Syria shuts off internet access across the country

reply to post by SloAnPainful


How will we ever know..
regardless imo this is a sign of desperation within Syria..
Neither side in this conflict is right,there are just levels of less wrong..

Originally posted by PatrickGarrow17
reply to post by beezzer

 

We had freedom of expression before Gutenberg too...but compromising the newspapers has always been considered a first amendment violation. Basically if there is a means of communication, the government can't prohibit it's use.

I always took freedom of expression as being able to express ones self, er. . um. . . freely.

If the government said, "You are no longer allowed to express your thoughts" then I would find that an inhibition.

This is a tactic to pursue a different goal. This is a war. It is a ploy. It is a tactic. Not a new draconian rule.

reply to post by beezzer


Well, yeah. In Syria it is just the cherry on top of a sundae of true crimes on humanity during the course of a dictator waging war on his country...but if the US figured out a way to kill the internet here, and did it tomorrow, it would easily qualify as a 1st amendment violation.

reply to post by beezzer


Are you being dense on purpose? What part of online freedom of expression did you not understand?

reply to post by PatrickGarrow17


Wow,drinking the punch have much?And Obama isn't guilty of crimes against his own constitution and humanity?Bush?Netanyahoo?i could go on and on...
Point your finger at one, point it to all...
Ones person's mass muderer/terrorist is another's war hero/freedom fighter
..

Originally posted by PatrickGarrow17
reply to post by beezzer

 

Well, yeah. In Syria it is just the cherry on top of a sundae of true crimes on humanity during the course of a dictator waging war on his country...but if the US figured out a way to kill the internet here, and did it tomorrow, it would easily qualify as a 1st amendment violation.

I'd have to agree only because it wouldn't be prefaced by a war.

reply to post by Radiobuzz


I think Beezzer point is that it is ridiculous to think we have a right to the internet, which is fair...

But once a bunch of people in the private sector set up the internet, it is a violation for the government to shut it down...

Noone is calling a human rights violation in Sierra Leone because only a quarter percent of the pop has internet access.

Originally posted by Radiobuzz
reply to post by beezzer

 

Are you being dense on purpose? What part of online freedom of expression did you not understand?

I explainedmyself fairly clearly in previous posts.

We can soil ourselves over the loss of the internet, but we're missing the big picture here.

Um, a civil war.

reply to post by all2human

Wow,drinking the punch have much?And Obama isn't guilty of crimes against his own constitution and humanity?Bush?Netanyahoo?i could go on and on... Point your finger at one, point it to all... Ones person's mass muderer/terrorist is another's war hero/freedom fighter

What? lol

Where did that outlash come from?....there's a squeeze on rights all over the world in the name of protection over privacy...taking data from everyone without warrants, waging war: yeah this stuff is bad.

This is a thread about Syria's internet being dead at the moment, that's what I was commenting on... if at any point I put my full support behind any of the people you mentioned I swear it was the CIA hacking my system

One of the first actions of warfare on those you are about to conqueror destroy communications.

So that they will not be able to communicate with each other or the outside world meaning everything that has gone on in Syria thus far is just a warm up exercise.

The "shock and awe" is about to begin.

Thanks for the report on this.
Star and Flag so I can keep my eye on this, and see where it leads.

Either way it can't be good, and is a pretext to much death. Any militant knows, you take down com systems. Then you have put the fog of War down on your foe.

When the Fog of War closes in on you, you are in effect blind.

Totally agree with you guys,this is the start of a big push to overthrow the Syrian govt or defend it.
My apologies Patrick

There are a lot of differing viewpoints here, but a disturbing trend seems to be to believe that the rebels are virtuous and the government is cruel and unjustly crack-downy. How much of that opinion can be traced back to the SOHR?

How's this: I think the shutdown of internet access within Syria was perpetrated by outside forces trying to overthrow the government of Syria by forcing an escalation. The current situation there is taking too long to evolve on its own, so someone made a decision to push it over the edge and force more outright confrontation, and more retaliation.

We do not see much coming out of Syria to begin with, so who are we to judge the validity of anything being said in the news? (Especially if it's all SOHR-sourced.) Any government is justified in the use of force to protect the country. What is unclear to EVERYONE outside of Syria is who this force is being used against. Sounds like half of the casualties of this conflict have been government forces... and that sounds like something that would not happen with a country's own military forces against its own people. (They tend to have the bigger guns.)

reply to post by PatrickGarrow17

EXPECT
The internet's great, but I swear it will be our downfall. Too much reliance, too much centralized control, too hard to regulate.

We need a serious citizens protection force, with superior skills to government agencies, and fast.

nah,

that just leads to the overthrow of sovereign nations. I don't like that idea. It is actually a Marxist insurgency tactic. Then they are convinced of some lie and all of a sudden the democracy exits stage right and in come the jerks no one knows anything about.....fast forward a few decades and it is every failed example of that sort of system of governance.

No, thank you.

EDIT:
The greatest library ever assembled is not a bad thing, unless you don't like an ever more educated people to govern.

nah,

that just leads to the overthrow of sovereign nations. I don't like that idea. It is actually a Marxist insurgency tactic. Then they are convinced of some lie and all of a sudden the democracy exits stage right and in come the jerks no one knows anything about.....fast forward a few decades and it is every failed example of that sort of system of governance.

No, thank you.

EDIT:
The greatest library ever assembled is not a bad thing, unless you don't like an ever more educated people to govern.

edit on 29-11-2012 by zedVSzardoz because: (no reason given)

The internet is great in a lot of ways...but it's offering the opportunity for unprecedented control over people, by whoever has access to the most information. As we have it, it is becoming more cost effectivie to store ALL data permanently than spy on a case by case basis. It costs way more to build fighter jets, than it does to surveille entire populations. Within 20 years technology will exist that allows for global surveillance and permanent data storage.

I can almost guarantee you that a MAJOR company will rise that's primary service is to protect the privacy of internet users. If you knew that your government was storing your every move on the internet, your every phone call, and synthesizing a personality profile based on it, don't you think you'd pay, say 100$ a year to prevent that? A lot of people would, and will.

This is the type of citizens organization I'm talking about. Basically a company, devoted to protecting the people from government excess and protecting democracy, freedom, and the internet.

Otherwise, more people will become aware of surveillance capabilities and it will come to a critical point where the government takes all power completely or the people fight back in a less technical way.

Internet, shminternet.

Won't the attack be live on CNN?

Meanwhile, get your ham radio setup before they disrupt us here.

And when you read between the lines.....
The U.S. hacked their systems and cut their internet....
It's pretty obvious. I see no reason their own government would do it, and I see a ton of reasons the U.S. would do it.

Originally posted by CrikeyMagnet
There are a lot of differing viewpoints here, but a disturbing trend seems to be to believe that the rebels are virtuous and the government is cruel and unjustly crack-downy. How much of that opinion can be traced back to the SOHR?

How's this: I think the shutdown of internet access within Syria was perpetrated by outside forces trying to overthrow the government of Syria by forcing an escalation.

you can watch it happen here,
looks internal



xploder

Originally posted by khimbar
Isn't this the sort of thing all the Anonymous fans told us told us they'd stop happening?

Well. Where are they now?

I agree ...where are they ???. They told us they were angered that Israel threatened to turn off the intetrnet in Gaza. Well Israel didn't and they said they hit them hard. I can't imagine what they would do to Syria as they actually did hit the switch. My guess is anonymous will do zip because they are all anti-semites and used the Gazan's as an excuse to attack

I can only imagine the horrors that will be unleashed in Syria now. No internet, no contact with the outside world....with the UN pushing for control of the internet next week - I can see this coming as a common occurrence.

As to anonymous, what can they do when the government physically takes control of the hardware?