US Internet Black List

[Jude]

according to online reports

Is where I stopped taking that news article on rawstory seriously.

[kylie]

         Jude, are you alright at the moment?  Looking at the article, it sounds like you stopped at the end of the first sentence -- and then felt a need to appear here only to say how confidently you're dismissing the whole discussion.  It also seems to me that you're attempting to ridicule the name of the source without doing any research about the story.  Unfortunately, the thread title is not "The Relative Virtue of Rawstory.com"! 

        We are all "online sources" of various capabilities, here.  Under that kind of logic, you could just as easily disregard this entire board -- no?

        Since you've left it to others to do the work of searching for another source that may or may not impress you (assuming you do actually care about something that's online ;)...  Perhaps you might consider the New York Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html

Or maybe take a look at the ICE speech linked from there:

ICE Operation in Our Sites

... And see whether you prefer to pop in just to wave that all away, too.  I found these by Googling from the Rawstory material for 10 min. or so.  I'm skeptical that you even tried to look for the basic story you've dismissed.

         At the least, if you're going to make the effort to poke at the discussion:  You could take a moment to say on precisely what grounds you concluded that nothing here is worthy of serious discussion.

   

[Jude]

Jude, are you alright at the moment?

Snarky personal attacks are not welcome.

Looking at the article, it sounds like you stopped at the end of the first sentence -- and then felt a need to appear here only to say how confidently you're dismissing the whole discussion.  It also seems to me that you're attempting to ridicule the name of the source without doing any research about the story.  Unfortunately, the thread title is not "The Relative Virtue of Rawstory.com"!

"According to" followed by some sort of vague supposed consensus or assumed authority is a fairly classic method of misdirection and bullshit.  I did finish reading, I didn't say I didn't, but that kind of sent off alarm bells in my head.  As far as Rawstory goes in particular, I know absolutely nothing about the credibility of the website, I was reacting to the article itself.

I didn't explicitly point out what was factually incorrect about the Rawstory article because Vekseid already had long before I posted.  There were warrants, your New York Times article corroborates this, and that's in direct contradiction to the very title of the Rawstory article (nevermind its content which I assure you it contradicts as well).  Anyway, my skepticism was fully validated.

We are all "online sources" of various capabilities, here.  Under that kind of logic, you could just as easily disregard this entire board -- no?

You should always disregard factual information spread on the internet unless the source is some entity whose credibility you can verify.  However, that does not mean disregarding other people's opinions or analysis.  Only fact requires that level of trust.

Serving as a witness of truth and commenting on that truth are two things which should be kept separate for a reason:  when you mix the two, confirmation bias is infinitely more likely to come into play.

[kylie]

I didn't explicitly point out what was factually incorrect about the Rawstory article because Vekseid already had long before I posted.

Thank you for clarifying.  To me when a person says they don't take an article seriously, it can easily imply that they don't buy its entire direction.    I would also argue that such a vague and negative statement will often lead to doubts about whether the speaker actually read a piece.  When that piece happens to be the original source for the thread and there is no qualification to the phrase, I think it's obvious that there is ample room for a dramatic interpretation.  To the extent that you don't say what your premises are or even what specific matter you are responding about, there is no logical analysis of anything specific.  Since it's rather negative in tone and claims to shed light on something unspecified to do with Rawstory (which in turn was the OP's choice) [Edit: Sorry, maybe not the OP.  I thought it showed up earlier than it did.  I still feel it was a "baby with the bath water" phrasing of dismissal], then it's fair game for criticism of "rhetorical."  Then people tend to go guessing about what its target was, and reacting to that.  For my part, I might better have responded with: "What do you mean?"

There were warrants, your New York Times article corroborates this, and that's in direct contradiction to the very title of the Rawstory article (nevermind its content which I assure you it contradicts as well).

I did notice some discrepancy in the number of site cases, although it's also possible that may be changing as people investigate.  So yes that is quite likely so, however...  I am still under the impression that the overall purpose of the thread is more to talk about a somehow "new" government campaign to regulate the Internet (at the very least, to the extent that someone gains ground through new legislation -- as Vekseid has mentioned).  Unless someone will argue that both 1) there is no new form of prosecution nor scope of enforcement here at all and 2) no effective change would actually follow the current political moves, then I am presently less concerned with under what specific authority the government claims to act.  So I have been reading through quickly, trying to get a feel for the topic.  I have found it rather difficult to reach a conclusion from the rather brief arguments. 

       I agree with Veks that ICE does not always play by the book, and I think that is a fair bottom line for concern here.  That seems to support an argument for greater vigilance rather than less.  In turn, that argument is consistent with the overall tone of the story as Rawstory presented it.   So honestly Jude, I remain befuddled about why you phrased the quip about Rawstory as you did at that time.  However, thank you again for trying to clarify.   

Snarky personal attacks are not welcome.

I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.  The post just didn't strike me as very thoughtful, particularly when compared to several of your other posts.  Sometimes people have bad days...  We don't always post under the best of conditions.  I almost typed, "Are you having a bad morning somewhere?" But I don't follow what time of day it is there, so I didn't. 

       This time of day line should also serve as an example.  Facts may be ironic.  It has become fashionable on the Internet for people to call out, "snarky" as a defense in cases where an ironic view presented by others does not support one's own views of this or that.  This maneuver is pulled as if there is some foolproof universal regime to keep facts in life devoid of irony, and as if the mere expression of irony must be interpreted as offensive.  I don't think either assumption is reasonable.  If I responded to your post only by saying "Well I think your quip about Rawstory was snarky," I bet you would not be sympathetic.

[Wolfy]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/wikileaks

An interesting read. ^-^

Especially looking at what our government calls other leaders...<_<>_>

[AtlasEros]

There are a lot of countries that already do this.  My company does business in Dubai and you cannot even get on Skype there.

[Callie Del Noire]

I think that part of the deal wit Dubai might be related to telecom regulations.