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[News] Another Possible Loophole for Censorship: the "War on Suicide"

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Net Suicide Bill would breathe life into government censorship

,----[ Quote ]
| "We continue to work with the internet industry to look at long-term ways to 
| keep people safe and without jeopardising our freedom of speech." 
| 
| Or in plain English: We are finally going to do something about people who 
| have the temerity to use the internet to talk openly about this 
| subject. "Freedom of speech" is optional.  
| 
| In fairness, the government is not outwardly planning to change the law 
| much - it is already illegal to "aid or abet" suicide – and they claim that 
| proposed legislation will make it clearer that this applies to the internet 
| as well.   
`----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/24/suicide_bill_censorship/

They paint things with broad brushes. What /else/ will go?


Recent:

Comcast, NetZero latest providers to bow to Cuomo's Usenet campaign

,----[ Quote ]
| But in reality, Cuomo's pressure tactics have misfired. They led Time Warner
| Cable to pull the plug on some 100,000 Usenet discussion groups, including
| such hotbeds of illicit content as talk.politics and
| misc.activism.progressive. Verizon Communications deleted such unlawful
| discussion groups as us.military, ny.politics, alt.society.labor-unions, and
| alt.politics.democrats. AT&T and Time Warner Cable have taken similar steps.
`----

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10002624-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20


FCC.politics.gov

,----[ Quote ]
| But Mr. Martin isn't satisfied with a private resolution of this technical
| dispute. Instead, he wants to make an example of Comcast in order to advance
| a "network neutrality" industrial policy being pushed by high-tech rivals
| like Google and pro-regulation advocacy groups like MoveOn.org, Consumers
| Union and Free Press. Net neutrality proponents want all Internet traffic
| treated "equally." They would prohibit Internet service providers from using
| price to address the ever-growing popularity of streaming video and other
| bandwidth-intensive programs that cause bottlenecks.
`----

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121737525991595145.html


Verizon offers details of Usenet deletion: alt.* groups, others gone

,----[ Quote ]
| Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups--out of
| roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist. In a press release, he took credit for
| the companies' blunderbuss-style newsgroup removal by saying: "We are
| attacking this problem by working with Internet service providers...I commend
| the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of
| responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry."
|
| [...]
|
| What this means in practice is that, thanks to the New York state attorney
| general, Verizon customers will lose out on innocent discussions. Verizon is
| retaining only eight newsgroup hierarchies, even though over 1,000
| hierarchies exist.
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http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9967119-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20


Usenet Villified In NY Deal With ISPs

,----[ Quote ]
| Time Warner Cable will turn off all newsgroup access, while Sprint plans to
| cut access to the whole alt.* segment. Verizon may follow Sprint's example.
|
| Blocking all newsgroups does appear to be a broad approach to a problem
| involving a minority of such groups. As with the Internet in general, not
| everything in Usenet poses a threat. But no one wants to be tainted with even
| a suggestion of being soft on child porn, hence the rush to apply censorship
| with a sweeping axe rather than a skillfully-wielded scalpel.
`----

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/06/11/usenet-villified-in-ny-deal-with-isps


EFF Sues Rodeo Group Over Removal Of Videos On YouTube

,----[ Quote ]
| The Electronic Frontier Foundation has asked a federal court to protect the
| free speech rights of an animal rights group after its video critiques of
| animal treatment at rodeos were removed from YouTube because of false
| copyright claims.
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http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/06/11/eff-sues-rodeo-group-over-removal-of-videos-on-youtube
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