sympathizer (which would be historic because the military hasn't been dispatched to handle criminal or federal offense in almost 100 years and laws even prohibit it), to say a few. Besides, it's not like Obama is censoring everyone, he doesn't even have an opinion on this. The senate passed it, not him. Obama has a limit and temporary power to cut off internet connection to essential sites deemed essential for national security. I doubt Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter would be government servera holding blueprints for a humanoid power suit, skynet, or some shit. People don't seem to argue much when the USA Patriot Act was passed, why would they complain now?

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Gwen
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I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed.
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I complained as soon as I knew about the patriot act, and I'm complaining now. the patriot act was anything but patriotic, and this is just asking for trouble in the future. It shouldn't have been passed, because all it does is leave an opening to be abused and misconstrued by authoritarians who would sooner blind you and hold us back because they don't understand or care about the subject matters they fight against.

It's useless anyway, because the courts could issue a warning to the sites or our ISP's in a time of crises telling them, one way or another, to cut us off from whatever they don't want people seeing. All this bill will do is make it easier to abuse their positions in the future, should they need or want to.


As for the Franklin quote; The security they use now only causes things to be muddled and over complicated. The "security": doesn't do anything but cause problems. If someone wanted a gun, knives, bombs, etc, on a plane, they could get it on easily. Same with RFID chips in passports, and all these other "security" measures. They're all easily gotten around. the fact is, our joke of national security doesn't work, and it's just in place to make us feel safe, when it really does nothing. The entire DoNS is a joke.


The fact remains, we're wasting good money on this "security", that could go to better things. Franklin's quote still holds true. If you trade your liberty for security, you'll get nothing but an Orwellian government.
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Eka
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"I'm a monster; on the inside as well."
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... Wow.
Yes, come to Canadaland. =D XDD
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