Americans prohibited from viewing middle-east websites?

[punistation]

Well, not yet, but I'm Australian, and I was prohibited from viewing an American website because I'm not American. Tell me that's not the first step.


Y'see, this happened a while back, and I've just recalled it again. On a DU recommendation, I watched "ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE", which talked about corporate media ownership, and how it WILL happen to the internet. "Internet users won't realise what they have until it's gone" or something similar. This rang true on my own experience. If I could be prevented from viewing an overseas website, why not you?

The incident was catalogued in BARTCOP ENTERTAINMENT, found HERE. Basically, I tried to view a certain section in the PENN & TELLER website, but it wouldn't allow me to view the page because it could tell I was not an American viewer.








Only after watching "ORWELL..." just now have I realised how this was the first of many terrible steps to restrict what we can view on this new media outlet called the World Wide Web. More people across the planet have protested Bush than any person in human history. Tell me that's not solely in thanks to the internet.

Millions of people all across the planet know what's truly happening everywhere else, and not just what's spoon-fed to them in biased 3-minute glossed-over snapshots on the Right wing-donating corporate owned news and radio services. How amazing is it that any of us can just go and read an Iraqi's blog and see what's happening? Tell me that IF your Republican political leaders could just tell their media-owning chums to restrict all Americans from viewing middle-east websites, would they do it?

Imagine being prohibited (as I was) from viewing websites from a certain country, but this time because the Republicans said so? They tell their aides, the aides tell the lobbyists, the lobbyists tell the administrators, the admins tell the CEO's who donate to and profit handsomely from the Iraq war, the CEO's announce new ISP policy that prohibits customers (you) from viewing websites in Iraq and any other related service. Have fun thinking of a spin to justify it. I've thought of a few already that many would gladly swallow and themselves justify to others.

("Iraqi websites install spyware on your computers, sending your bank account details to terrorists! The 9/11 terrorists couldn't do what they did without funds! Don't risk giving funds to terrorists! You WILL be prosecuted! Ignorance is NO excuse in times of war! Never forget September 11!")



SO: No more Iraqi blogs, no death images, no translating middle-east news services, no photos and live feeds of bloody and dismembered limbs of civilians. Nothing. What's more, we can do nothing about it and politicians keep their hands clean because all ISP's will be privately owned by only a few individuals (R-Old White Men) and deregulated and they said they could do it in article XVII, Section IV, line 256 in the User Agreement in the contract WE signed anyway. Nothing, but what we see on FAUX.



Hey, I've just watched "ORWELL..." and this is what I'm thinking. It talked about the internet being owned like TV, radio and newspapers, where news stories are not reported or prevented from reaching the masses because they don't tow the party line nor please the conservative editors. Not long ago, I was prohibited from viewing an American website because I was not American. Content irrelevant. It happened.

What websites would the Bush admin prevent YOU from viewing... if they could? Tell me it hasn't already begun. Tell me it could never happen to you.


Kisses XXOOXX
Jen

[ixion]

1. I think you're right on the money, Jen...

Er, no pun intended. ;-)

As with civil liberties, people won't realize they're gone until the SS kick the door in and disappear you or someone you know. At that point, though, it will be too late.

Of course, Penn and Teller would be considered subversive material, because they actually tell the truth. :-(

[moondust]

2. Well heck, communist China does it.

So why wouldn't George and the Bush Leaguers?

[Ottmar]

3. Use an American proxy

and you can access the page.
sho.com/lockout/us.cfm
isn't available anymore, but you get a link to the homepage and it works.

This is still pretty harmless, but censorship on the internet is already reality in China (without apologies). So your vision could become reality. And it could be implemented in a way that the user doesn't realize it. Just a "page not found" when you try to access a page and nobody can know if it's censorship, a technical problem or the page was removed by the author.

[newyawker99]

8. Hi Ottmar!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[izzie]

4. More interesting is the Churches will end up telling you which you can go

If you get power you like to protect it. Interesting little thing I came to in my family history work. A women got 7 months in jail for not going to church, in the 1700's, and only 4 months for fornications. Telling us what we can pull up on PC is a good start to all the crazy stuff that will happen if people do not care.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. I'll go you one better, izzie

A woman in North Andover MA was accused of witchcraft in 1692 because she hadn't attended church since the murder of her daughter by daughter's drunken husband. Said woman was 'questioned' (read tortured) and confessed to everything save one-she refused to implicate another daughter and that daughter's child in witchcraft. For this she was condemned, and died in Salem jail. Her name was Anne Foster.

[MUSTANG_2004]

5. Legal reasons, perhaps?

Perhaps Showtime doesn't want to deal with lawsuits from Australia and Europe? (as an aside, a company stopping you from viewing their website is not even remotely government censorship)

Some samples of a company getting legal and financial grief over it's website from European and Australians: http://www.herbertsmith.com/publications/publications.asp?id=525

In the February IT Bulletin we discussed the decision of the Australian High Court in Dow Jones v Gutnick. Gutnick, a businessman from Melbourne, Australia sued the US company Dow Jones over an allegedly defamatory magazine article. Dow Jones & Company publishes the Wall Street Journal and also operates www.wsj.com, a news website. The website allows subscribers and registered users to access a number of newspapers including the magazine where the article appeared. Gutnick successfully argued that the Australian Court has jurisdiction as he had suffered damage to his reputation in Australia. Gutnick also conducts business in the US and has contributed to charities in the US and Israel but the Court accepted that much of his business and social life was focused in Victoria, Australia.

In Harrods Limited v Dow Jones & Co Inc the UK High Court has reached the same conclusion in a case involving very similar facts. In the Harrods' case the defamatory article appeared in the US edition of the Wall Street Journal and on the US website www.wsj.com. The article did not appear in the European hard copy edition of the Wall Street Journal. Only 10 hard copies of the US edition were sent to subscribers in Europe out of a total US circulation of 1.8 million copies. There had only been a small number of hits on the website.

[ronabop]

6. Send a message to P&T ASAP!

Those boys are hardcore. Do not mess with men who shoot at eachother for fun.

(Seriously, send a message. Penn is brutal about free speech, and both are militant athiests against all forms of social repression).

-Bop