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...
-d
http://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 ATT, 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)
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