As the furor over the election has intensified, Iran has attempted to control the flow of information by slowing Internet speed and interrupting cellphone service.
BEIJING -- China is waging a high-profile fight with Google, as the world's most populous nation sanitizes the Internet and stifles online dissent ahead of its 60th anniversary celebration this fall.
Both the English and Chinese-language versions of Google were inaccessible in parts of China late Wednesday, and Gmail, the search engine's popular e-mail service, was reportedly blocked from some university campuses.
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: Situation in Iran
I heard a thing on NPR yesterday that said that the Iranian authorities will often get on social networking sites like Twitter and issue fake meetings, to confuse people. So it is more than just jamming.
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1752 Joined: April 13, 2007 Location: United States
RE: Situation in Iran
Originally written by John Bunch on June 26, 2009 12:14 PM I heard a thing on NPR yesterday that said that the Iranian authorities will often get on social networking sites like Twitter and issue fake meetings, to confuse people. So it is more than just jamming.
A classic tactic of a police state, one that the US is also quite fond of (used frequently in efforts against narcotics, prostitution, and inter-generational relationships).
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1807 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: Situation in Iran
David, would you describe the Obama administration as running a "police state" ? (I assume that you are talking about the current U.S.). If so, please provide concrete examples of that.
Mother tongue: English Joined: April 30, 2007 Location: Germany
RE: Situation in Iran
Originally written by John Bunch on June 26, 2009 6:54 PM David, would you describe the Obama administration as running a "police state" ? (I assume that you are talking about the current U.S.). If so, please provide concrete examples of that.
I reckon all modern states have elements that could characterize them as "police states". The condition is a continuum - it is certainly not that a state is either a "police state" or it is not, no state is likely to admit that it is a "police state" (the term is pejorative). They start off small and gradually introduce further elements of a police state until there is no turning back.
The concrete example that comes to mind in the case of the USA is the criterion proposed by George Orwell in his book "1984", the necessity of always being at war so as to be able to justify any conceivable repressive measure. The USA has been involved in one war or another almost continuously during its short history and it now has put itself firmly in the middle of a war that will never be won, the War Against Terror. That war will go on for ever, just what any self-respecting police state would like to have as the justification for its existence.
Obama has taken steps to end one war (Iraq) but has promised to intensify another (Afghanistan). In immediate reserve, there is North Korea. For the distant future, there is Iran. Peace is unlikely to break out any time soon.
The proof of its full police state qualification is Guantanamo Bay Prison. Obama's very first act as president was to order it to be shut down - it is still there. I feel sure that we could assemble and maintain a list of all the repressive police state measures (like warrentless searches - see below - unlawful collection of data, torture, imprisonment without trial, covert monitoring of the activities of innocent citizens, rigging of elections, interference with the judiciary) that have been introduced in the USA since 1776.
Therefore, I suspect that no state that is truly free of police state characteristics can exist for long in the modern world.
It did not start and will not end with Obama. It is difficult to see what he could do about it even if he wanted to.
You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.
That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.
“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.
The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. That’s largely because the FCC had little to do with average citizens for most of the last 75 years, when home transmitters were largely reserved to ham-radio operators and CB-radio aficionados. But in 2009, nearly every household in the United States has multiple devices that use radio waves and fall under the FCC’s purview, making the commission’s claimed authority ripe for a court challenge.
“It is a major stretch beyond case law to assert that authority with respect to a private home, which is at the heart of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Lee Tien. “When it is a private home and when you are talking about an over-powered Wi-Fi antenna — the idea they could just go in is honestly quite bizarre.”
Mother tongue: Polish Joined: February 18, 2003 Location: Poland
RE: Situation in Iran
Originally written by Derek Thornton on June 26, 2009 8:34 PM
if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.
Thank God we didn't have those gadgets under communism! Long live progress!
Posted by Carol under Balkers, Sunday March 8th, 2009
Nine secret legal opinions, written by former Office of Legal Counsel attorneys John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty, were recently released by the Justice Department. Overall, they reveal that the Bush administration brought the United States close to executive tyranny after the September 11th, 2001 attacks.
Neil A. Lewis wrote in the New York Times, “The opinions reflected a broad interpretation of presidential authority, asserting as well that the president could unilaterally abrogate foreign treaties, ignore any guidance from Congress in dealing with detainees suspected of terrorism, and conduct a program of domestic eavesdropping without warrants.”
One of the opinions, written by John C. Yoo and dated October 23, 2001, stated that the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures was not relevant in wartime, “The Government’s compelling interest in protecting the nation from attack and in prosecuting the war effort would outweigh the relevant privacy interests, making the search and seizure reasonable.”
Regarding the need for a warrant, Yoo wrote, “Warrant and probable cause requirements… are unsuited to the demands of wartime and the military necessity to prosecute a war against an enemy.”
In addition, the October 23, 2001 memo asserted that “First amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” The memo further declared that, “The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”
According to Scott Horton, an International Human Rights Attorney, writing in Harpers Magazine, “He [Yoo] concluded that in wartime, the President was freed from the constraints of the Bill of Rights, with respect to anything he chose to label as a counter terrorism operation inside the United States.”
In a statement made on MSNBC, Michael Isikoff remarked, “We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001 – January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship.”
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1752 Joined: April 13, 2007 Location: United States
RE: Situation in Iran
Originally written by John Bunch
David, would you describe the Obama administration as running a "police state" ? (I assume that you are talking about the current U.S.). If so, please provide concrete examples of that.
I would rather refrain from using labels such as "police state" to describe the US (the term has definitional problems and is a function of political bias in much the same way that "terrorist" is), but I think that Derek's reference to warrantless searching, as well as my parenthetical reference to undercover sting operations, are classic examples of things that states that are widely viewed as "police states" do. Obama is the president of the US, so to the extent that the US is a police state, he may rightfully be considered its head. He of course did not start any of these things, but he has been in office long enough so that he may be held accountable for their continuation.
Mother tongue: English Joined: April 30, 2007 Location: Germany
RE: Situation in Iran
Originally written by David Kallans on June 27, 2009 1:18 PM Obama is the president of the US, so to the extent that the US is a police state, he may rightfully be considered its head. He of course did not start any of these things, but he has been in office long enough so that he may be held accountable for their continuation.
He (or better, his administration) does not appear to be averse to a little continuation:
White House Weighs Order on Detention
Washington Post, June 27th, 2009
Officials: Move Would Reassert Power To Hold Terror Suspects Indefinitely
Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.
Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that an order, which would bypass Congress, could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.
After months of internal debate over how to close the military facility in Cuba, White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible. Several officials said there is concern in the White House that the administration may not be able to close the prison by the president's January deadline.
White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that there is no executive order and that the administration has not decided whether to issue one. But one administration official suggested that the White House is already trying to build support for an order.
...
Instituting long-term detention through an executive order would leave Obama vulnerable to charges that he is willing to forsake the legislative branch of government, as his predecessor often did. Bush's detention policies suffered defeats in the courts in part because they lacked congressional approval and tried to exclude judicial oversight.
"There is no statute prohibiting the president from doing this through executive order, and so far courts have not ruled in ways that would bar him from doing so," said Matthew Waxman, who worked on detainee issues at the Defense Department during Bush's first term.
The most striking difference with Iran is, of course, that Iran is not at war with anybody.
Maybe a case could be made for the US Constitution to include a clause stating clearly that being at war is an unusual situation, not the norm. As things are, civil liberties in the USA would appear, at least potentially, to be even more precarious than they are in Iran.
Have we reached the stage of throwing stones in glass houses?
Derek
[Edited by Derek Thornton on June 27, 2009 9:08 AM]
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