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Thanks for your post. The party that is in control of the White House guides and directs the "security" policies for the nation through the Department of Justice and the sixteen or so governmental agencies that deal with national "security". Although many Democratic elected officials refused over the last eight years to oppose the Republican drive to consolidate political control over the citizenry of our country, including control of the Internet which is the last bastion of effective democratic (small "d") political _expression_, it was primarily the Republican party that has (and still is) attacking the rights of Americans to freely communicate and to organize via the Internet. Yes, the Internet is still under attack. Yes, the Internet must be defended. Who can attack our rights to use the Internet? The political party that controls the White House - if it so chooses. The Military - if directed to do so by the political party that controls the White House. The large communications companies - to drive out the smaller communications companies and to consolidate their control over the operation of the Internet. The sixteen (or so) governmental agencies that are supposed to be taking their orders from the White House. The political party that controls Congress - by pushing legislation that restricts access to and use of the Internet. Now that the Republican Party does NOT control the White House and does NOT control Congress, I predict that Republican attempts to control the Internet will fail. It is still necessary to keep a vigilant watch on new legislation. The U.S. Government "security" bureaucracy still employs hundreds of thousands of people and without input from you and me and thousands of other ordinary citizens, this "security" bureaucracy will continue to find new ways to justify it's existence. Controlling the Internet is still on their agenda only this time THEY CAN BE CONTROLLED by the White House if we, the citizens speak up and tell the Democratic Party to keep Government's hands off the Internet. If we ordinary citizens refuse to act then we will lose our ability to use the Internet freely. Then we will no longer be living in a democracy, we will be living in a dictatorship. jack Drew Lentz wrote: >From another list, but nevertheless very relevant... -dhttp://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10168114-38.html Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of WiFi access points, even hotels, local coffeeshops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations... Translated, the Internet SAFETY Act applies not just to AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and so on -- but also to the tens of millions of homes with WiFi access points that use the standard method of dynamically assigning temporary addresses. The relevant bills: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s.00436: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.r.01076: It's unclear why Sen. Cornyn and Rep. Smith want to target home WiFi users (plus companies, universities, schools, libraries). Smith has been at this data retention thing for over two years now, so he's had time to get it exactly right: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1028_3-6156948.html Before Democrats start bemoaning how censorial the Republicans are, let's remember affection for data retention laws is a bipartisan sentiment. The first politician in the U.S. Congress to draft such legislation was a Democrat (Diana DeGette). And the current attorney general, Eric Holder, said this when he was previously at DOJ: "Certain data must be retained by ISPs for reasonable periods of time so that it can be accessible to law enforcement." (http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/dagceos.html)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- Jack Unger - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. Serving the Broadband Wireless Industry Since 1993 Cisco Press Author - "Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs" WISPs - Do you know where your customers are? For wireless coverage mapping see http://www.ask-wi.com/mapping FCC Lic. #PG-12-25133 LinkedIn Profile <http://www.linkedin.com/in/jackunger> Phone 818-227-4220 Email <jun...@ask-wi.com> |
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