The US governement does not need due process
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tracyanne Jan 21, 2012 6:28 PM EDT |
when it acts on behalf of the (Corporate) copyright owners. It also does not need SOPA, or PIPA. Regardless of the ethics or legality of "piracy", or even if Megauploads engages in "piracy" the US government can, and obviously will shut down websites, without due process, merely upon an accusation. The owners of Megauploads must now work to prove themselves innocent, rather than the US government prove them Guilty. Quoting:Whether intended or not, the message is unmistakable: Congratulations, citizens, on your cute little “democracy” victory in denying us the power to shut down websites without a trial: we’re now going to shut down one of your most popular websites without a trial. It may, at this time, be a long bow to draw, if one wants to compare the US to NAZI Germany, but the comaprisons between China and the US are clear. There is now little difference. The Government has both the power and the will to do virtually anything it wants. Is that not the conditions upon which a Police state thrives,? |
| caitlyn Jan 21, 2012 7:14 PM EDT |
If you really think the U.S. is like Nazi Germany then there is no hope for you. Where is the U.S. committing genocide? Hate to tell you this, but an indictment has been enough to seize material related to the alleged crime in the U.S. from the start. The same is true in the U.K. Are they Nazis too? How about the French, who have similar laws? Nazis too? How about New Zealand, who worked hand-in-hand with the FBI on this case? The U.S. isn't a police state except in the mind of ultra-liberals who have never experienced a police state. I have, in the course of my work in my life, traveled to and done business in places like Suharto's Indonesia and Mubarak's Egypt. When you land in Taiwan you are warned as you enter the airport that if you have drugs, even the most minute quantity, on your person or in your baggage, you will be executed. Period, end of discussion. Finding the drugs is all they need. Oh, and those military people with machine guns in the Taipei airport are oh so welcoming, aren't they? That is what a police state looks like. I am sick and tired of your trivializing of the Holocaust. Stop being an insensitive clod and think about the fact that you are unlikely to get people to agree with you by being intentionally offensive at every turn. |
| Khamul Jan 21, 2012 7:19 PM EDT |
[editor: removed for TOS violation] There's nothing wrong with drawing parallels and looking for similarities. |
| tracyanne Jan 21, 2012 7:36 PM EDT |
The US government agency has been very cunning, they have charged Mega Uploads with a crime, so they can do this. see http://usdoj.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/. Megauploads may only have the same number of "illegal" copyrighted material, as YouTube, scattered among all their other legal materials, but to ensure that the site can be taken down under seizure laws, they have been charged with racketaeering and money laundering, both of which are crimes. |
| albinard Jan 21, 2012 7:55 PM EDT |
TA, you could have shortened the first couple of lines of your post to read: The US governement does not need due process when it acts on behalf of its (Corporate) owners. |
| tracyanne Jan 21, 2012 8:29 PM EDT |
point taken albinard |
| tuxchick Jan 21, 2012 9:21 PM EDT |
FWIW, here is more on Megaupload on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload |
| tuxchick Jan 21, 2012 9:24 PM EDT |
Christian Science Monitor: If feds can bust Megaupload, why bother with anti-piracy bills? http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0121/If-feds-can-bust-Mega... Quoting: "Advocates of the legislation have always said that piracy was costing America billions in jobs and endangering jobs," writes Mr. Popper. "Stronger laws were needed, they argued, even if they might pose risks of censorship, chill investment in tech and damage the fundamental architecture of the internet. But the DOJ was able to rely on ProIP, a law passed back in 2008, in order to shut down Megaupload." |
| djohnston Jan 21, 2012 10:50 PM EDT |
Quoting:The U.S. isn't a police state except in the mind of ultra-liberals who have never experienced a police state. Well, I'm about as far away from liberalism as one can get. But, I see the Fascist parallels between Nazi Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and the United States today. Yes, I am a U.S. citizen. I was born a bit after World War II ended, so I cannot speak from a first hand point of view. But, I can read history. And the historical parallels are scary. No, I have not been confined to this country my entire life. Name a country in eastern Asia or an island group or archipelago in the western Pacific, and the chances are that I've been there. And, it wasn't in a tourist group, if you know what I mean. Quoting:When you land in Taiwan you are warned as you enter the airport that if you have drugs, even the most minute quantity, on your person or in your baggage, you will be executed. Singapore, too. Been there, done that. The Phillipines had the death penalty under Marcos. Can't speak for the Taipei airport, but I'm sure that Kaohsiung's is about the same. Quoting:I am sick and tired of your trivializing of the Holocaust. Didn't see that one coming. I have read tracyanne's comment four times now. Nowhere do I see a mention of the Holocaust. |
| tracyanne Jan 22, 2012 2:19 AM EDT |
By the way. If you do a search for Megauploads you will find a link that takes you to a page that displays the following message.Quoting:WE DON'T HAVE ANY DOMAIN NAME FOR NOW It's highly likely they will have worked around the US sezure of their domain in little time at all, and like the website that actually proclaims itself a pirate, and actually goes out of it's way to facilitate the "piracy" of copyrighted material (Pirate Bay), will be up and running again in short order. |
| helios Jan 22, 2012 3:12 AM EDT |
That link will not connect from my terminal. |
| tracyanne Jan 22, 2012 3:30 AM EDT |
Interesting. It's a simple page with twitter and facebook links, even the embedded java script comes from twitter and facebook, and is included in the copy pasted code from those two sites. There's nothing special about the page at all. |
| helios Jan 22, 2012 4:50 AM EDT |
Yep...got it this time. Last time got timeout error. Just a marker for the page to come. |
| vainrveenr Jan 22, 2012 7:16 AM EDT |
Quoting:If you really think the U.S. is like Nazi Germany then there is no hope for you. Where is the U.S. committing genocide? Hate to tell you this, but an indictment has been enough to seize material related to the alleged crime in the U.S. from the start. The same is true in the U.K. Are they Nazis too? How about the French, who have similar laws? Nazis too? How about New Zealand, who worked hand-in-hand with the FBI on this case? The U.S. isn't a police state except in the mind of ultra-liberals who have never experienced a police state.OTOH, there are some in the U.S. academic community who have quite vociferously and distinctly pointed out verisimilitudes between the U.S. and Nazi Germany. One such key academician is the renown Dr. Naomi Wolf ("ultra-liberal"??), who less than a handful of years came out with her poignant ten-point treatise 'The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot'. Here is an inordinately relevant quote from the Amazon.com book review of this Winner of the 2008 NAUTILUS SILVER AWARD in the category of Social Change/Activism : Quoting:In a stunning indictment of the Bush administration and Congress, best-selling author Naomi Wolf lays out her case for saving American democracy. In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th century's worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile.(source: http://www.amazon.com/End-America-Letter-Warning-Patriot/dp/1933392797 ) Here are an admittedly-few online resources which might best review and/or explain the ten tenets Wolf brings in her book: - Amazon.com's Customer Reviews: 'The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot' found at http://www.amazon.com/End-America-Letter-Warning-Patriot/product-reviews/1933392797 - Google Books review found at http://books.google.com/books/about/The_end_of_America.html?id=GEcwAQAAIAAJ - 'Fascist America, in 10 easy steps' found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment - A YouTube video viewed over a million times; 'Talk by Naomi Wolf author of "The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot" given October 11, 2007 at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus', found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc - A downloadable PDF of 'The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot', found at http://media.portland.indymedia.org/media/2008/10/381133.pdf --- Whether or not ALL TEN tenets remain applicable under the U.S.'s current Obama Administration, Wolf distinctly makes a comparison between the U.S. and Nazi Germany and does manage to assert that there IS INDEED "hope for you" and hope for other concerned U.S. Citizens, in her 2007 book. Therefore, Wolf's 'The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot' STILL makes a good read for many, especially given the news of the U.S.'s extradition process for the Megaupload seizure. |
| theBeez Jan 22, 2012 7:52 AM EDT |
Well, if you cry "Nazi Germany", people are standing on their chairs, while when you connect Mao Tze Tung to mass murder, the same people say "What?". The whole point is the definition. Guns on airports are dramatic, but not quite the essence of a police state. Capital punishment for smuggling drugs may be dramatic, but not quite the essence of a police state. But detaining people without a trail is plain evil outside war time situations - that is: case of emergency. Parliament is another thing as well, if only most major communist dictatorships hadn't had an *elected* parliament (strange, but true) even with *different* parties (although with fixed numbers in parliament). However, nowadays is is impossible for an ordinary man in the US to grab any seat in any body without very substantial funding. The truth is rather more complex than a simple statement like "The US is a police state", while the REAL question is what do you want the US to be as a country? Do you condone detention without a trail? Does your representative condone that? Is it just words or does he have a real track record? And much more important: how many people do really care? |
| gus3 Jan 22, 2012 8:04 AM EDT |
I'll dip my pinkie toe in it and simply say: Part I of Frank Capra's "Why We Fight." And think very carefully about what you see. |
| theBeez Jan 22, 2012 9:35 AM EDT |
@gus3 After all these years some people still appeal to my amazement to something that was designed to simply evoke emotions and make you stop asking the right questions. |
| gus3 Jan 22, 2012 1:36 PM EDT |
@Beez, that's why I added that last sentence. |
| Khamul Jan 22, 2012 3:41 PM EDT |
Maybe I'm missing something, but the one big difference I see between the Nazis and other similar situations, and the US today, is that the bad guys seizing power don't seem to be a small group like that, with a charismatic leader. In our case, it's more like a large, vague, cabal of various corporate and other moneyed interests; maybe that's why all the changes seem to be moving slower, because they don't have a single nefarious agenda, but several agendas that conflict at times. There was a fairly silly movie back in the 80s that seemed to accurately predict a lot of things going on now, called "The Running Man" with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's worth watching again if you haven't seen it lately. |
| cgagnon Jan 22, 2012 4:02 PM EDT |
I think we (the US) will become an Idiocracy before things get better http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ I say that some what tongue in cheek but it sure seems we're headed in that direction. |
| DrGeoffrey Jan 22, 2012 5:19 PM EDT |
@cgagnon - Will? |
| BernardSwiss Jan 22, 2012 9:36 PM EDT |
Fascist, Stalinist, whatever you want to call it, the trend -- and the problem -- is real, and getting worse, as Naomi Wolf's work -- and experience -- does point out rather clearly to any who bother to actually look. Just a couple of recent news articles: - - - - - - - - - - Occupy Wall St: Naomi Wolf condemns 'Stalinist' erosion of protest rights Author was arrested alongside Occupy Wall Street protesters after she disputed police claims that they had to clear sidewalk http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/19/naomi-wolf-occup... Naomi Wolf: how I was arrested at Occupy Wall Street Arresting a middle-aged writer in an evening gown for peaceable conduct is a far cry from when America was a free republic http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/... - - - - - - - - - - I don't particularly care for the woman, but she makes a solid argument that the USA is becoming rather totalitarian, and definitely not conforming to the relevant constitutional principles. |
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