TechnoPolitics and Elections in the Middle East.

~~ The NYT's Thomas Friedman today puts forth that there is a real TechnoPolitical change going on in the Middle Eastern Body Politic. Internet and Cell Texting are fueling the pro-western the reform movements there.~~ posted from blackberry by technopolitical~~




http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=376648&f=76


By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: June 14, 2009

mobile.nytimes.com

"Twenty years ago, I wrote a book about the Middle East, and recently I was thinking of updating it with a new introduction. It was going to be very simple - just one page, indeed just one line: "Nothing has changed."
".....something is going on in the Middle East today that is very new. Pull up a chair; this is going to be interesting."

" What we saw in the Lebanese elections,........., and what we saw in the provincial elections in Iraq, .........is the product of four historical forces that have come together to crack open this ossified region".

**"First is the diffusion of technology. The Internet, blogs, YouTube and text messaging via cellphones, particularly among the young - 70 percent of Iranians are under 30 - is giving Middle Easterners cheap tools to communicate horizontally, to mobilize politically and to criticize their leaders acerbically, outside of state control. It is also enabling them to monitor vote-rigging by posting observers with cellphone cameras. I knew something had changed when I sat down for coffee on Hamra Street in Beirut last week with my 80-year-old friend and mentor, Kemal Salibi, one of Lebanon's greatest historians, and he told me about his Facebook group!"***

"CYBERWAR Privacy May Be a Victim in Cyberdefense Plan"

~ We are at war.

A Government run Cyber Defense is needed.

The internet is a public forum that I choose to enter.

Am I willing to surrender some my cyber rights to enter cyberspace -- to surrender my internet privacy in the name of American national self defense?

I know for me I already personally-- but not politically-- censor myself online. Unlike others who really do completely open their life to the internet, I post almost nothing about my private life , or at least nothing shocking.

Nor do I visit any websites that I would want to later deny doing so.

For me there would be very little if any real impact on my personal internet use, in light of the proposed American Government measures of Cyber Defense.

I already guard my privacy online and do not visit sites of illicit or illegal activity.

Ido also do google myself often to find out what others could learn about me with a quick internet search. (With a little work one can mostly control their online presence.)

Now, I am still very much a civil libertarian when it comes to both private and mutually consenting personal interactions. I fully believe that the government has no right to regulate or monitor our private lives.

But again , I CHOOSE to go onto the Internet, with the understanding that it may be monitored and my online actions and interactions might be recorded by some government snoop, a snoop whose job it is to look for threats of violence against man or machine. But it is not his charge to monitor normal free speech, association, and/or political organizing. Those activities are fully protected rights in the USA.

My life online is not that exciting. And again purposely so. Privacy must be guarded by ones self, as only you can protect your own privacy. So I am careful what I post and write about myself on my various blogs.

When you drive the roads in your car there are traffic cops. On the internet too there does need to be a cyberpolice and I am willing to accept Government monitoring of the Internert in the name of Cyber National Security, as I for one do not see how it would change my techno cyber political behaviors in any way.

The First amendment of the US Constitution fully protects all my cyber activities. I have full free speech and free press rights here at TechnoPolitical. I post what I think and believe very freely and without constraint.

If I want or need Privacy I can turn the Computer Off.

We are at war. There are lunatics of all stripes out there who use the internet as a tool to further violence and terrorism. There has to be Government Cyber Security in the USA. The stakes are just too high.

Now below this post, there is another recent post about China's cyber crackdown attempt.

This is a different situation than the USA's, as China is working to suppress nonviolent speech and civil dissent. For there is no right to free speech and free association in China and the Chinese Government is quite totalitarian in its Electronic-Governance of Cyber Space.

The USA however is not looking suppress nonviolent speech and association, but to protect its citizens from Terrorism both domestic and foreign. Big difference.
~~
Posted from blackberry by technopolitical via AT&T.~~





"CYBERWAR Privacy May Be a Victim in Cyberdefense Plan"


By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER



Published: June 13, 2009

mobile.nytimes.com



"WASHINGTON - A plan to create a new Pentagon cybercommand is raising significant privacy and diplomatic concerns, as the Obama administration moves ahead on efforts to protect the nation from cyberattack and to prepare for possible offensive operations against adversaries' computer networks.





President Obama has said that the new cyberdefense strategy he unveiled last month will provide protections for personal privacy and civil liberties.




But senior Pentagon and military officials say that Mr. Obama's assurances may be challenging to guarantee in practice, particularly in trying to monitor the thousands of daily attacks on security systems in the United States that have set off a race to develop better cyberweapons."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=376300&f=21

"China Requires Censorship Software on New PCs"

~~ China here using their powers of E-Governance to censor the Internet and spy on all cyber activities.

Don't ever think "It Can't Happen Here" in the USA.
Not as long Dick Cheney types are around~~ Posted by technopolitical via BlackBerry by AT&T~~




"China Requires Censorship Software on New PCs"



By ANDREW JACOBS


http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=374205&f=24

Published: June 09, 2009 BEIJING -


China has issued a sweeping directive requiring all personal computers sold in the country to include sophisticated software that can filter out pornography and other "unhealthy information" from the Internet. The software, which manufacturers must install on all new PCs starting July 1, would allow the government to regularly update computers with an ever-changing list of banned Web sites.

The rules, issued last month, ratchet up Internet restrictions that are already among the most stringent in the world. China regularly blocks Web sites that discuss the Dalai Lama, the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters, and the Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement.


But free-speech advocates say they fear the new software could make it even more difficult for China's 300 million Internet users to obtain uncensored news and information.



"This is a very bad thing," said Charles Mok, chairman of the Hong Kong chapter of the Internet Society, an international advisory group on Internet standards.


"It's like downloading spyware onto your computer, but the government is the spy."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/