US Has Secret Tools To Force Internet On Dictatorships

4phun found a Wired story that talks about the military options when a dictatorship decides to cut off internet access to its population. "The American military does have a second set of options if it ever wants to force connectivity on a country against its ruler’s wishes. There’s just one wrinkle. 'It could be considered an act of war.'" Hopefully the same options will be available for us when our government gets around to implementing our own kill switch.

internet access an inviolable human right?

[Chrisq]

I am pretty suspicious of all the things that people claim as " inviolable human rights" now. Would the USA put its money where its mouth is and give money to foreign powers to give people internet access? Would they even pay for someone in part of the USA who can't afford access in a remote area?

If anything this dilutes the idea of real human rights - if every country in the world doesn't provide "human rights" to someone or other it becomes meaningless to criticise counties on this ground. Human rights should be confined to life, liberty, and essentials that we would all agree on.

Satphones

[dargaud]

Use drones to airdrop a small kit containing a satphones with free satellite access for a while and a solar charger. Make sure the satphone is by default enabled as an open wifi hotspot. Spread all over the country. Be sure to include free porn memberships in uptight countries. I mean, come on, this has got to be a lot more efficient for democracy than sending tanks (and cheaper to boot), and a lot safer than sending journalists.

Re:Imagine that...

[ganjadude]

Who woulda thought that the government that wants the ability of an internet killswitch is also looking into the ability to let other countries have internet when their government puts in a kill switch... Gotta love the hope and change....

Re:We assume that...

[gnieboer]

Why not seed blogs, twitter and facebook...

Because by Executive Order (http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-05-30.pdf, page 19), "U.S. PSYOP forces will not target U.S. citizens at any time, in any location globally, or under any circumstances"

The internet causes a problem in this regard, as obviously it's designed so that all of it accessible from everyplace else (generally speaking). So while it's possible to put a server someplace that is firewalled to only send/relay info from a range of IP addresses, the military can't do that with Twitter; if they started putting PSYOPS on Twitter, it'd be accessible to US citizens, would could then be considered 'targeted'.

Of course, these restrictions are by executive order, not US law, and they apply to the US Military only.

Side note: on the next page, it spells out copyright issues as an area of concern... don't want to get sued by the MPAA in the middle of WW III because you broadcast a video of Mickey Mouse without permission...

Re:ah, the joys of false equivalency

[dkleinsc]

We live in an abused, yes, compromised, yes, but still functioning democracy, meaning rule is by consent, not force and fear.

... unless you're Muslim or involved in any way in Wikileaks, in which case most bets are off. You can have your property seized, be searched and harassed at airports, and of course be labeled an enemy combatant and sent to Gitmo or maybe sent to our good friends to be tortured. Julian Assange has been very clear that the reason he's fighting extradition is because he doesn't trust the Swedes to not hand him over to the United States, and he doesn't trust the United States to follow its own laws right now.

Maybe because you have that right AND THAT RIGHT IS RESPECTED.

An example of how this is being undermined: A good friend of Bradley Manning visited him in prison regularly, and reported on the conditions Manning was being held under, conditions which were very different from what the US military said they were in public statements. This eventually got national attention by the mainstream media. Shortly afterwords, when this friend went back for another visit, most of what he took with him, including his laptop, was seized. No charges, no due process, no probable cause.

Or when a foreigner who had done some work defending Wikileaks went to visit the US, upon arrival at US customs all his electronics were seized, again without any kind of charges or judicial review. The foreigner had anticipated this and had a representative of the ACLU meet him there to argue his case, to no avail. He'd also had the good sense to ensure that the electronics in question just had a copy of the US Bill of Rights on them.

That's even ignoring issues like "Free Speech Zones", police aggression against protesters and reporters at events like party conventions or pro-immigration rallies, and the occasional lethal penalty for Driving/Walking While Not White.

So no, that right isn't really respected. There exists a classified list of actions that will cause you to be mistreated by the US government. Right now, that appears to be a fairly small list, but we have no idea really what's on it.