US Tech Sanctions In Sudan Are Empowering The Regime, Tamping Down Opposition

from the policy-in-reverse dept

We've already talked somewhat about how the United States' sanction policy, with regard to a couple regimes whom we designate as bad actors, can be best described as having the opposite of the intended effect. While we can have a separate argument over whether or not American should be using sanctions at all as a method for shaping global politics, any discussion about the current use of sanctions should be based around their merits or lack there of. That groundwork laid, when we move beyond the more general analysis of our technology sanctions against several regimes and the impact on online educational systems like Coursera, and dive a bit more into the specific impacts of tech sanctions on a single nation, the failure of our policy is laid bare.

Take Sudan, for instance, where President Omar al-Bashir's NCP party is largely run by conservative Wahhabi Muslims, whereas the opposition parties in Darfur and elsewhere tend to be more liberal and of less-strict forms of Islam. Al-Bashir and the NCP have long been the target of human rights groups and the American government, leading to a sanctions policy against Sudan that's as strict as could be imagined. The goal is to either get the government in Sudan to change, which is unlikely to happen as a result of the sanctions, or to get the Sudanese people to change their government entirely. Unfortunately, our sanctions policy appears to be having the opposite effect, empowering the government and creating barriers for any popular resistance.

Caught in the middle are U.S. sanctions. Initially designed to put pressure on the government, these technology restrictions have become outdated, and some of the provisions inadvertently aid the regime by blocking access to critical personal communications tools—to the detriment of the Sudanese people. Companies like Yahoo and Samsung, unsure whether they can legally make their products available and afraid of the risk, often err on the side of overcompliance when blocking their products in Sudan and other sanctioned countries.

“The U.S. sanctions have empowered the government security agencies against the activists online, because there [are] few anonymity tools available for them, and many of them are not tech savvy. Not being able to update your software makes you an easy catch for the highly trained security officers,” Anwar Dafa-alla, a Sudanese activist and founder of Nafeer IT, told us in an email. And Helena Puig Larrauri, who works on peace-building initiatives in Sudan, writes, “The embargo has a particular effect on anyone trying to use technology for the social good.”

The lesson to learn is that censoring basic internet services as a method for sanctions does not achieve the goal of those sanctions and in fact puts us squarely in line with the dictatorial regimes we attempt to alter, who of course are also censoring the internet amongst their own populations. Beyond that, whatever your opinion might be on sanctions in general, preventing methods of communication and dialogue within other countries, and indeed between our countries, is about as perfect a negation of the democratic method as I can imagine. Meanwhile, the trodden upon are kept uninformed, unarmed, and unable to unify, all due in part to our sanctions, while the government that oppresses them goes about their business as usual.

Now, it should be noted that the United States hasn't been ignoring this problem entirely. Our government has done sanctions reform before, most notably in the 1990's, where the aim was reducing the unintended negative consequences of sanctions. Also, in 2010, the Treasury Department announced relaxed restrictions on certain forms of internet services. But, as seems to have happened too many times in the past, efforts to be clear on what's allowed and what isn't in nations like Iran haven't been duplicated for Sudan.

The U.S. government has updated policies toward Iran several times since 2010. The most recent, General License D, authorized U.S. companies to export software, services, and hardware for personal communications purposes. But there haven’t been changes to the treatment of personal communications tools in the Sudanese sanctions. Sudanese civil society groups launched a campaign last week calling for the United States to change its policies.

And so al-Bashir's regime continues on, despised as a matter of American policy, but also empowered by it.

Filed Under: sanctions, sudan, united states

DOJ Tries To Explain How It Can Get Around Requirement To Serve Megaupload In The US

from the tapdancing dept

Back in April, a US judge pointed out that US criminal law requires serving those accused of criminal activities and Megaupload, as a foreign-based corporation, might not be subject to such service -- potentially killing the lawsuit against the company (though, not against the individuals who run the company). The Justice Department has now hit back with a filing mocking the idea that Megaupload could avoid criminal charges as a company (pdf and embedded below).

The filing focuses on how Megaupload had extensive operations in the US, including having many of its servers hosted here -- and even had two separate CEOs at various points who reside in the US (including Swizz Beatz, who the filing notes, has refused to cooperate). It further argues that there is no rush to serve the company, and that it can do so once the execs are extradited to the US -- or it can serve them at the office listed in Hong Kong. Admittedly, part of this fight is really about process technicalities, so I wouldn't make too big a deal of them. However, there are legitimate jurisdictional questions about what the standards are if the US can go after a company anywhere in the globe, just because it's online. That could certainly come back to haunt the US, as US companies are frequently targeted by other countries. Having a case like this could be used as justification to retaliate against US companies.

The filing also highlights something that is somewhat self-contradictory about the US's case. In an effort to argue US jurisdiction, the DOJ argues that Megaupload has been involved in civil lawsuits (on both sides) in the US. That is true... but that seems to weaken another contention in the DOJ's wider case: that it had to take the actions it did because Megaupload was somehow "unreachable" as an offshore "rogue site." The actual evidence, as noted by the DOJ itself in this filing, proves otherwise.

Filed Under: copyright, jurisdiction, united states
Companies: megaupload

Insanity: Getting Worked Up Over One Company's Slight Change Of Opinion In The Creditworthiness Of The US

from the it's-an-opinion dept

You may have heard (or, at least, I hope you heard) that, late Friday, S&P downgraded the US's credit rating from AAA to AA-plus, causing all sorts of hair pulling and worry. Here's the part that makes no sense: S&P's rating of the safety of US debt is simply an opinion. It's certainly a high profile opinion, but it's still an opinion. What I can't figure out is why anyone is making a big deal of one private company making a slight change to its opinion. People are acting as if this change is a change in facts. They're acting as if an S&P downgrade actually makes US debt less trusthworthy. It does not. The US may very well not be that trustworthy on its debt (in fact, I find that argument quite compelling these days), but having one company say that is meaningless.

We've discussed this before. For absolutely no good reason, the US government decided to put the opinion of various rating agencies into law, requiring certain institutions to maintain certain percentages of "highly rated" bonds in order to engage in certain activities. The insanity is that it effectively forced the world to think about ratings from S&P and Moody's as if they were fact, even though they're really just opinions. And to do all of this even if their ratings go against one's own opinion. And, of course, we all know that the ratings agencies are far from perfect, and have an unfortunate history that suggests that, at times, they've succumbed to pressure.

So, even if you believe that the US government's financial position is a disaster (and, again, a case can be made for that), it's crazy to pretend that one company changing its opinion (just slightly) has any actual meaning. Most of the market can and does make its own decisions on the creditworthiness of US debt, no matter what S&P says. In other words, the (slim) risk of the US actually defaulting is already priced in. The S&P saying what people are already thinking doesn't mean that anything fundamental changed... other than its opinion.

Markets are made based on the interaction of buyers and sellers. Not the (sometimes questionable) opinions of just a few firms.

Filed Under: debt, economy, opinions, ratings, united states
Companies: s&p

Antigua Doesn't See Settlement With US Over WTO Plan To Let It Ignore US Copyrights

from the stand-your-ground dept

The back and forth battle between the US and Antigua is long and involved. You can read the background if you want, but the short version is that the US suddenly claimed that Antigua-based online gambling sites were in violation of US anti-gambling laws. Antigua took offense at this, and noted that it appeared to violate free trade agreements between the two countries, most specifically because the US still allowed certainly types of domestic online gambling. The issue went to the WTO multiple times, and every time Antigua won -- and every time the US ignored the decision. At one point, the US pretended it won the ruling, and another time it announced that it was simply, unilaterally, changing its trade agreement with Antigua.

Since Antigua has little leverage against the US, it started to look at other options -- and took serious an idea that some folks first suggested in jest: if the US keeps ignoring the WTO rulings, let Antigua ignore US intellectual property rights. Antigua took this plan to the WTO, and the WTO approved it -- though, limited it to only $21 million worth of intellectual property, which given industry accounting probably represents half an album or so. Either way, the US threatened Antigua not to follow through on this plan, even though the WTO approved it -- and the two sides agreed to negotiate a settlement, with a deadline of today, June 6th.

Well, here we are, and Antigua is saying that (can you believe it?) the US appears to be taking a hardline position on this whole thing and no settlement is expected. It will be interesting to see if Antigua really follows through on ignoring US intellectual property, and how it goes about doing so. Also, it will be worth watching to see how they "count" just how much intellectual property they're ignoring. I'm assuming they won't use RIAA math.

Filed Under: antigua, copyright, intellectual property, online gambling, united states, wto