Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems 289
oxide7 (1013325) writes "In June 2011, Julian Assange received an unusual visitor: the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt. They outlined radically opposing perspectives: for Assange, the liberating power of the Internet is based on its freedom and statelessness. For Schmidt, emancipation is at one with U.S. foreign policy objectives and is driven by connecting non-Western countries to Western companies and markets. These differences embodied a tug-of-war over the Internet's future that has only gathered force subsequently. Assange describes his encounter with Schmidt and how he came to conclude that it was far from an innocent exchange of views."
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Says... (Score:2)
>> the liberating power of the Internet is based on its freedom and statelessness
"In 1995!" says Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
(Seriously, where do you begin. Server logs, cookies, magic URLs, IP lookups, etc.)
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>> the liberating power of the Internet is based on its freedom and statelessness
"In 1995!" says Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
(Seriously, where do you begin. Server logs, cookies, magic URLs, IP lookups, etc.)
You beat me to it - but my concise reply was going to be...
" the liberating power of the Internet "
Citation needed.
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" the liberating power of the Internet "
Citation needed.
When I first found out the internet was going to be available to the public I said to myself, "The Man has made a serious mistake." (That's how I talked in those days.) I was excited that soon I'd be able to make friends with people in all those countries I'd been hearing about on shortwave stations like the BBC, Radio Nederland, Havana, etc., without any government propaganda nor media filter at all. Actual real people sharing truths with each other. This will bring people together like never before, I pre
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>> He is not talking about "stateless" in the sense of functional programming languages that don't support variables and other forms of mutable state.
Neither was I. http://stackoverflow.com/quest... [stackoverflow.com]
TFA is for me to poop on.
Goolge is helping... (Score:5, Interesting)
... compiling dossiers on everyone. Since in order to use the internet you need to use a search engine, a good idea is to look at you chrome browser history and note the title, time, where you visited, is there, then combine this with analytics and cookies (machine identification) remember this is the kind of shit and more they got behind closed doors. This will be used to pro-actively deny employment to people and 'screen' people for their political views/sites/news they visit/any health problems/etc. i.e. it allows corporations unprecedented insight into the flaws of our evolved nervous system and minds. We are not "free" in any way or form our minds were shaped by evolution and they have a lot of problems reasoning or perceiving reality, if in doubt see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
They are trying to map political dissident to pre-emptively strike against political change using science and big data they are fervently trying to figure out how to regain their control, since they know media's days are numbered with newer generations. So they are learning techniques in controlling populations and manipulating public opinion on social media, to socially engineer how people think, etc. The reality is america has been the greatest success in propaganda in human history, most americans were hyper capitalist, virulently anti-communist for the last few decades and the upper class would like the working classes to keep voting against their own interests to keep their ill gotten wealth. So if you vote for D&R you are one of the illusioned and the elites aren't worried about you at all because you are politically illiterate just like they want. They want you all to vote democrats and republicans so as not to rock the boat. They don't want political change to manifest outside the political system (aka threat to corporate power).
This (mass surveillance) is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Look at the following graphs:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa... [ucsc.edu]
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa... [ucsc.edu]
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesa... [ucsc.edu]
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-I... [amazon.com]
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Chr
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> f Google locks the information up and refuses to share,
They don't "refuse to share". They sell it in various ways, it's absolutely critical to their income.
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Your statement would be true if the information was dumped to the public, but completely false if the information was provided to a Government for the purposes of squashing dissent. The latter is the concern, not the former.
Surely you could recover if someone leaked an unfortunate browsing habit of yours. It would take some time to blow over, and of course you would be embarrassed.
On the other hand, if you had knowledge or beliefs that run counter to an administration and could be targeted with say.. plan
Lend me your neurons (Score:2)
http://www.baidu.com/ [baidu.com]
Re:Goolge is helping... (Score:5, Insightful)
... hmm. It occurs to me that the GP can be completely wrong about there being some grand conspiracy and yet still accurately describe/predict what happens.
Enough people, acting independently towards coincidentally similar goals, can look remarkably like a conspiracy from the outside.
And unfortunately cause the same problems.
Best to amend the system so that the effect is prevented/fixed regardless of the cause.
Re:Goolge is helping... (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't even require knowledge by any party of another's existence, much less collusion, just the aggregation of a large number of privileged parties acting entirely in their own interest.
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The "elites" have the best education money can buy, they have the best advisers money can buy, and the free time to research what ever they need because they don't have to work 40-60 hours a week to make ends meet.
Given that little bit of information let me ask who exactly is not that smart. You or them? Just to drive the point home, lets play along with a few more questions.
How many people would an elite group have to control in order to really run the country? They don't need to control each person ind
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Google is not Google (Score:3)
Maybe someone needs to explain to Assange that Google is a large, for-profit US corporation with access to huge amounts of data. Most people can figure out the rest of it from there.
Seriously, I tried reading the article (but I couldn't finish it) and I don't know what Assange thinks Google is, unless he's been deceived by the way the US government and the private sector pretend to be adversaries.
I read the article and... (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you into having a life of freedom? Then start giving credit to all of those thoughts that you have about quitting that shitty job that you hate, and/or makin
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The first part rambles and it seems like he isn't going to tell us anything then it winds into commentary that is spot on. I fear Google, but even I can't envision how the public perception will ever swing far enough negative to stop them. Google is a stranger with candy, sure it's free, but it pays to question the motives.
----
"By all appearances, Google's bosses genuinely believe in the civilizing power of enlightened multinational corporations, and they see this mission as continuous with the shaping of t
His main points (Score:5, Informative)
1) Eric Schmidt is getting involved in politics, and is becoming influential.
2) Google doesn't always follow "do no evil" but fanboys love Google anyway
3) Google is getting involved in government more than is healthy.
He has some other rambles about the Bilderbergs, and how the governments are secretly controlling world events, but his main points seam reasonable enough.
Re:His main points (Score:5, Interesting)
His main point is that we should more cautious of Google than we currently are. This is based on the idea that every company, after a certain point, will begin manipulating the government for continued dominance and the ability to expand to new markets, Google being no exception. He backs this assertion using Eric Schmidt's close ties to Washington which is a bit shaky, but the premise is historically accurate.
He occasionally goes into a bit too much hyperbole and too deep rhetoric, but some of the links between Google and the U.S. government he mentions to reinforce his point are unexpected and interesting nevertheless. For example, the fact that Google was supplying the NSA with search technology to sift through the collected data is news to me, and a bit alarming at that. That they're collaborating technologically with the shadier parts of the U.S. government in search, and others like maps, is not surprising, but still a little disappointing.
The big thing that's not mentioned in the piece is Google sharing the data they've collected using their consumer-facing products with the U.S. government. Now that would be a bombshell. That's not the assertion here, but Assange does drop hints that even if it's not happening currently, it's bound to happen soon enough.
In any case, I think we should be wary of Google, both because of the power they wield over information on the internet, and because they continue to insist they are doing "no evil." Unlike Assange though, in the same way that George Washington set a precedent by stepping down after two terms as President (he could very well have crowned himself if he wanted), I'm waiting to see if Larry Page's Google will set a precedent before I pass final judgment on Google's corporate existence. But that doesn't mean I won't continue to be suspicious of Google's activities in the meantime either.
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in the same way that George Washington set a precedent by stepping down after two terms as President (he could very well have crowned himself if he wanted), I'm waiting to see if Larry Page's Google will set a precedent before I pass final judgment on Google's corporate existence
What kind of precedent are you hoping Larry Page will set?
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Not sure, but when it happens we'll all know a precedent has been set. It may have already happened, and we just don't know about it yet. In fact, we won't until another whistleblower comes forward with the information, or a court ruling makes information public.
I think it's unlikely though. The biggest roadblock is the government itself. Remember Qwest [wikipedia.org] and their CEO Joseph Nacchio? Doing the right thing, doing the ethical thing, is literally dangerous to people's health and freedom. I'm certain Page and ot
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This all might sound like something that would come out of a conspiracy nut, but time and again these past two decades, the conspiracy nuts have been proven right.
To avoid being a 'nut', base your opinions on evidence. That way you will be right more often than a stopped clock (which is right two times a day).
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Wrong on all accounts! (Score:2)
Eric Schmidt was born in Washington, D.C., where his father had worked as a professor and economist for the Nixon Treasury.
In 1979, Schmidt headed out West to Berkeley, where he received his Ph.D. before joining Stanford/ Berkeley spin-off Sun Microsystems in 1983.
Sun had significant contracts with the U.S. government, but it was not until he was in Utah as CEO of Novell that records show Schmidt strategically engaging Washington’s overt political class. Federal campaign finance records show that on January 6, 1999, Schmidt donated two lots of $1,000 to the Republican senator for Utah, Orrin Hatch. On the same day Schmidt’s wife, Wendy, is also listed giving two lots of $1,000 to Senator Hatch.
By the start of 2001, over a dozen other politicians and PACs, including Al Gore, George W. Bush, Dianne Feinstein, and Hillary Clinton, were on the Schmidts’ payroll, in one case for $100,000.
This shows a bit more than "getting involved in politics".
As for item 2 and 3, a large portion of the article is describing Google's "Think/Do Tank" which operates way beyond "do no evil". The groups has potential involvement in numerous nefarious activities, and numerous connections to the US State Department and other US Officials.
Your last statement is a complete farce, and I'd suggest reading the article and actually studying what the Bilderberg conference is about, as opposed to the blanket dismissal
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Your last statement is a complete farce, and I'd suggest reading the article and actually studying what the Bilderberg conference is about, as opposed to the blanket dismissal without evidence.
The Bilderberg conference is almost a shibboleth for people who think reading naturenews or similar counts as research.
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So the Journalists Jim Tucker, Jon Ronson, and Daniel Estulin all worked for naturenews?
Maybe not them, but you sound like someone who reads it.
A fool is right one time, and then thinks all his other crazy ideas must be correct. Whether that applies to you, is for you to judge.
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Since you lack the knowledge you are obviously in no position to ask those questions or make those insinuations. If you would have taken an alternative approach and asked for sources of the knowledge, I would have provided the same information. I still don't get the feeling that you want the knowledge, but rather you wish to make believe that you have it.
Living in make believe is not necessarily a bad thing, assuming you maintained your fantasy in private. In public where it can dupe others into a false
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Since you lack the knowledge
Right, so what other fantasies do you have? Do you know about the black helicopters? What about the pyramid on the dollar bill? Is the government hiding alien technology? What do you think?
One more thing (Score:2)
By 2013, Eric Schmidt—who had become publicly over-associated with the Obama White House—was more politic. Eight Republicans and eight Democrats were directly funded, as were two PACs. That April, $32,300 went to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. A month later the same amount, $32,300, headed off to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Why Schmidt was donating exactly the same amount of money to both parties is a $64,600 question.
Well, I don't believe this is a question at all. This demonstrates very well what people have been saying for years. The R and D candidates are merely props put up by the same "elites" so that people get the illusion that they are really voting for something. I'm guessing that Schmidt was more sloppy than the better players making it this easy to see, and that is usually related to ego.
Summary (Score:2, Redundant)
Powerful people associate with powerful people, including the government. Don't trust them.
*yawn*
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*LOL* The whole damned article is redundant!
Here's the TL/DR (Score:2)
Favorite line (Score:2)
"Whatever makes Google a âoekey member of the Defense Industrial Base,â it is not recruitment campaigns pushed out through Google AdWords or soldiers checking their Gmail."
Fishy Google Ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
But what Assange lists about Google Ideas is disturbing.
And when I look at the Google Ideas website, it seems to be a very valid point. And even more disturbing.
Yet I do believe he thinks the CEO of Google has more power than he has in reality. And I might be naive. But, seriously, they should look better into what Jared Cohen is doing with the money of Google, there certainly is something fishy about this guy, his connection and interpretation of 'do no evil', thanks to Assange for pointing that out!
The Internet is our best weapon (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget the internet was invented by DARPA. Just like missiles and nukes and subs and carriers, the internet is a weapon. It is slow, but very sure to penetrate and destroy dictatorships and repressive governments worldwide. It's slow enough to say that we just deployed it recently. Even so, a number of governments have already fallen or been pressured by it; we see repressive regimes like China throwing all kinds of defenses up against it. I don't see how even China can stand against it for very long.
Assange gets this, at least on some level. That would mean America wins, and he sees America as the enemy. Oh well, suck it Assange. The business of America is business. The only real way to do business, is when people are free, and can spend their money on stuff they want. That's us winning. (Not to excuse our recent spate on NSA abuses; they are going to always try to do that, and it's up to us voters to keep them in check.)
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| It is slow, but very sure to penetrate and destroy dictatorships and repressive governments worldwide.
Indeed, as a political tool, the largest success has been when very successfully deployed by ultra-fundamentalists to destroy dictatorships and repressive governments for the benefit of totalitarian religious repression and atrocity.
Other than that, has there been any political outcome successful by the values of Western states? I am unaware of any.
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"ultra-fundamentalists" & "totalitarian religious repression and atrocity"
You're going to have to be more specific. You mean ISIS? Yeah, the internet is like that; actual information for it's own sake, that is free to everyone, even ISIS's information. But if you're worried about the bad guys using the internet for their propaganda, don't. In that case, it's just speeding things up that had to happen in any case.
The internet brought down Mubarak and Qaddafi. Assad hangs on kind of powerless. We didn't d
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I don't remember guns bringing down Mubarak. It was big crowds of Egyptians using Twitter and Facebook and email.
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Even so, a number of governments have already fallen or been pressured by it; we see repressive regimes like China throwing all kinds of defenses up against it. I don't see how even China can stand against it for very long. Assange gets this, at least on some level. That would mean America wins
I don't think that follows. If a country ends up with a better government because of the internet, the citizens of that country win.
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Yes. That's us winning. Winning citizens buy things, and sell things, and trade, and hang out, and go on vacations.
That was our real goal the whole time. We're still the good guys.
Re:The Internet is our best weapon (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't forget the internet was invented by DARPA. Just like missiles and nukes and subs and carriers, the internet is a weapon. It is slow, but very sure to penetrate and destroy dictatorships and repressive governments worldwide. It's slow enough to say that we just deployed it recently. Even so, a number of governments have already fallen or been pressured by it; we see repressive regimes like China throwing all kinds of defenses up against it. I don't see how even China can stand against it for very long.
Assange gets this, at least on some level.
Assange gets this more than you know. A lot of what you've said about the internet could also be said of WikiLeaks. Just like missiles and nukes and subs and carriers, WikiLeaks is a weapon. It is slow, but very sure to penetrate and destroy dictatorships and repressive governments worldwide. It's slow enough to say that we just deployed it recently. Even so, a number of governments have already fallen or been pressured by it; we see repressive regimes like China throwing all kinds of defenses up against it. I don't see how even China can stand against it for very long.
That would mean America wins, and he sees America as the enemy. Oh well, suck it Assange. The business of America is business. The only real way to do business, is when people are free, and can spend their money on stuff they want. That's us winning.
No, when people are free, that can be us losing in some cases. If the Saudi family loses power, that's us losing. If Iran or Venezuela are allowed to sell their own oil to whomever they like. Again, that's us losing. And that's really the main problem of either the internet or wikileaks. Either of those tools are indiscriminate in the repressive governments they can pressure, and even take down.
You speak of free choice, the free market, and freedom, but that's really what WikiLeaks was originally all about. Knowing which government officials are corrupt protects the integrity of the free market. Knowing what our government does abroad with the military helps us make better informed decisions. It's all very simple really. Knowing that a politician's actions could be exposed to the people who voted him in is really one of the best ways of keeping that politician relatively honest. The same goes for dictators to some degree. After all, even if people can't vote someone out, they can still throw someone out (assuming, they have a big enough crowd behind them and their outrage is big enough).
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Nothing to disagree with there. The Sauds will eventually fall or reform under the relentless pressure. Honestly, I wish we'd get the hell off Iran's back a bit; I'd give them anything they want, including respect, which is what they want most of all, if they agreed to leave Israel alone.
But to your point, the internet can't just be aimed and fired. WikiLeaks hit us, but I'd say it was more of a graze. It turns out that most of our government are honest and hardworking, so the weapon of truth didn't hurt us
And this ... (Score:3)
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What sentence? The only crime he is in the frame for is one of rape in Sweden and he hasn't even been charged with that yet, much less tried and sentenced.
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Re:Oh yeah, that guy (Score:5, Interesting)
Well if you'd been holed-up in a small room for years under the threat of extradition (ulitmately) to some US holiday camp where waterboarding is considered a social activity, wouldn't your outlooks and perceptions have been somewhat altered by the experience?
Let's not forget that Assange, through his Wikileaks disclosures, has done a hell of a lot to wake the people of the world up to the nastiness of those who forget they are in the public service and instead believe they are rulers and demigods by right.
While Assange is open to criticism on many fronts, never forget that he *has* done a lot to help preserve what few freedoms we still have.
I more strongly criticise those who see the wrongs that have been done and do nothing to right them. That's the *vast* majority of the great unwashed out there.
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I'm still lost on why Sweden, of all places, is more likely to deport Assange to the US than England is.
I mean fuck, The Pirate Bay, which is by far the worst enemy of the Hollywood owned US Government, has safe harbor there in many respects. Meanwhile England goes out of its way to block access to that site because, among other things, it offends the US Government.
Julian Assange is the internet equivalent of Kevin Trudeau. Both of them have their followers convinced that they are just innocent victims of t
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He's not in England. He's in Ecuador. The embassy is their sovereign soil, by international treaty. If the English police set foot in there to deport him to Sweden (as they would do if he left), that's an invastion of their territory.
Re:Oh yeah, that guy (Score:5, Informative)
He's not in England. He's in Ecuador.
No he isn't. He is in the Ecuadorian embassy, in London, England.
The embassy is their sovereign soil, by international treaty.
No it isn't.
Contrary to popular belief, diplomatic missions do not enjoy full extraterritorial status and are not sovereign territory of the represented state. [wikipedia.org]
If the English police set foot in there to deport him to Sweden (as they would do if he left), that's an invastion of their territory.
No it isn't.
It would break a very important international treaty [wikipedia.org] though, and likely
lead to lots of diplomatic problems.
Re:Oh yeah, that guy (Score:5, Insightful)
No shit shirlock. But why do you think he's hiding there? Avoiding extradition to the US has nothing to do with it.
Avoiding extradition to the US has everything to do with Assange hiding in the Ecuador embassy. Swedish prisons aren't the hell holes in the US or Australia. Even if Assange had an irrational fear of being labelled a sex offender felon, it would not outweigh the price he is paying being holed up in the Ecuador embassy.
Its all about not going to a country that will extradite him to the US over a trumped up security issue. Assange does not have the legal rights an American citizen has. He can be put into Guantanamo, or any other black ops prison, because the US does not respect universal notions of due process. If the US did, Guantanamo couldn't exist.
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Avoiding extradition to the US has everything to do with Assange hiding in the Ecuador embassy.
Ok before you go any further, consider that both Swedish AND international law have both long established that in order for Sweden to extradite him to the US, the UK government at this point also has to approve of it.
Also consider this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2... [theregister.co.uk]
And furthermore, if this is all about freedom of the press, then why the fuck is he seeking assylum from a country that has a terrible track record of it?
http://en.rsf.org/ecuador.html [rsf.org]
Re: Oh yeah, that guy (Score:2)
He would be more comfortable if the permission of the Ecuador govt. is also required, like it is right now. I doubt he wants to rely on the UK not granting permission
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Avoiding extradition to the US has nothing to do with it.
Say what? The UK will not extradite anyone to a country where they have a reasonable chance of receiving the death penalty, Sweden has no such qualms. When the UK decided to extradite him to Sweden he moved into the Ecuador embassy to prevent that happening.
Re:Oh yeah, that guy (Score:4, Insightful)
If Assange was in British custody and the USA made an extradition request, he would be extradited unless the crime that the USA wants to charge him with carries the death penalty. Even if there was a possibility of the death penalty, I expect we would extradite him if the Americans gave us an assurance that he won't be executed.
Note that the British did have Assange in custody for a bit and the USA made no attempt to extradite him. I don't think they have anything on him. Assange is currently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy because he thinks he might get convicted of rape.
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No shit shirlock.
Hard to take seriously someone who has never heard of Sherlock Holmes. What are you, eight years old?
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I'm still lost on why Sweden, of all places, is more likely to deport Assange to the US than England is.
Everyone is surprised by it, but
I mean fuck, The Pirate Bay, which is by far the worst enemy of the Hollywood owned US Government, has safe harbor there in many respects.
And the people behind it are serving their time in prison although the prosecutor claimed that they didn't break any Swedish laws just a month before they were arrested. The justice department got a mail from the US government that told them to deal with TPB and suddenly the violent inmates of a high security prison wonders what the fuck a little non-violent nerd is doing there.
There is also other incidents that shows that Sweden is handing over people to the US and bending o
Re:Oh yeah, that guy (Score:5, Informative)
I'm still lost on why Sweden, of all places, is more likely to deport Assange to the US than England is.
Why else are they going to such extraordinary lengths to obtain him? There are no charges, and Sweden refuses to question him in the UK.
The UK is spending millions of pounds on a case where even the allegations do not add up to anything that would be a crime in the UK.
If you think Assange has no cause for fear, read this:
In December 2001 Swedish police ... two Egyptians who had been seeking asylum in Sweden. The police took them to Bromma airport in Stockholm, and then stood aside as masked alleged CIA operatives cut their clothes from their bodies, inserted drugged suppositories in their anuses, and dressed them in diapers and overalls, handcuffed and chained them and put them on an executive jet with American registration N379P. They were flown to Egypt, where they were imprisoned, beaten, and tortured
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... [wikipedia.org]
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Why else are they going to such extraordinary lengths to obtain him? There are no charges, and Sweden refuses to question him in the UK.
The UK is spending millions of pounds on a case where even the allegations do not add up to anything that would be a crime in the UK.
Not this bullshit again - there doesn't have to be charges (the extradition judge explained why), Sweden doesn't have to question him in the UK (the extradition judge explained why) and the UK extradition judge already affirmed that all the extradition charges are indeed crimes in the UK. You people really need to read up on the situation you are trying to ridicule, because your standard lines make you look stupid.
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Sweden doesn't have to question him in the UK
You miss the point: Of course it is all legal. But Sweden could also easily question him in the UK if that was what they really wanted. (Plenty of precedent.)
Their stated motives makes no sense. Of course the whole thing is purely political. You'd have to be incredibly naive to believe the extradition is about sexual allegations from ex-lovers.
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I'm not missing the point - Sweden does not have to question him in the UK, that's their prerogative. And the extradition judge agrees with Sweden on this because it was one of Assanges defence teams points that he specifically rejected in their appeal.
The whole "question him in the UK" thing is nothing but a load of bollocks pro-Assange followers use to cloud the issue.
And I don't have to be naive at all - if the US wanted him, they could have had him from the UK much easier than from Sweden. So why the
Re:Oh yeah, that guy (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect Assange hasn't really done much these past year or so is because of Snowden's leaks. The leaks on NSA's illicit activities, and the U.S.'s response to them, have completely dwarfed every other whistleblowing discussion. At this point, more leaks would just be lost in the crowd.
It's also why Snowden's been fairly quiet too with only one or two revelations every so often. He's already got the ball rolling on discussions on government invasionof personal privacy, security audits, etc. People today are more aware of just how badly they've been violated by their government than ever. So long as that ball keeps rolling and doesn't stall, there's no need for him to give it a push.
Things are a shitshow anyway. Between Western Europe's fear or Putin despite their governments' reluctance to do anything about his land grabs, ISIS threatening to destabilize the Middle East, the ebola outbreak that will certainly affect everyone if it's not brought under control very soon, the riots in Hong Kong, and all the other usual stuff (drug cartels, extreme weather, etc.) there's strife in almost every part of the world. People really aren't going to be interested in what happens abroad if their own country is losing stability.
claimed threat (Score:2, Flamebait)
Under a claimed threat of extradition to the US.
There's no actual evidence of it and in fact extradition from Sweden is harder than from the UK.
Let's not forget that Assange is where he is by choice. He says he fears extradition to the US, but there's a lot of other possibilities too. He may just simply fear conviction.
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The only threat has been the implied threat he created. They are happy to let him imprison himself in the Ecuadoran embassy and know with absolute certainty at some point in the future the president of Ecuador will change and the new one will probably throw him out. Then he will get taken to Sweden and whatever charges will eventually be resolved and he'll proclaim widely that the reason the US didn't put him in Guantanamo bay is because he scared them out of it.
He's never going to be prosecuted or even arr
Re:Oh yeah, that guy (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Your assurances are meaningless.
2) Look at what happened to Kevin Mitnick. Because the American public had such a poor understanding of hacking and the level of threat posed by hacking, people though Mitnick had to be placed behind bars to keep America (corporations) safe. Because the American legal system is much more complex and byzantine than the simplified mythology propagated to its citizens, Kevin had to spend many years in a medium security jail before even going to trial, to optimize his chances of either beating the conviction, or reducing the maximum penalty. What actually happened was that the technology moved so fast, and the public's miniscule understanding of hacking was modified ("Why worry about some jerk that went on a computer joyride, when hackers are stealing American intellectual property and money from the safety of Russia or China"), it eventually became cost effective for the US DOJ to deescalate the witchhunt they were making over Mitnick.
The point being that as long as organizations exist to reveal information the US government prefers to conceal, the security apparatus of the US will treat those organizations as national security threats. This even sort of includes legitimate news organizations like the NY Times, UK Guardian, etc. They are captive to the US government. As long as they operate within the laws defined by the judicial branch, and "play ball", they aren't going to get the Assange treatment. No one like Assange or Snowden can assume they are beyond the reach or interest of the US government.
Good grief! (Score:3)
Before posting next time, at least glimpse at an article to know who Mitnick was. Then try not to confuse him with Aaron Schwartz, who is a totally separate person and circumstance.
Your opinion of all 3 of those people is exclusively based on a non-existent fantasy land.
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Really. I gave a short classroom lecture about Kevin Mitnick in one of my college classes. Back in 1997.
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If the US really wanted him they would have had him one way or another a long time ago. He was and still is nothing but a bag boy who tried to manage the release of information in a way that best supported his political agenda and self image. He attempted to replace the state press agencies with one more in line with his political agenda that had just as much right and wrong as the governments justifications. And water boarding is old school. I mean there is like 4 or 5 people that had to endure this proced
Re:Oh yeah, that guy (Score:5, Insightful)
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.
Seriously? I'm not sure you read the same thing I did. I especially found his attempts to understand his interviewers (in the opening paragraphs) to be unusually analytical and.....rational.
Certainly Assange holds different viewpoints than I do, but his points seemed more logic based than your post, for example.
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but his points seemed more logic based than your post, for example.
Not sure if you're aware, but the post you're referring to is actually a quote from an Adam Sandler movie.
Just to give you some idea of what you're trying to reason with.
When you are inside the box ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I am from China. Assange is from Australia. Those of us who are not from the United States of America tend to have an advantage over those who were born and raised inside America because we were not indoctrinated with the Pledge of Allegiance throughout our childhood (into the teen years) but the Americans do
That is why when Assange said
For a man of systematic intelligence, Schmidtâ(TM)s politicsâ"such as I could hear from our discussionâ"were surprisingly conventional, even banal
I have to agree
Schmidt, no matter how smart he is, chooses to remain inside the box, and as one who stays inside the box can't see how bad the system that governs America has turned into
America used to be the one who fight for liberty. That was why I left China and went to America decades ago. Now? America is as bad as China in term of the suppression of liberty
When you are inside the box ... (Score:3, Insightful)
You people in other countries are just as indoctrinated (on average; some are less and some more so, I imagine) as we are here in the States. You acting superior because you're from somewhere else is equivalent to an American acting superior because he's an American.
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That is the kind of defense we usually see from Russians. "Yes, our media is mostly propaganda, but so is yours."
Travel abroad, learn about different cultures, or at least, learn a different language and read their media and forums.
Have a look at what people who have visited your home country has to say about it. It will be an eye opener.
Re:When you are inside the box ... (Score:4, Funny)
Nothing is amusing in Russian.
Oh come on (Score:3)
No other environment was as absurd to facilitate creation of jokes as Soviet Russia.
--Coder
Re:When you are inside the box ... (Score:5, Interesting)
You acting superior because you're from somewhere else is equivalent to an American acting superior because he's an American.
It's not about acting superior, it's about being able to see the system with clarity.
People who work within a system for their whole lives adapt themselves to it, and either find workarounds for aspects that restrict them or learn to conform to the restrictions. If they don't, they don't thrive or sometimes even survive. Someone coming from outside, from a culture with different (though sometimes overlapping restrictions) will feel those constraints more strongly, as they haven't adapted so closely to them.
So for an Australian (like me or Assange), or a Chinese (like Taco), the American socio-political constraints are clearer, and the flaws more glaring, not because we're better, but because we've grown up outside them.
TLDR: Sometimes it's easier to see things from the outside.
Re:When you are inside the box ... (Score:4, Informative)
I've grown up in Europe and spent time in the US, Australia, China, and a bunch of other places, thinking about where I wanted to settle down. You're right, sometimes it's easier to see things from the outside, and while there are lots of nice things about Australia, socio-economic constraints are worse than in the US, as is the support for civil liberties and individual rights.
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Well, you may see the mote in America's eye (and there are plenty), but you are obviously blind to the beam in your own.
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but you are obviously blind to the beam in your own.
No, I just didn't mention Australia's troubles in that particular post.
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You mean mindless drivel like this?
You obviously have no idea what's going on in either the US or Australia or anywhere else. You don't even know where the nonsense you spout comes from.
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You mean like how we in the US can see that China and Australia indoctrinate just as much, albeit differently?
Sort of, though someone actually living in the US won't have much visibility of the reality of Australian or Chinese life. It's more valid to say someone from the US visiting or living in Australia or China would have that insight.
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"one Nation under God"
The God bit was only added in 1954, and probably would have horrified the founding fathers.
""indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Thats the scary bit, which sounds a lot like China. A legacy of the civil war. US is the Hotel California - you can never leave. Last time some states disagreed and tried to leave, millions died.
Fortunately the Russians did not treat their former republics that way!
So long as the Americans treat Lincoln as a hero, instead of a mass killer in the company of Stalin and Mao, we know the indoctrination is strong.
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Thats the scary bit, which sounds a lot like China. A legacy of the civil war. US is the Hotel California - you can never leave. Last time some states disagreed and tried to leave, millions died. Fortunately the Russians did not treat their former republics that way! So long as the Americans treat Lincoln as a hero, instead of a mass killer in the company of Stalin and Mao, we know the indoctrination is strong.
Your Theophobia is showing. The word "God" would not have bothered the founding fathers, it's a generic term that in no way claims any particular Religion is right or wrong. If you have doubts read "The Declaration of Independence" which was signed by all of them and includes the word "God" and the word "Creator". The US was not founded as an atheist Government, it was founded as a Government where is should be free to practice what ever faith you happen to believe in.
In other words, if you wish to worsh
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The word "God" is _in_ the Declaration of Independence, and so is the word "Creator" (Read the first 2 paragraphs). As with the person I responded to, you are not even attempting to look at facts. The words are not "religious rhetoric" when used as we see in both the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance, because there is absolutely no associating theology. Paraphrased, they simply state ~all people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights~. If you substitute Creat
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Somewhat true, but really as another Australian it's obvious that our country is being increasing run by the USA
I think it would be truer to say that both the USA and Australia are being run by the same plutocrats. They're aggressively expanding their oligarchy worldwide, with collusion from most of the governments they interact with, including our own exceptionally sycophantic pack.
When you are inside the box ... (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not in another country. Read the entire post:
"That was why I left China and went to America decades ago."
His observation isn't based on domestic propaganda or nationalism and an inability to consider perspectives outside his only cultural upbringing.
You're condescendingly dismissing the perspective of an expat who came to America looking for Freedom and Liberty. When expats ask for a refund, that's a good sign your marketing is better than your product.
If your neighbor's dog spits out the slop you feed
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You acting superior because you're from somewhere else is equivalent to an American acting superior because he's an American.
You missed his point. It's not because he is from China that he's not indoctrinated. It's because he's originally from China and left to come to America decades ago. In other words, he considers himself not indoctrinated because he claims he experienced two completely different countries.
So for instance, someone fluent in Japanese and living/working in Japan could have an equally eye-opening perspective if he had first been born and raised a significant part of his life in the US (at least, that would be my
Re:When you are inside the box ... (Score:5, Insightful)
America used to be the one who fight for liberty.
Nah, that was just PR for the masses. You weren't around for the internment camps during WWII or the McCarthy witch trials, but you should've been around for the CIA's involvement in South America and Iran.
America stands as much for liberty and freedom as China stands for money. Liberty and freedom are convenient lines to trot out to the masses when the government wants to take some otherwise unpopular action (just like money is convenient to keep the masses quiet, but all over the world, not just China). The real motivation behind America is imperial power via trade. Unlike the first and second ages of imperialism, the people in power in the U.S. realize you don't have to own the land, you just have to control what the land produces.
Sorry to burst your bubble. Outside looking in can be as limiting as inside looking out. It's best to have both perspectives.
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Circa 2004-5 a couple of scholarly types looked at the issue of the US getting involved in military actions to "make the world safe for democracy." That is one of the phrases usually trotted out whenever we send the troops in, and it was one of the phrases trotted out to justify sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention outright lies about Sadaam's weapons of mass destruction.
What these scientist concluded was, post WWII the US had been involved in about 25 conflicts. (I think I'm more up on th
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Circa 2004-5 a couple of scholarly types looked at the issue of the US getting involved in military actions to "make the world safe for democracy." That is one of the phrases usually trotted out whenever we send the troops in, and it was one of the phrases trotted out to justify sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention outright lies about Sadaam's weapons of mass destruction.
What these scientist concluded was, post WWII the US had been involved in about 25 conflicts. (I think I'm more up on the news that the average American, and I couldn't remember half as many). We helped establish democracy in exactly one country, Columbia. Since then, you can add Iraq and Afghanistan, although in a few years it's possible that they won't last.
I got to thinking. How many democracies has the US toppled? Iran, 1951, several in Central America shortly after, etc. etc. I'm not expert, but I could easily come up with at least 10. Then if you start adding in covert actions and cold-war, low violence actions against fellow democracies, you add in mortal enemies like Australia. Australia? The US sent operatives to run a smear campaign against the President running for re-election in the early 1970's. Eventually the US even gave and official apology.
Btw, guess how many times the US worked to topple the government of any right wing leaders?
ps. my source on the scholarly report; I heard on the radio. I'm going by memory and my number or 25 may be off by one or two, but the establishment of one democracy between the end of WWII until Post 9/11 I'll stand by.
A reminder: our govt WAS founded as a republic. While it has become an representative oligarchy , it is nor ever has been a democrary/ This is the biggest fallacy that people have engaged in.
Here is some quotes about Democracy from Our Founders:
"Hence it is that democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths...
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Right AND wrong. Right about there being communists, but dead wrong about the methods used to root them out and the assumption that anyone with communist leanings was an enemy.
And he certainly did not rely on logic and evidence to conclude there were communists, it was a gut feeling only and he capitalized on it for political power (which backfired).
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The parent is a joke, right? Just because the USA doesn't grant your every wish, it doesn't make it remotely as repressive as China, where posting something the authorities don't like causes by you and your post to disappear for "reeducation".
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In China if you say "The Communist Party are a bunch of cock smoking douchebags," you can expect trouble. In Mandarin.
Unless you are part of a protest group (organised or not) with more than about 25K members, you probably won't. The Party knows that people blowing off steam are not a threat, but are easy to turn into people who are a threat.
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I am from China. Assange is from Australia. Those of us who are not from the United States of America tend to have an advantage over those who were born and raised inside America because we were not indoctrinated with the Pledge of Allegiance throughout our childhood (into the teen years) but the Americans do
No, you had alternate indoctrination.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
"The great leader Chairman Mao teaches us; promote physical fitness exercises, and improve people's physical condition. We must always be ready to protect our country."
Note that I first heard this in a U.S. social studies/world history class when I was 14 years old, following normalization of relations with China. And yes, we did the exercises.
Patriotism is not necessarily a bad thing, but to try to claim that it's a U.S. phenomenon bec
Re:When you are inside the box ... (Score:5, Informative)
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China is a much more capitalist society than the USA
I don't disagree with this, but I wonder why you think that this means it has more liberty. Unless you happen to be one of the ones that controls most of the capital, of course.
Re:Google Changes Its Slogan (Score:5, Insightful)
It's "Don't be Evil".
~15 years ago, Google was "Chaotic Neutral" (openly disruptive, with both lawful and lawless tendencies).
Today, they're more "Neutral Neutral" (they still enjoy being disruptive, but they've been reined in by self-preservation and forced to pay lip service to lawfulness).
Twenty years from now, they'll probably be "Lawful Neutral", with increasingly-frequent side trips into "Lawful Evil" territory (which they'll rationalize and publicly blame on government regulations, even when those regulations are more of a pretense than a legally-binding order backed up by overwhelming firepower and force).
The real danger isn't Eric Schmidt. It's his successor's successor, who (more likely than not) will be a bland, Wall Street-approved CEO with a completely conventional background who'll contentedly fill his role of making Google the government's favorite bitch... as long as he can invoice the feds for the effort, eliminate R&D, outsource everything to Nigeria, and prop up the stock price with annual layoffs and the sale of a division or two, just like every other major corporation in America that's owned primarily by risk-averse institutional investors run by CEOs who went to the same elite universities.
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Well, destroying large corporations should be good for small and medium businesses. You just kind of sold me on "risk-averse institutional investors".
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You're welcome.
If you want a libertarian Utopia, fuck off to Somalia. You'll be allowed to play with your guns there.
So a country half controlled by Muslim terrorists and the other familial warlords and real pirates is a libertarian Utopia? Hitting the pipe a bit too hard, eh?