Online Investigations of Corrupt Individuals

[John Simkin]

Yesterday Tony Blair made an attack on those journalists who have been investigating the corruption of his New Labour government. He described investigative journalists as a feral beast. Blair was especially angry with those online journalists who have reported on these illegal actions. He even talked about the possibility of trying to regulate the online world. Something that the Chinese government have been trying to do. I don't think that Google will give him the same deal as the Chinese.

In the past prime ministers and politicians could get information blocked by dealing directly with media barons. In fact, they still do this. However, they are unable to silence those on the internet. I believe we are experiencing a real change in the way we can expose the activities of corrupt individuals. This includes those from the past such as those involved in the JFK assassination. We can no longer be silenced.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry105662

[Jack White]

Yesterday Tony Blair made an attack on those journalists who have been investigating the corruption of his New Labour government. He described investigative journalists as a feral beast. Blair was especially angry with those online journalists who have reported on these illegal actions. He even talked about the possibility of trying to regulate the online world. Something that the Chinese government have been trying to do. I don't think that Google will give him the same deal as the Chinese.

In the past prime ministers and politicians could get information blocked by dealing directly with media barons. In fact, they still do this. However, they are unable to silence those on the internet. I believe we are experiencing a real change in the way we can expose the activities of corrupt individuals. This includes those from the past such as those involved in the JFK assassination. We can no longer be silenced.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry105662

John...easier than you think to regulate the internet:

1. In the US, it is a crime to distribute pornography. Pornography is the

number one business on the www today, doing billions of dollars of business.

A pretty female willing to pose nude can become a millionaire in short order.

By enforcing existing laws, internet service providers CAN BE CHARGED WITH

DISTRIBUTION OF PORNOGRAPHY, and fined, imprisoned, or shut down. With

no ISPs, the www is dead.

2. TAXATION is a powerful tool to discourage both ISPs as well as customers.

If it suddenly costs me $200 a month instead of $50, I will shut down my web

connection.

3. Pursuit of internet customers via interception of messages. Covert intercept

of messages could led to filing of criminal charges or lawsuits of various sorts.

It is known that the Pentagon and think tanks have things like this under

consideration.

Jack

[John Simkin]

John...easier than you think to regulate the internet:

1. In the US, it is a crime to distribute pornography. Pornography is the

number one business on the www today, doing billions of dollars of business.

A pretty female willing to pose nude can become a millionaire in short order.

By enforcing existing laws, internet service providers CAN BE CHARGED WITH

DISTRIBUTION OF PORNOGRAPHY, and fined, imprisoned, or shut down. With

no ISPs, the www is dead.

2. TAXATION is a powerful tool to discourage both ISPs as well as customers.

If it suddenly costs me $200 a month instead of $50, I will shut down my web

connection.

3. Pursuit of internet customers via interception of messages. Covert intercept

of messages could led to filing of criminal charges or lawsuits of various sorts.

It is known that the Pentagon and think tanks have things like this under

consideration.

Jack

Pornography is a good example of how governments cannot control the internet. For example, it is illegal in the UK and most other countries in the world to view "child pornography". However, a recent report shows that governments are finding it impossible to prevent this from happening. One of the reasons for this is that most of these sites are hosted in places like Russia.

It is not true that any "pretty female willing to pose nude can become a millionaire in short order". It is the case that the odd individual like Paris Hilton can achieve great wealth by arranging for explicit films of herself to be posted on the internet. However, she could only do this because she was already a "name" and was extremely wealthy before she started. It is all about market forces. Most of the women who are used by pornographers on the internet come from Eastern Europe. They are the cheapest available and make very little money from the operation. (In the same way that Linda Lovelace made very little money from Deep Throat.)

One of the great strengths of capitalism is competition. It is this that will enable freedom of expression to survive on the web. It is not in the interests of governments in the West to price the internet out of existence. This is possible in a state capitalist country like China. However, given the way modern technology works, even a country like China is failing to silence its people. For every blogger it arrests, another five start up. The problem for these political activists is to turn this freedom of expression into political power. It is the same problem that we face in the West.

[Sid Walker]

John...easier than you think to regulate the internet:

1. In the US, it is a crime to distribute pornography. Pornography is the

number one business on the www today, doing billions of dollars of business.

A pretty female willing to pose nude can become a millionaire in short order.

By enforcing existing laws, internet service providers CAN BE CHARGED WITH

DISTRIBUTION OF PORNOGRAPHY, and fined, imprisoned, or shut down. With

no ISPs, the www is dead.

2. TAXATION is a powerful tool to discourage both ISPs as well as customers.

If it suddenly costs me $200 a month instead of $50, I will shut down my web

connection.

3. Pursuit of internet customers via interception of messages. Covert intercept

of messages could led to filing of criminal charges or lawsuits of various sorts.

It is known that the Pentagon and think tanks have things like this under

consideration.

Jack

Pornography is a good example of how governments cannot control the internet. For example, it is illegal in the UK and most other countries in the world to view "child pornography". However, a recent report shows that governments are finding it impossible to prevent this from happening. One of the reasons for this is that most of these sites are hosted in places like Russia.

It is not true that any "pretty female willing to pose nude can become a millionaire in short order". It is the case that the odd individual like Paris Hilton can achieve great wealth by arranging for explicit films of herself to be posted on the internet. However, she could only do this because she was already a "name" and was extremely wealthy before she started. It is all about market forces. Most of the women who are used by pornographers on the internet come from Eastern Europe. They are the cheapest available and make very little money from the operation. (In the same way that Linda Lovelace made very little money from Deep Throat.)

One of the great strengths of capitalism is competition. It is this that will enable freedom of expression to survive on the web. It is not in the interests of governments in the West to price the internet out of existence. This is possible in a state capitalist country like China. However, given the way modern technology works, even a country like China is failing to silence its people. For every blogger it arrests, another five start up. The problem for these political activists is to turn this freedom of expression into political power. It is the same problem that we face in the West.

I think this is broadly true and well put.

However, the internet does enable mass surveillance of activists. A secret state with sufficient resources is able to keep a close eye on who is saying what, who is planning what etc.

The case of pornography is an interesting one. It's correct that it is effectively unbannable on the net - like the sharing of political information via the internet. However, like the latter, much usage is potentially traceable. This gives the secret state a lot of potential blackmail opportunities.

[Guest David Guyatt]

On those naughty feral beasts, did he include those who reported about luvvely Tessa Jowell and how, when she was health minister, she tarted up up to F1's Bernie Ecclestone for a cool mill or so - causing untold damage to New Labours newly minted reputation - at the same time that her naughty, naughty hubbie, David Mckenzie Mills, was a director of one of Eccleston'es primary companies? This being the same Mills who swung his lower mandible wide open to accomodate the hundreds of thousands of crumbs from Berlusconi's table?

I suppose the point Bliar was making was that it is nearly impossible to control the internet and internet stories that damage the credibility of people like him and their hands-open-palms-up governments, whereas the major media are more easily harnessed to turning a blind man's eye.

[John Simkin]

On those naughty feral beasts, did he include those who reported about luvvely Tessa Jowell and how, when she was health minister, she tarted up up to F1's Bernie Ecclestone for a cool mill or so - causing untold damage to New Labours newly minted reputation - at the same time that her naughty, naughty hubbie, David Mckenzie Mills, was a director of one of Eccleston'es primary companies? This being the same Mills who swung his lower mandible wide open to accomodate the hundreds of thousands of crumbs from Berlusconi's table?

I did not know about the Mills/Eccleston connection.

I suppose the point Bliar was making was that it is nearly impossible to control the internet and internet stories that damage the credibility of people like him and their hands-open-palms-up governments, whereas the major media are more easily harnessed to turning a blind man's eye.

Exactly. I am still waiting for one of Blair's rich mates to buy up our forum.

[Jack White]

....It is not true that any "pretty female willing to pose nude can become a millionaire in short order".

John...a quick check of porn sites will reveal that hundreds of "porn queens"

typically charge $25 a month for "membership" in their "club".

Simple math says that if as few as a thousand men* worldwide sign up for

less than a dollar a day, that is a tidy $25,000 a month income with

virtually no overhead. But let's say a particular girl is enough of a looker

to have more...say 10,000 members, that is $250,000 a month...or

three million a year...low overhead and untaxed. Not an unreasonable

estimate.

* not to mention the exploding lesbian market.

[John Simkin]

* not to mention the exploding lesbian market.

Remind me to duck.

[Jack White]

It is difficult for me to duck. My next-door neighbors are a lesbian couple.

They have a weekly party attended by a half-dozen other couples.

Jack

[John Geraghty]

It is difficult for me to duck. My next-door neighbors are a lesbian couple.

They have a weekly party attended by a half-dozen other couples.

Jack

I'm sure your photographic skills come in very handy Jack.

John

Edited June 14, 2007 by John Geraghty

[Jack White]

It is difficult for me to duck. My next-door neighbors are a lesbian couple.

They have a weekly party attended by a half-dozen other couples.

Jack

I'm sure your photographic skills come in very handy Jack.

John

Why? Most of them are fat, ugly or masculine looking. Definitely no babes.

Probably lesbos because no men are interested.

Jack

[Charles Drago]

Gentlemen (and I use the term loosely),

Such rare wit! What's next, the "let me be frank with you" joke?

C

[Jack White]

By Steve Watson,  Prison Planet,  June 14, 2007

 Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair has savaged online media today in a speech in which he declared war on the free press by hinting at new restrictions on internet journalism and suggested that the media should be brought more into line with the government.

Blair complained that the media was too "feral" (i.e. not tamed by the government) and referring to online journalism stated:

"In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five."

This is an outright call for a crackdown on the free press. Blair is out in the open here saying the media is too independent of the government, he is admitting that the freedom with which the media, especially online, is now operating is hurting his government and its agenda.

 Despite the fact that it is the government itself that has consistently lied to and refused to listen to the British people, Blair blamed the media for an undermining of trust in the government amongst the people and further accused the media of being responsible for a moral downturn in Britain.

"The damage saps the country's confidence and self-belief; it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions; and above all, it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions, in the right spirit for our future.'' Blair stated.

This is rich given the fact that when New Labour came into power in 1997 Blair's government quickly became masters of spin, using the media as a tool of hype to whip up a frenzy of positive attention towards itself.

Blair even admitted that his government readily did this and is to blame for what he now sees as a brutal backlash:

''We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media ....such an attitude ran the risk of fuelling the trends in communications that I am about to question.'' Blair stated.

So there you have it, the government used and spat out the media and now it doesn't like the fact that it is no longer trusted and is scrutinized as if under a microscope, especially by the independent and online media which does not pander to corporate masters.

Therefore Blair's solution is to bring in an online journalism regulator to decide what is "balanced" reporting and what is not. Such a move is exactly the kind of thing that has been witnessed in Communist China in an effort to crackdown on criticism of the government there.

Blair has recently been under the media microscope concerning the BAE cover up over Saudi arms dealing. Before that he was subject to scrutiny and twice questioned by police over the cash for honours scandal where peerages were handed out by the government in exchange for financial favours. No doubt these are the kind of "conspiracy theories" Mr Blair wishes the media to be unable to cover, along with the scores of lies he told in the lead up to the Iraq war.

Blair can whine and whine all day long but the fact is it is the openness with which his government has conducted its criminal actions and its own attempts to use the free press as a propaganda arm that has led to a surge in media scrutiny.

There is nothing he nor his elite masters can do to win this battle save shutting down the internet and free speech completely and risking revolution.