Turkey Passes New Net Censorship And Surveillance Laws; West No Longer In A Position To Criticize
from the awkward dept
Last week we discussed the Turkish government's bizarre campaign about the supposed "problems" of online freedom. Maybe this was an attempt to blunt criticism of its new online censorship law, which has just been passed by the Turkish parliament, as the Wall Street Journal reports:
The law, which must be approved by President Abdullah Gul to take effect, will allow the Presidency of Telecommunication and Communication, or TIB, to block access to Internet sites within four hours of receiving complaints about privacy violations. Turkey's web hosts will also have to store all traffic information for up to two years, according to the measure adopted as part of a legislative package.
That is, not only does it bring in harsh and swift online censorship, but requires online surveillance too. As the Guardian points out, this makes a bad situation worse:
Censorship and a very tight control of the internet are already a reality in Turkey. According to Engelliweb.com, around 40,500 websites were blocked in Turkey by the beginning of February -- 10,000 more than in April last year. The latest Freedom of the Net report published by Freedom House describes the Turkish internet as "partially free".
Despite that, Turkey's deputy prime minister, Bülent Arınç, is quoted as saying:
"We are freer and have more press freedom than many other countries in the world," he said.
The sad thing is, he may be right. Now that Western countries have lost the moral high ground when it comes to censoring Web sites and carrying out blanket surveillance, others plainly feel they have a free hand to bring in even more repressive laws clamping down on Internet freedom. Turkey's move is just the latest in a growing series.
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Filed Under: censorship, free speech, internet, turkey
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the one thing that Erdagon is doing, is kicking himself in the bollocks as far as joining the EU is concerned. i very much doubt they will let him in with these rules in place. if they do, then the rest of the EU will have to follow and then basically, there will be no such thing as democracy at all!!
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Techdirt fanboys should criticize! It's censorship week right here.
IS the same principle kids: you just don't want some opinions out, so suppress as much as you can.
Mike's fanboy-trolls imitate him by taking no position except the pejorative. (32 of 203)
12:19:33[n-362-6]
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Techdirt fanboys should criticize! It's censorship week right here.
IS the same principle kids: you just don't want some opinions out, so suppress as much as you can.
Mike's fanboy-trolls imitate him by taking no position except the pejorative. (32 of 203)
12:19:33[n-362-6]
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Soon, this entire planet won't be made up of communities, each country will be a statewide or countrywide prison system.
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Techdirt fanboys should criticize! It's censorship week right here.
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Techdirt fanboys should talk! It's censorship week here!
Mike has banned two IPs now, so I'm playing whack-a-mole!
Enjoy your walled garden, and all the sour grapes in it!
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If you are on a something like Comcast Business, you could still get high speed, when logging in to your machine.
The only thing the authoritis in Turkey will see is that you are making an encrypted connection to your cable modem back home in the U.S., and will not be able to determine what you are doing.
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aka do whatever you want noone cares
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slam, slam, slam
Now, here's some news for you. The west does not censor news sites. They don't limit access to the internet in general. They don't block opposing views, or force opposition websites to shut down. More importantly, they don't put their opposition in prison, torture them, or kill them.
Clearly, you don't know what real censorship is. What happens in the west is that someone takes away your favorite toy (torrent site of the day) and you toss all your other toys out of the pram in a fit of rage.
Free speech doesn't mean "any speech, no matter it's legality". Many forms of speech and expression are NOT protected, even in the US. However, much of the speech that would be protected in the US (and most of us would "die" for ) is the sort of thing that many countries block and censor.
When the west starts to approach that level, you will have some basis for a slam. In the meantime, stop trying so hard to look for a slam, it makes your point look very weak.
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Re: slam, slam, slam
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This is no reason to try to level down...
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I am 100% positive that our privacy revelations had zero impact on Turkish laws. They might call us hypocrites if we criticize them now, but this was the direction they were always going to go. It's not like most countries in the middle east hold the U.S. up as a shining model for behavior and governance.
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I Reckon
So now, essentially, Turkey antes up and joins the spearhead of oppression. Welcome to the show. Pick a seat. There are plenty of seats to choose from but they should be filling up quickly.
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I suppose the Turkish leadership, is fine ruling over a back-woods country with waning global influence in the world.
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