There's been a lot said about Turkey's wholesale blocking of wordpress.com, because of a few possibly libelous blogs hosted there. It doesn't interest me much, because unless the state-owned ISP and firewall is dismantled, there's not going to be free speech anytime soon. Not to mention, I can't read turkish, and thereby determine whether the blogs in question are indeed libelous1. What does interest me, is the Section 2257 legislation that could be passed in 3 days. Since wordpress.com, and most of the rest of the sites I visit, are hosted in the US, this is far more invasive, and far more likely to genuinely impact "free speech" as it exists on the internet:
- The regulations would require the people running a site to get and maintain personal information from every user (that means you) who posts a “sexually explicit” photo, including your photo ID (driver’s license, passport, or military ID).
- The regulations would allow the Attorney General to conduct warrantless searches at will on the sites’ records, including your personal information.
- There are few safeguards over what the FBI can do with the information it obtains.
- If a site operator fails to comply with the regulations, he or she would face a prison sentence of up to 5 years.
- For more detailed information on Sec. 2257, go to http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/misc/2257_fact_sheet.pdf.
Alberto Gonzalez may have resigned, be we are not out of the woods, by any means. The US is picking and choosing what her citizens can and can't say. For them, it's sexual activity; for Turkey, negative comments about Adnan Oktar.
- not to mention, according to matt's statements about opendomain.org, Adnan Oktar had every right to demand that all domains containing permutations of his name be ceded to him, on the basis of him owning his own name (back ↩)
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Jesus, no wonder Six Apart are getting antsy about the contents of livejournal. Since Automattic take no notice of US law on child protection, though, I very much doubt they would bother obeying this legislation either. Until the vigilantes decided to target them. Which could be very messy.
Not even vigilantes: the FBI would be doing the bidding of the AG, if this passes. The FBI have already been digging through porn sites under 2257 already. (the evidence of which is related to Gonzalez’ resignation (since the FBI really ought to be charged with better things than the behavior of consenting adults)).
Thanks for supporting us in this struggle. We have had several other blocking of peer-to-peer and blogging sites nowadays. Hope we find a way to overcome.
Cheers Adams by the way. I have been enjoying the Dream in Infrared as you know for several months. Thanks.
I can’t even imagine having my government outrightly prohibit free speech. kudos for the will to overcome.
I’m glad to see you’re still enjoying the theme!
including your photo ID (driver’s license, passport, or military ID). Since when do passports and drivers licenses include sexually explicit photos anyway? I am all for cracking down on porn as a matter of fact due to children having access to it. I highly doubt this is the way to accomplish whatever mission it is they want to accomplish.
It’s not that your ID would be explicit. It’s that if you post explicit photos/content, then the network is required to keep your ID on file. Supposedly to prove that you’re of age, but more likely so that your explicit photos can be used as evidence against you.
This is invasive and scary legislation. Thanks for blogging on it.
Glad you appreciated it. It’s amazing to me how little press this has recieved outside of the vigilant sex-positive/LGBT blogs.
What does LGBT stand for please?
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. I’ve added it to my list of acronyms, so i can use it with impunity from now on
Ahhh … lightbulb moment.
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