Yesterday I read about the case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who was found guilty of the attempted murder of her American interrogators in a New York court.
Reading that article, it seemed fairly obvious that the case didn’t stack up. In 2003, Aafia Siddiqui went missing, with no (public) record of her whereabouts for the next five years. The next the public record knows of her, she was arrested by Americans in Afghanistan in 2008.
US military personnel argues that they were interrogating her in Afghanistan when she picked up an unattended gun, and started shooting at them. She didn’t manage to hit a single soldier, but they sure got her, and then they hauled her back to the US to try her for attempted murder.
Forensic evidence suggests that the gun she ostensibly fired was never fired by her, nor even fired at all. Furthermore, common sense suggests that US soldiers wouldn’t have left loaded guns lying around unattended where their prisoner would be able to reach them.
Aafia Siddiqui also says that during her five years of imprisonment, she was held in a secret US prison in Afghanistan. This is denied by both the US and the Pakistani authorities, but it is not exactly hard to believe. Read More »
This article brings up a lot of stuff that I think is fundamentally wrong with the copyright system as it is.
Most crucial among these is that governments are negotiating in secret to intensify copyright laws and punishments. They are doing this without any mandate from their citizens, without any regard for the wishes or interests of their citizens.
For Australia, the grossly excessive nature of these negotiations won’t have much effect on our laws… because we already implemented a ton of the worse measures when Howard was so desperate to include a free-trade agreement with the US. But there is one measure that hasn’t yet been implemented here, but which could be, and that is worrying.
Without being a legal expert, I’ll say my understanding of the nature of suing is that someone has to have actually harmed you before you can sue for damages. So you know, if you haven’t lost any money through someone else’s actions, you’re not allowed to demand that they pay you tons of money. You would have no reason to demand lots of money, that that would basically be stealing. However. Among the secret provisions of this treaty, that could all change.
The current situation in the US has lead to ordinary American citizens being ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in punishment for illegally downloading music — sometimes amounting to $22,000 per file.
How much is a music track? In Australia, single tracks can be bought through iTunes for $1.69. I’m sure they can be bought elsewhere for less.
Does it harm giant, sprawling corporations for people to not spend LESS THAN TWO DOLLARS on a certain track? Even if an individual downloads a hundred different tracks, what the hell does $170 matter to a corporation worth billions?
Answer: it doesn’t matter. These companies will get on by without your $170 quite nicely, thank you. An individual downloading a track for free is basically equivalent to an individual who has never heard that track in the first place. The notion of “stealing” doesn’t work when individuals are supposedly “stealing” digital files that can be copied and copied and copied again and again. The people who do pay more than compensate for those who don’t.
Since corporations would look ridiculous suing ordinary American people for, say, twenty bucks, lawmakers have decided they’re allowed to sue for THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS instead. I believe that people who “pirate” tracks are not harming corporations, and even if they ARE harming corporations, they are harming corporations to the value of two dollars. Not $22,000. Under no circumstances, ever, should a corporation be allowed to extort $22,000 per song downloaded from individuals who have not even harmed them.
What this demonstrates is that our lawmakers think corporations and lobbyists are more important than people. And why should that be? What a backwards system.
Fri, 29.01.2010, 1am • 1 Comment • Tags: news, politics, rights, Internet, technology, USA, Australia
# Obama sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and suddenly the whole “progressive” internet is up in arms. Imperialism! Oppression! And so on and so forth! I outlined my views on this
a few days ago and let me repeat: unless you’d approve of a Taliban leadership, we can’t withdraw right now. It’d be great if we could stop behaving like dumbasses but that doesn’t mean withdrawal is the solution. How about not behaving like dumbasses?
We call the shots — and we need to tell this wimpy Congress to get busy and do what we say — or else.
This is Michael Moore's description of what the American left-wing must do, now that Obama has won his Nobel Peace Prize. The first thing I thought when I read this was, "What, sans-culottes style?"
To me, this statement sounds like it means, "We are the masses, we are the people, and we call the shots. You are the government, and you do what we say, or there will be consequences." What will the consequences be? It's not like this group of people would punish the Democrats by sabotaging their campaign at the next election, because then the Republicans would win. So what do you mean, "or else"? What else can you do?
In other news, my exams rapidly approach and I spent hours yesterday reading all about the sans-culottes. That's not actually completely irrelevant news, because that explains why I leapt to that conclusion after Moore's "or else". I admit, I had no idea how twenty-first century America was supposed to coalesce to form a murderous mob, angry and vicious enough to pose a real threat to the government. I guess he must have meant something else. Like begging really hard. Perfecting their puppy-dog eyes and pouts. Teaching small children to plead correctly on their behalf. Maybe he meant, "or else we'll subject you to our pouting!" No, unless Congress is so wimpy that they're notoriously susceptible to pouting, that's not a good threat. But in this era where the vast majority of people do not care enough about their governance to exert real pressure, what is?
Sun, 11.10.2009, 12pm • 0 Comments • Tags: news, USA, History class
In the last week or so I’ve had trouble keeping up with current events (too much else to do!) but one thing I have gleaned is that there has been considerable debate in the US about whether or not Obama ought to give a speech “inspiring” children to care about their education. It seems that liberals, who tend to fawn over Obama’s every move, are all for the speech, whilst the Republicans are against it on the grounds it might indoctrinate children (…to care about their education…). On the Internet I’ve seen more than one American mocking the Republicans for their stand. Mocking the fear of indoctrination, or else joking that the Republicans want everyone to be uneducated because otherwise they’d have no support base. That kind of thing.
And I mean, I’m all for mocking Republicans, and fearing that Obama will actually brainwash kids would indeed be mildly ridiculous. However, dismissing all opposition to this speech as Republican paranoia seems, to me, equally ridiculous. For a start, I don’t much like the idea of this speech, and if you think I’m a Republican, you’ve got me all wrong.
I suppose it’s important here to point out that I’m not American. I’m Australian. In Australia, we don’t really look up to authority figures. Perhaps it’s grounded in our history. Allow convicted shoplifters to establish their own country and send some British soldiers to oppress them, and amazingly enough, the culture of the nation that results is pretty firmly anti-authoritarian. The idea of glorifying a leader to such an extent that they become a moral authority is quite abhorrent to me. Read More »
Sun, 13.09.2009, 4pm • 0 Comments • Tags: USA, propaganda, news, politics