Rackspace: SOPA "Is a Deeply Flawed Piece of Legislation" 213
hypnosec writes "Cloud-based hosting service provider Rackspace has joined the ever expanding list of companies that are opposed to the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In a blog post, Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier said that the controversial bill, which will get its final vote before the House Judiciary Committee, will do more harm than good, punishing innocent users in the process. 'The SOPA bill, as it stands, is a deeply flawed piece of legislation. It is bad for anyone who uses the Internet, including Rackspace, the more than 160,000 business customers that we serve, and the tens of millions of retail customers that they serve. It is bad for job creation and innovation,' Napier wrote."
Flawed? (Score:4, Funny)
No shit?
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I was going for funny, but redundant works, I guess.
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Re:Flawed? (Score:5, Funny)
Flawed? No, shit!
Fixed that for you.
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Intentional, international, or both?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:5, Insightful)
Or rather, that's what you get when your politicians can make promises of intent without any fear of being held accountable once elected.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:4, Funny)
On the bright side, you could always get someone worse.
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:4, Informative)
I haven't seen any detailed legislation, but assuming it does what it says it does, it would be nice if those against SOPA could put some weight behind this approach instead.
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:5, Insightful)
Lesser evil does not make evil good.
If it bears any resemblance to SOPA it's just as evil.
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:4, Interesting)
Lesser evil does not make evil good. If it bears any resemblance to SOPA it's just as evil.
Stopping piracy is not evil. But the methods to do so can be.
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:4, Insightful)
Stopping piracy is not evil.
Maybe it is. I don't have the philosophical finesse right now to think of a way to support the statement "Stopping piracy is evil", but I imagine a somewhat convincing case could be made for it. In any event, "stopping piracy" should not be immediately and universally recognized as a Good Thing.
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell me about it! My Congressman is Spencer Bachus, one of the biggest crooks and liars in Washington. We're probably going to vote him out next year
Well, he's only won 10 times in a row, maybe the 11th is the charm. He received 75% of the vote in the primary in 2010 and hasn't been challenged in the general election the last 4 times. Good luck.
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh they're not idiots.
They're very smart.
It's just that they have different goals to what you would like.
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they are con-artists who are jerked around by the balls by big money, and too fucking stupid to notice
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what happens when Congress is in the pocket of big business. Any good business person will tell you that you need recurring revenue. Congress does it through sunset provisions: "Oh, that law you really like is expiring soon? Well, maybe I can get an extension passed, but it'll cost lots of money to advance that ahead of extensions that other people want." It's really a racket.
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is the greater idiot: the idiots or the idiots who vote for them?
Let's not for a moment pretend we have anyone other than ourselves to blame. Everyone says they hate SOPA, but talk about voting against the SOPA parties and suddenly you're a wacko and 90+% people start listing reasons they plan to support the people who enact it.
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Ok, let's begin that list I was talking about. So.. reason #1 for supporting SOPA is: your candidate has only a snowballs' chance in hell of being elected (probably because you've decided to not vote for him).
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Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
The most hilariously annoying part of this bill is that there's not a single sane citizen of this country who, when properly educated on the bill's impact, would vote for such a thing....yet the lunatics running this country will probably pass it right on through since they're in the chokehold of the industries and power mongers which DO want it.
If it's possible to lose any more faith in the people at the top, I certainly will if this is passed. I'll also cast opposing votes against any representatives who vote for it, regardless of party affiliation.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll also cast opposing votes against any representatives who vote for it, regardless of party affiliation.
Since both of the big parties are owned by the same people, I assume that you will only vote 3rd party from now on?
Voting D or R is throwing your vote away. The only valid way to vote is to vote for a 3rd party candidate. Or an "extremist" D or R... The only R I would currently consider voting for is Ron Paul and the only D I would consider voting for, if he runs for anything, is Feingold.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
What is wrong with kucinich?
I can't bring myself to vote for Ron Paul. I do not believe he can keep himself from forcing his religious views on others once he gains some power. While I know he did not write it, putting your name on racist newsletters does not speak to his good judgement either.
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What is wrong with kucinich?
He's 99% sane and logical, but that last 1% is crazy anti-gun nut, weird anti-free speech last century pre-internet era fan of the fairness doctrine, and even worse he's an anti-nuke nut. I suppose he's probably more sane, more often, than I am, on average, so as much as some of his beliefs really stink, I would certainly vote for him as a distant 3rd choice after RP and Feingold, if RP and/or Feingold were not on the ballot.
The sad part is if the other D's and R's were sane rational statesmen, he would no
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I flatly do not believe that. Perhaps he is capable of that, but I don't think so.
I would vote for near anyone as the lessor of two evils. I voted for Obama to keep fascist grandpa and hillbilly barbie out of power. Had McCain run the 2008 campaign as he did the 2000 race I might have been convinced to select him as the lessor of two evils.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you get how this works.
Two candidates are proposed, both owned by the same corporations planning to support identical policies.
You apparently really hate the marketing message the R people used, but that doesn't mean they would have done anything different.
Oh sure, they would have attended twice as many prayer breakfasts, and half as many MLK parades, but I'm not thinking the end result would be any different.
Standard /. car analogy is its like getting all emotional about cars because the Saturn was a really nice car but the commercials suck so you bought a Toyota which is also a really nice car and thinking its important that the Toyota tv commercials don't suck as much.
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I don't think it goes quite that far. They are both bought and sold to the 1%/corporatists/whatever but outside what those folks want they are a little different.
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Re:Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't bring myself to vote for Ron Paul. I do not believe he can keep himself from forcing his religious views on others once he gains some power.
1) Wouldn't being a congressman for 30+ years qualify as "some power?" That said, you would think if he was going to abuse it he would have done so by now.
2) Paul is the only candidate who rabidly (or seemingly at all, for that matter) adheres to the concept that the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land; in that, the Constitution guarantees religious freedom. Paul also abhors the concept of "executive privilege," i.e. the practice of letting the President do whatever he wants and civil liberties be damned, so it therefore stands to reason that Ron Paul would honor the Constitution and thus not impose his ideals of religion on the masses.
3) There are more people involved in the American legislative process than just the President; contrary to modern belief, there exists a system of checks and balances [wikipedia.org] that, when honored and followed, prevent unconstitutional legislation from becoming law. I know it's pretty passe these days to talk about responsible governance in accordance with the Constitution, but that is exactly the ideology Paul embraces.
As for the accusations regarding RP and the "racist newsletter," I say meh; I didn't get sucked into the whole "Jeremiah Wright hates America So That Means Obama Does Too" non-story, and I intend on patently ignoring this one as well.
Cheers!
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1) More power more corruption. He also seems happy to let states ban abortion for instance. I believe that interferes with personal freedom.
2) I don't believe that. I might be wrong.
3) It seems these days checks and balances are a thing of the past. For recent examples see the bailouts and middle east adventures.
Obama did not let Mr.Wright print his name on those rantings. Being seen with crazy people is quite different than putting your name on their musings. Either he agreed with this filth or he never r
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Other than he's a total loon?
He did some crazy shit as mayor of Cleveland back in the day.
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And Ron Paul is not?
He thinks gold, which is a commodity, is the same thing as money.
Please do elaborate about this "crazy shit" that kucinich did as mayor of Cleveland. Should at least be good for a laugh.
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So money isn't a commodity?
There seems to be demand. There seems to be no qualitative differentiation - the $20 bill in my pocket printed in 2010 is perfectly fungible with the $20 bill printed in 2011 in your pocket, or with two $10 bills.
There are futures exchanges and currency exchanges.
So what is it aboue money that isn't the same as a commodity? And hence would make it ludicrous to think that a commodity could used as money?
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For most of the time the USA has been in existence, our money was based on the gold standard. This means that we had a gold reserve to back up our money. Gold is sold as a commodity, yes. So what! This has nothing to do with the fact that when we dumped the gold standard, and went to the Federal Reserve to maintain the value of our dollar, we set our selves up to be in the situation we are now with politicians managing the money supply .
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I attempt not to. It is hard to avoid though. In this case his beliefs are way out and center. To me that means he is more likely to let them sway his decisions.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
Or you can go by his actual record. Where he has intentionally attempted to subvert the us constitution and remove the oversight of the supreme court over religious based state laws. If it had passed, states would have been free to violate individual civil liberties by endorsing specific state religions.
Yes. Ron Paul is an anti-constitutionalist, anti-libertarian (he only cares that the federal government is neutered, he loves the idea of the individual states violating peoples rights), a hypocrite, a liar, a theocrat and anti-American traitor.
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Yes. Ron Paul is an anti-constitutionalist, anti-libertarian..., a hypocrite, a liar, a theocrat and anti-American traitor.
...and still the best of the bunch. I will probably vote for him knowing that he won't win - but this time I will vote to send the message that I'm sick of the establishment's shit. I lost every bit of Hope and Change in mainstream candidates after Obama's reign.
We aren't going to be productive by votes, the system is too powerful and manipulative to allow that. We're gonna be productive by Sacking the traitors [huffingtonpost.com] from within.
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What, in your opinion, makes Ron Paul better than Jon Huntsman?
Re:Ugh (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. Ron Paul is an anti-constitutionalist, anti-libertarian (he only cares that the federal government is neutered, he loves the idea of the individual states violating peoples rights), a hypocrite, a liar, a theocrat and anti-American traitor.
Really? You think that because he maintains the position that the powers of government not enumerated in the Constitution are reserved for the states, Ron Paul is anti-Constitutionalist, a hypocrite, a liar and a traitor? Even though I can see how you might think that refusing to support a bill that might, in fact, be Libertarian and even good for the country on the basis that it requires the federal government to usurp a power that it does not legally have as being entirely a Bad Thing, I find it consistent with his philosophy of government, and even a Good Thing. There is a mechanism in place to grant power to the federal government that the Constitution does not already grant: it's called a Constitutional amendment. If the law really is that good, pass an amendment. If the amendment doesn't pass, then there's a pretty good chance that the value of the bill has not been adequately established. If the failure to pass such a bill means that individual states pass bad laws, well, at least it's easier to change a local government than a federal one. Furthermore, if a state law truly sucks that bad, it's far easier to move to another state than to another country. Depending upon where you live and where you move to, you might not even have to quit your job to move (even though I would...it's a heck of a commute to Alaska from anywhere else).
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The amendments have already been passed. The 14th for example, and it included the due process clause that under incorporation protects the rights of people from being infringed from the states. And Ron Paul does not agree with it.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Informative)
One of them is the "We the People Act": http://www.independentamericanparty.org/2011/09/1949/ That is strait from the horses mouth.
See section 3. It boils down to forbidding the US supreme court from hearing cases on the constitutionality of state laws based on religion, abortion or sexual orientation discrimination. If it were in effect, each state could ban abortion in violation of roe vs wade or make homosexuality a felony. States could ban atheists, muslims, jews, mormons, catholics or even protestants from serving in public office without federal challenge among many many other backwards theocratic and anti-constitutional edicts.
I believe he has at least one other proposed law with similar effects.
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That does seem to be pretty terrible.
I wonder why that is not brought up by the media.
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Probably because until now he never had a shot at being the republican nominee. Ron Paul has a few good traits that have really stood out quite well in recent debates (mostly due to the majority of his competition being clinically retarded). But the really scary horrific shit, like his views on states rights, theocracy and foreign policy take some digging to find. Now I also believe his more well known economic policy is also scary horrific shit that will ruin the country, but that seems to be in vogue righ
Constitution (Score:2)
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The states are "less independent" because states don't have the right to take away the liberties enshrined in the bill of rights from US citizens? Cry me a fucking river. It absolutely is cut and dry. Independence of the individual is the noble ideal of libertarianism, not independence of the state. And a federal government that protects the rights of its citizens from the trespasses of states is more libertarian than one that can do nothing as its people are enslaved one territory at a time.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of us believe in a god, or (like me) are outwardly atheist, but many of us who don't believe in a god claim a religion or denomination for reasons of family history(and, more specifically, the risk of being ostracized or written out of the lucrative will for angering the more traditional elders).
Ethanol-fueled, where is this rant going?
Religious people want censorship. The internet's free flow of information is anathema to their shackled minds and irrational fear of truth.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
Religious people want censorship. The internet's free flow of information is anathema to their shackled minds and irrational fear of truth.
Stereotype much? Yes, there are "religious" people who do -- and have done -- some pretty crappy things throughout history. There are "religious nutcases" who are certainly the "shackled minds" that you mention above. There are also those who claim religious affiliation (for more than purposes of securing a position in a will) who don't fit that mold -- those who are vocal Libertarians, who love science and technology and who abhor censorship. I am one. So are a number of my friends. Kindly refrain from confusing us with those who truly are as bad as you claim, 'kay? Thanks.
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Religious people want censorship? What kind of fucking crack are you smoking? And how did your bigoted filled post get to +5 insightful. If you said special interest groups want censorship I'd cut you some slack, and say carry on. But by and large, in the west, even the US, the majority of religious people don't want any more censorship than anyone else. If what you said was true, you'd hear the masses of Christians screaming over the desecration of various holy idols and the like. You don't.
Because i
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I did not claim otherwise. He allowed them to be printed with his name on them. Either he showed poor judgement in putting his name on such filth, or he never read it and showed even worse judgement.
Personal matters are something to judge someone on., when the odds are they would impact their performance in the task at hand.
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I honestly cannot take any of the Republican candidates seriously. Cain might be one of the worst in your eyes, but Perry executed an innocent man, Gingrich is clearly pandering to the worst rightwing fascist fringes, and the rest make their entire debate arguments out of lies and faslehoods.
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How to choose (Score:2)
Vote for the guy who has taken the least in bribes, I mean "campaign contributions", from corporations. It's easy enough to find out how much from third party sites like http://www.opensecrets.org/ [opensecrets.org]
Re:Ugh (Score:4, Insightful)
And don't scream too loudly if any of your ideas are ripped off by Big Bizz to make a buck off of. The true citizens of the US (multinational corporations) have certainly gotten their money'sworth this time. Until an individual can amass the cash that a multinational can, their voice does not matter.
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there's not a single sane citizen of this country who, when properly educated on the bill's impact, would vote for such a thing
I've seen people that claim that because they think that piracy is bad, and this bill's stated intention is to stop piracy, that the bill is good. And then when told that this bill is likely not going to stop piracy and is not the 'right' way to go about solving the supposed problem, they say, "Then what should we do? We have to do something to combat these little thieves!"
Of course, I'm sure you don't think these people are "educated"...
Doesn't matter, the fix is in (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama and most of the Democratic Party are owned by the big Hollywood studios. The Republican Party is owned by big business in general. The only reason this hasn't passed already (without even a public debate) is that Google and a handful of other big players are fighting it. But even Google is a relatively small fish in this money game.
As for those of us without deep pockets--well save yourself that stamp on a letter to your Congressman.
Re:Doesn't matter, the fix is in (Score:5, Insightful)
Democratic Party are owned by the big Hollywood studios. The Republican Party is owned by big business
Those are two sides of the same coin.
Re:Doesn't matter, the fix is in (Score:5, Insightful)
yes - BUT - the R party is also owned by Big Religion.
that is their permanent (until they decide to change this) handicap.
there may be some small good points that the R's have but the fact that they sold their souls to the american taliban (christian right extremists) means I could never vote for any of them, on that principle, alone. the party is too tainted by that one controlling force.
remove that force (it was not always embedded in the R point of view) and then we might have a valid 2 party system. but right now, we have a religious party, a whichever-way-the-wind-blows party and that's pretty much it. neither is worth voting for. both are owned by big business; just different ones.
Re:Doesn't matter, the fix is in (Score:4, Informative)
If only that was true!
Marxism is a textbook example of hijacking a big name by politicians. Marxism has never been implemented by any "communist" country. Only one village in China has ran on Marx's most important principle - "the means of production belong to the people producing the wealth" (i.e. the people working in a fab are the owners of the fab, they are the shareholders) and it was a resounding success (google "China richest village").
Again - none of this self proclaimed hypocritical communist states ever implemented the most basic principle of Marxism. Marx was "communist" in exactly the same way Wagner and Nietzsche were "nazis" if you get the analogy.
Supposedly educated people in the west have no clue of what Marxism is. People don't even know the basics that are described in the Wiki article. They are forever brainwashed to reject without a second thought anything that is "communist" even though Marx claimed that his socially responsible society will emerge first in a well developed western nation...
And BTW, wasn't there an article on /. from leading economy researchers from the west saying "Marx was not wrong after all"?
Re:Doesn't matter, the fix is in (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't matter, the fix is in (Score:4, Interesting)
Google could kill this dead if they wanted to play dirty. Imagine all Google-owned services (Search and Youtube in particular) being replaced for a day by an explanation of SOPA urging people to call their respective congresscritters and tell them to send this thing where the sun don't shine. If the politicians are convinced voting for this thing is absolute political suicide they won't care how much campaign donations the MPAA gives them.
Re:Doesn't matter, the fix is in (Score:5, Interesting)
But even Google is a relatively small fish in this money game.
Actually, Larry and Sergei could buy all of the movie and music studios with their personal money. I'm not even saying Google could buy them (which obviously, it could), but I'm saying Larry and Sergei could.
The entertainment industry is actually not that big, in terms of economic impact. They just have a huge soap box by virtue of what they do, so it appears they are bigger than they are.
Re:Doesn't matter, the fix is in (Score:4, Insightful)
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But Google is actually bigger than Hollywood.
No, they're not. Google is only worth about half as much as Comcast alone. Combine all the big media players and you're looking at something like $300 billion in muscle. If you include GE in that figure (who still own about half of NBCUniversal) and you're talking closer to half a trillion $.
Corporate support is crumbling (Score:5, Interesting)
“The dynamic is clear. Once SOPA — and its Senate counterpart, Protecting IP Act, or PIPA — became high-profile among the Internet community, the lazy endorsements from companies and various hangers-on became toxic. And now, those supporters are scrambling, hollowing out the actual support for the bill. Suddenly, a bill with ‘widespread’ corporate support doesn’t have much support at all,” Dayden said.
What Would Happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
Serious question for consideration:
What would happen if the "big players", such as Level 3, Verizon, Google and the like came out and said, "If you pass this legislation, we are turning off all of our equipment. We will back up our servers, send our customers their data, rip out the equipment, sell it for scrap, leave the wires hanging, sell our buildings and retire to the Caribbean. If you pass this, we won't be able to do our jobs, so we will simply quit and leave you with nothing to legislate. Good luck suing us, because you'll be back to typewriters, pens and wired telephones."
Totally NOT going to happen, but as an exercise in thought, would it be possible?
Could a company as big and powerful as Google hold the world hostage with nothing more than a power switch?
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See, this is where the whole "the U.S. says corporations are people" meme falls apart. Level 3, Verizon and Google aren't people who can suddenly say "fuck this, we are going to the Carribean." They are nominally accountable to shareholders (who are people, or are institutions like CalPERS who help people) who would raise a metric shitfit if these businesses suddenly said "we are thriving now, we will probably still thrive after, but we think it is time to scrap everything." And that will land some decision
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No, because these are public companies, and their executives would be personally liable for the damage to the stock by this kind of action.
Re:What Would Happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting thought, but as has been pointed out before, they don't actually care what happens to the internet. The Govt will fund a Govt only network (if they need it) and big media will finally not have to worry about people illegally downloading their "product" and can go back to charging 20 bucks for a CD and forcing television down everyone's throats.
Yet more proof of how little our representatives care about us eh?
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they don't actually care what happens to the internet
clarification: they == politicians
Re:What Would Happen... (Score:5, Funny)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET [wikipedia.org]Been done. Some of us have a short sense of history.
And what they did before, they can do again, especially if it has the Disney(tm) logo on it.
Re:What Would Happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
Needless to say, clicking the link would return the normal links, and second set of ads providing move revenue for Google, so there's an incentive there and the resultant uproar would be... entertaining.
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Congress calls their bluff. They pass the bill. They know those companies are going to do no such thing.
Re:What Would Happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
That would not happen, but it would be possible to delist supporters of SOPA from search engines, and refuse them hosting, network connections, etc. If they are trying to destroy your business, there is no rule that says you have to do business with them.
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That would probably be bing... their numbers have been increasing quite a bit
A nice change for Rackspace (Score:3, Informative)
I remember back in 2004 when Rackspace turned over entire hard drives to the FBI that contained data for Indymedia websites as part of a terrorism investigation. The FBI only wanted copies of logs, but Rackspace I suppose wanted to go the extra mile.
http://jebba.blagblagblag.org/?p=175
Politicians or Money (Score:5, Insightful)
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Which will never happen, because the people who could make that happen are the same ones collecting the money.
Re:Politicians or Money (Score:4, Insightful)
Money (cash)
Promises of cushy jobs after your term is up.
Fancy dinners/events
etc
etc
How exactly would one go about removing it all from the equation. Block one way and they'll find another, and no politician is going to vote against his/her ability to receive favours...
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If that were done, the politicians would just keep on promising to the people and delivering to the corporations that own the most TV stations and newspapers.
Or did you really think that "the media" is unbiased, in spite of them being owned b
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The only way to solve this problem and much of the problem with Washington is to thoughtfully and radically remove money from politics.
No, the way to fix it is to remove _POWER_ from politics. If government is limited to things that only government can do (e.g. courts, military, etc) then you don't need to worry about it making crazy laws that will destroy things it knows nothing about; if government interferes in every aspect of your life, you can guarantee it will fsck things up.
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hah. (Score:2)
is to thoughtfully and radically remove money from politics
thats a fairy tale in a capitalist economy in which some minority can command mountains of cash against the minority. there is no way to prevent backdoor dealings over money. observe what happens with bureaucrats - like the whore who just retired from fcc in order to take up a good paying job in a corporation she benefited. seemingly there was no cash transaction occurred when all the process was happening. but, what happened in the end ?
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Something not mentioned.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Rackspace is a large constituent of Lamar Smith's District 21 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Texas.21st.Congressional.District.gif) as they are headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Having this large of an employer in his own district against the legislation should be a big wake-up call to Rep. Smith.
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There was a past interview with a Senator - I believe Chuck Grassley - who said in a TV interview that he would vote against his state's interests if the party said so.
Party unity and marching orders over local needs.
Morons. (Score:4, Interesting)
If you had had started lobbying as the datacenter/hosting industry back then, none of these would have happened. But this industry is not the only one to blame. There are search industries, device manufacturers, google, microsoft. Granted, some of the latter did some stuff about acta. But totally insufficient. Instead, everyone sat in their pretty and secure silicon valley bubbles, and behaved as if internet was untouchable. At least it seemed totally stupid to break it, and to the detriment of everyone. But hey ! here is something to break it totally for the benefit of a VERY small minority - so much that a few hands could count the number of those who will primarily benefit in the ultimate end.
Now, what are you going to do ?
Like I said once before (Score:3)
DNSSEC is unpopular with governments because it breaks censorship.
The jack-boots they are a tromping (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this is going to get voted down by offended Americans, but...
After 9/11, the US government began dismantling support for Constitutional rights in favour of anti-terrorist security theatre. They invested billions in surveillance, security, police, staff, and computer systems. Yet despite that huge investment, they couldn't stop the domestic terrorism of the fellow in Texas who recently took out a half dozen people.
They claim to have stopped a few terrorists over the years, but when they've presented the "evidence" against those who were planning attacks, it turned out that the attackers were using ineffective techniques that were unlikely to kill anyone (e.g. The underwear bomber.)
Now they've stepped it up and officially denied the Constitutional rights of anyone the government deems a "terrorist", without having the nasty hassle of proving it to a judge and/or jury. They can just "hold" someone for years without charges or court cases while they "investigate".
SOPA is just the next step of that change in American policy. Instead of championing the legal system, they want to be the arbitrary judge and jury over the world.
Sorry, but the American government does not deserve that level of trust from the world when they can't even follow their own rules for governing a country.
And don't get me started about the persecution of medical cannabis users south of the border and the denial by the US government that cannabis has any medical use.
And yet some people can't understand why so many in the world hate the US and what it's done to their nations in the defense of "freedom" and "democracy." You can't go around invading people, ignoring their laws, ignoring your own laws, and expect to receive any measure of respect on the international stage.
But I bet not ONE of the Congressmen who support SOPA have ever even thought about how this bad legislation is going to be received by the rest of the world.
Re:PR opportunity (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
If companies want free publicity by being sensible and opposing draconian and disastrous laws, I'm all for it. Sounds like a good use of the /. front page to me.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:PR opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, if you're on Google Plus, you'll have seen that the CEO of RackSpace have been fighting SOPA for quite some time now.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking as someone who works at RS, you have no idea what you're talking about.
We employees have been running calling campaigns and such for months against SOPA, and there has been extensive discussion internally all the way up and down the org chart regarding what a terrible price this will exact on the Internet. I'm surprised it took Lanham this long to go public with what has been a long running sentiment here, expressed directly to our senators and representatives, rather than in press releases.
Amusin
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it says what is fashionable
Yet, as bad as you make it sound, its the closest that any non-corporate entity in the US will ever get to providing input to our leaders/owners.
If the only voice we have is not philosophically consistent, at least it IS a voice against an otherwise our otherwise non-representative government.
Re:Doublespeak/Equivocation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:and yet it will probably pass (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know. We said the same thing about the AT&T buyout of T-Mobile. We all knew it was bad for competition. We all knew AT&T was lying to the government about it. And even when the truth leaked out, AT&T and various government people continued to push for it. It looked really bad. But there was LOTS of talk. It became very high profile. The added light and notice the issue got eventually killed the deal.
People need to continue shouting from the rooftops about SOPA.
One thing I have yet to see talked about is how laws like DMCA and the proposed SOPA continue to increasingly put police and government powers in the hands of non-government people... people who aren't otherwise accountable for their actions. It's a huge violation of government trust.
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Mod parent -1 Horribly NaÃve for thinking that's all the Powers That Be will do once SOPA passes.