Liberty Really

P2P, Piracy, and Censorship

2008-08-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

Recently the government of Italy decided to attempt blocking the bit torrent site "The Pirate Bay" over concerns of illegal file sharing of copyrighted material. After reading about the issue I posted the following at digg.com. (By the way I doubt they'll have anymore success blocking these pirates than anyone else has. The site has already circumvented 50% of the blocks placed against the Italian version of their site.) Warning computer jargon below!

I believe Pirating is wrong . . . That said let me also say that censorship on the net will be fought and won or lost on the issue of piracy. This fact means that most will not understand what is going on enough to get in the fight. By most I mean the casual user, or non-user of computers. Others have said that most torrents are just entertainment, and they are probably right. In China there are users who view our entertainment because of TPB and others like them. Not just any shows, but the very shows which are illegal there because they glorify our freedom. Real world change does not come becuase of great revolutions or demonstrations, but in the small decisions and influences of everyday people. It should also be mentioned that not all torrents are illegal. Revision3.com for example uses torrent to share content that they legally own. What they did was legal, but the RIAA through a company they owned launched a Denial of Service Attack on them shutting down their entire site including non-torrent downloads. They later relented in their attack and revision3 went back online. (minus the money they would have gotten from their sponsors for downloads which would have occurred during this time) P2P is the ability of me to send information to you. The free trade of information is what free speech is all about. This is what they are trying to shut down. This is what we must defend.

Peer to Peer (P2P) sharing is the free flow of information between individuals nothing less. It can be used for good or bad just like the free speech. In our electronic age information equals speech. In the U.S. it seems most of our legislators have forgotten the constitution they have sworn to protect. The law as it stands today proves that on this issue they listen only to the deep pocketed lobbyist like the RIAA and MPAA. To be fair much of this may be due to a lack of understanding, but its time they learned about what they are passing laws for.

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech.

-U.S. Constitution, First Amendment

Deterring the Undeterrable

2008-04-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

I found this at the Washington Post and thought it was good stuff.

by Charles Krauthammer

The era of nonproliferation is over. During the first half-century of the nuclear age, safety lay in restricting the weaponry to major powers and keeping it out of the hands of rogue states. This strategy was inevitably going to break down. The inevitable has arrived.

The six-party talks on North Korea have failed miserably. They did not prevent Pyongyang from testing a nuclear weapon and entering the club. Now North Korea has broken yet again its agreement to reveal all its nuclear facilities.

The other test case was Iran. The EU-3 negotiations (Britain, France and Germany) went nowhere. Each U.N. Security Council resolution enacting what passed for sanctions was more useless than the last. Uranium enrichment continues.

When Iran's latest announcement that it was tripling its number of centrifuges to 9,000 elicited no discernible response from the Bush administration, the game was over. Everyone says Iran must be prevented from going nuclear. No one will bell the cat.

The "international community" is prepared to do nothing of consequence to halt nuclear proliferation. No one wants to admit that. Nor does anyone want to contemplate the prospect of nuclear weapons in the hands of one, two, many rogue states.

We must. The day is coming, and quickly. We must face reality and begin thinking how we live with the unthinkable.

There are four ways to deal with rogue states going nuclear: preemption, deterrence, missile defense and regime change.

Preemption works but, as a remedy, it is spent. Iraq was defanged by the 1981 Israeli airstrike, by the 1991 Persian Gulf War (which uncovered Saddam Hussein's clandestine nuclear programs) and finally by the 2003 invasion, which ended the Hussein dynasty, père et deux fils.

A collateral effect of the Iraq war was Libya's nuclear disarmament. Seeing Hussein's fate, Moammar Gaddafi declared and dismantled his nuclear program. And if November's National Intelligence Estimate is to be believed, the Iraq invasion even induced Iran to temporarily suspend weaponization and enrichment.

But the cost of preemption is simply too high. No one is going to renew the Korean War with an attack on Pyongyang. And the prospects of an attack on Iran's facilities are now vanishingly small. What to do?

Deterrence. It worked in the two-player Cold War. Will it work against multiple rogues? It seems quite suitable for North Korea, whose regime, far from being suicidal, is obsessed with survival.

Iran is a different proposition. With its current millenarian leadership, deterrence is indeed a feeble gamble, as I wrote in 2006 in making the case for considering preemption. But if preemption is off the table, deterrence is all you've got. Our task is to make deterrence in this context less feeble.

For the rest of the article click here.

Financing Politics Instead of Freedom

2008-04-06T16:34:00.000-07:00

Although its not a current hot topic perhaps one of the most important needs for change in the American government is campaign finance. The last time this issue was discussed on the national stage with any meaning effectively ended with the McCain-Feingold Act. This is important for two reasons. First, this Act did not solve the problem. Secondly, to add a little insult to the injury the Act took away some of our freedoms in the process of trying to do a good thing.

What's Wrong with McCain-Feingold

McCain-Feingold limits free speech 30 days prior to a primary election and 60 days prior to a general election. During these periods groups of voters are not allowed to engage in political advertising. Whether its the NRA or the ACLU political ads are off limits during these times. I don't know about you, but I can't afford to personally pay for TV time to address the public on the issues. The only way I could accomplish such a goal is to join together with other like minded individuals. This is part of what groups like NRA and ACLU do. This is a gross encroachment on freedom of speech.

McCain-Feingold doesn't really deal with the problem. Ask yourself, "why is it illegal for me to make my own decision about wearing a seatbelt, but a big corporation is free to take that choice away from me by manufacturing buses without seatbelts available?" (Even School Buses) This is only one example of many ways corporations have freedoms we do not. Part of the reason for this is their ability to make large donations to political candidates. My question is why are business' permitted political donation in the first place? We don't allow companies to vote for a reason. The government is supposed to be by and for the people not the companies. Adding little "tweaks" to the broken system only makes the system more complicated, and do little or nothing to address the true problem.

Possible Solutions

Throw out the old system and start from scratch. The new system should be simple enough to be read and understood by a high school student. (In fact almost no law should be passed which cannot be understood by the average graduate of the highest grade level provided by the government.) Only radical change will make a real difference.

First, outlaw all political contributions and political ads by for profit corporation's. While I'm sure the current influence of for profits will make this next to impossible it is still a goal which should be worked toward.

Next all direct contributions to political campaigns and parties must be secret. This seems wrong at first, but consider the following. In our Nation's history we once had an open balloting system. Under this system it was possible to buy votes because the purchaser of the vote could watch the voter to ensure they voted accordingly. In this system it would be impossible for anyone to pay a congressman, for example, with a political contribution to vote a certain way on a bill because they would have no legal way to contribute money that the candidate would know came from them. All contributions would be through the FEC.

Individual contribution limits should be maintained. Without limits on personal giving the voice of the poor and middle-class are drowned by the giving of the rich. This is one attribute of current rules which should be kept. No more than $2,000 per individual per an election cycle annually adjusted for inflation.

Political Action Groups must be regulated similarly to candidates and political parties concerning financial donations. Each individual could only give $2,000 annually to non-profit political action groups. Groups which pursue charitable or other missions outside of political activity may separate donation dollars so limits do not apply to other charitable efforts. This is necessary for the same reason's limits on direct personal giving are. The voice of the rich cannot out weigh others. Further, monies used for political contribution or advertising must be give for such purpose. General giving to a church or dues for a labor union should not be used to support political action the giver may not agree with. Churches, Unions, and the like should be able to contribute to the political process, but only with dollars given for that reason. Any money given to any group engaged in political activity should be given for that purpose, and be within individual giving limits.

While these ideas may not cover everything there adoption would be a vast improvement over the current system. It is unlikely these changes will be adopted anytime soon. I am sure they have been advocated before, and very likely in more eloquent prose. These changes are perhaps the most necessary changes for our government. Without these changes or ones like them our government will be less and less for the people and more and more for the corporation and politician.