I've been thinking for a while that RIAA is the single most destructive force against our freedoms in the past few years, perhaps even more so than the Government itself with the Patriot Act and whatnot, because RIAA is trying to push all these restrictions at a global scale, trying to convince as many Governments as possible in the same time to accept them (think e-G8), to make people think that if so many accept them, then they "must be right about that".
If it were possible for them to fund a scientific experiment like LHC, that would create a blackhole in the middle of the Earth, that would finally stop piracy, I think they would do it.
What I'm trying to say is that they could care less if they bring down the whole Internet and kill it, as long as they just "stop piracy" - even if actually achieving that would lower their sales. But they are too short-sighted to even think about that.
With things like RIAA, it's no wonder people are protesting against Wall-Street rather than the Government itself. Because sometimes the companies behind the Government, can do a lot more evil by controlling the Government, than the Government itself would if they just wanted more power.
The RIAA can do precisely nothing without the government thoughtfully doing their bidding.
RIAA/Wall St/other evil corporations: "Hey, could you fuck people over to improve our bottom line? Please?"
Joe Biden/Orrin Hatch: "Done. Anything else you want?"
The politicians pushing the RIAA's agenda are more or less the same people pushing things like the Patriot Act (Joe Biden, Orrin Hatch, etc). To me, they all look like different symptoms of the same problem.
Exactly, the relationship between the RIAA and the Feds is symbiotic. In this regard, it mirrors many other relationships where"support" for private interests offers people in government with a way to exceed their properly limited power. The folks on the other side of this trade benefit from a business that is probably less challenging to manage that it would be without participation in this corruption.
Total dependence on private election finance, rampant gerrymandering (which further compromises the vote through the engineering of 'safe' seats), and the unfettered ability to spend one's career oscillating between public and private offices form the structural underpinnings of American-style corruption.
The good news (if you can call it that) is that problems with precise structural causes can be remedied with surgical precision, but only if you can get the patient on the operating table. So far, the things that have permitted the cancer to grow are a lack of awareness about its exact location and effect, and a lack of concern given its apparent lack of malignancy. The last three years have ended the latter problem, and as more people take an interest in exactly what's gone wrong with America, more attention will fall on the former.
The other bit of good news is that these fundamentally corrupt arrangements depend on security through obscurity. Thanks to an utterly pliant national press, this obscurity has thrived for decades. But this, too, is changing. Not because the press has suddenly decided to start doing its job, but because others now have the means to do it for them. Unlike the established players, they also have the will.
I imagine voting out Biden/Hatch means the next set of pols will just take the campaign contributions instead. What can be done structurally to prevent this cycle from repeating?
The true pushers of the PATRIOT Act were the guys in the DoJ who wrote the thing; it was all written up and prepared far in advance of an anticipated wartime condition which would allow them to get it passed without trouble.
Yes, the patriot act was being kicked around in some form since at least 1995.
"When I was chairman in '94 I introduced a major antiterrorism bill--back then,...I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the bill John Ashcroft sent up [the PATRIOT act] was my bill." - Joe Biden
Every ten years, the media companies "upgrade" their copyright protection via Congress, as technology outstrips their content controls. Now they want to circumvent the courts altogether. This has got to stop; it serves no purpose and only alienates (and, often, criminalizes) consumers.
It's absolutely terrible that every branch of the government has been compromised except the courts and now we are relying on them more and more to affect policy. With the other 2 branches able to determine who sits on the bench I feel it's only a matter of time before the courts won't even bother to defend our interests.
Yes, but what we have is a batshit, crazy legislative branch and a Newspeak executive branch. Compared to the other 2 the courts have the dubious distinction of being the least likely to ride roughshod over the Bill of Rights.
I didn't mention Big Brother you did. I'm speaking of the fact that the Obama administration says one thing while doing another. Saying they'll back off from medical marijuana dispensaries and then go full hilt on raiding them. Saying they'll do a serious investigation into the lead up to the Iraq War then sweeping it under the bridge. In fact, with the warrantless wiretaps, broad surveillance powers, and continuation of Bush laws that he promised to repeal, maybe Big Brother is apt for this administration.
And God forbid we get an actual, real criminal investigation into the financial crisis.
> Every time they try some new law, tech works around it.
> Can't stop the signal.
No, they can't. But they can make life worse for the vast majority of the population, possibly with a minor profit, at little or no cost to them. So they do.
If it were possible for them to fund a scientific experiment like LHC, that would create a blackhole in the middle of the Earth, that would finally stop piracy, I think they would do it.
What I'm trying to say is that they could care less if they bring down the whole Internet and kill it, as long as they just "stop piracy" - even if actually achieving that would lower their sales. But they are too short-sighted to even think about that.
With things like RIAA, it's no wonder people are protesting against Wall-Street rather than the Government itself. Because sometimes the companies behind the Government, can do a lot more evil by controlling the Government, than the Government itself would if they just wanted more power.