
Clinton Urges Countries Not to Restrict Internet - llambda
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/world/at-hague-hillary-rodham-clinton-urges-countries-not-to-restrict-internet.html?_r=all
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billybob
It's nice to know the US is trying to fight the worldwide plague of internet
censorship and monitoring, DNS spoofing, and unilateral site shutdowns.

(cough cough SOPA cough cough DHS cough)

Yes sir, freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable search, and "innocent
until proven guilty", that's how we do it in the Land of the Free.

~~~
roc
To be fair, it's not so different from the way we operate in every other
situation.

e.g. championing free and fair elections and decrying other people's failures
while passing a seemingly endless stream of poll-tax-esque disenfranchisement
legislation here at home, in the name of combating voter fraud problems we've
never actually seen manifest.

or decrying the "crony capitalism" of Taiwan and then China, while regulatory
capture leaves us looking just as bad.

or decrying the income inequality in banana republics as evidence of
corruption and social injustice, while deregulating and tax-cutting our way to
the top of that list.

~~~
cobrausn
I find it interesting that line three of your post decries regulatory capture,
while line four decries deregulation. I think it points to how much of a
problem we actually have - we don't want complete deregulation, but the
regulations we do end up getting often end up just making it worse. It's
pretty disheartening.

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roc
Point three is very much about deregulation in industries enjoying regulatory
capture.

Wall Street is quick to decry regulations that bar it from doing what it
wants. But it's just as quick to protect those regulations that keep
competitors out. The regulatory problem really is just one of capture.

"Business-crippling regulations" are up there with Reagan's Welfare Queen,
Ohio's voter fraud and Tax Cuts' job-creating stimulus credentials. That is:
long accepted as political fact despite a complete lack of evidence of their
existence and a continually growing pile of evidence against.

~~~
cobrausn
I'm not dogmatic about these kinds of things - I will support anything that
has a strong body of evidence supporting it (with the caveat that rights don't
get violated). Regulations are not sacrosanct - there are bad ones and good
ones, and sometimes deregulation kills the bad ones, in which case it should
be supported. Sometimes it's just regulatory capture in action, as you said,
in which case it needs to be stopped.

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adharmad
Moral Relativism is nothing new.

Reminds me of the quote by Orwell: All nationalists have the power of not
seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend
self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of
inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits,
but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage —
torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment
without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does
not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side.

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danilocampos
Hope she finds time to bring that show to Washington DC.

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mindstab
I hope they realize how damaging their own in house legislature like SOPA is
damaging to their international efforts. They already look a bit more suspect
with SOPA on the table and were it ever to pass they'd have the credibility of
China.

~~~
Vivtek
Less. China is honest about restricting its people and doesn't try to tell
everybody else they're not paying attention to human rights.

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thechut
It's ridiculous that there is no mention of SOPA or her thoughts on it in this
article. Why would the NYT not mention it either?

~~~
ldar15
I wish I could be there when the penny drops. Your face is going to be
awesome.

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clevername
Oh the hypocrisy.

[http://www.salon.com/2011/12/09/hillary_clinton_and_internet...](http://www.salon.com/2011/12/09/hillary_clinton_and_internet_freedom/singleton/)

~~~
MikeGrace
Yes. The hypocrisy has me questioning her authenticity. Has she had a change
of heart or is she just playing a game to increase popularity and gain votes?

~~~
buff-a
She made this exact same speech before wikileaks (January 2010) [1]. She's
making this exact same speech after wikileaks. The hymn sheet doesn't change.
[2] By standing up and demanding that other countries behave morally she
suggests that we make this demand because _we_ do. Do you think Pinochet did
not stand and make these same speeches? Or Hu Jintao? Or Saddam Hussein? Or
Thatcher? Or Assad?

Are you imagining she would stand up and tell the _truth_? Have you been
paying attention? If you were to ask her, would she say that flying military
aircraft into our airspace would be an act of war, even as we fly ours into
Iran's? The list is endless.

This is all theater.

[1]
[http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/21/internet_fr...](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/21/internet_freedom?page=full)

[2] <http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat>

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eufouria
Not a single mention of SOPA in the article...

~~~
CWuestefeld
Of course not. SOPA is common-sense legislation designed to protect the
creative people in our society. It has nothing to do with Internet
restrictions or censorship. </sarcasm>

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Sahebi
Ok Mrs.Clinton, Please don't sell filtering and spying device to countries ;)

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electic
NYT sucks for not mentioning SOPA. #FAIL.

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fleitz
Great news, I guess this means that Wikileaks will be free to receive
donations and disseminate news of interest to citizens.

At least now we know the real reasons the US wants to restrict internet
access, it's not copyright as we had long suspected but to "threaten basic
freedoms and human rights and also international commerce and the free flow of
information."

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einhverfr
"THE HAGUE — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other international
leaders urged countries and private businesses on Thursday to fight increasing
efforts to restrict access to the Internet by repressive governments and even
some democratic ones. "

Some democratic ones.... like the United States and Australia, right?

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RexRollman
I think my irony meter just hit 11.

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ajays
The USG has always been a big follower of the "do as we say, not as we do"
paradigm.

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tomlin
_She added: “There isn’t an economic Internet and a social Internet and a
political Internet. There’s just the Internet.”_

She should have said, "It's the Internet, stupid."

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goodweeds
This from a woman whose husband signed the DMCA into law.

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LoneWolf
Meanwhile at the US.... SOPA Need I say more?

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xer0
I think we have a House to put in order first.

