Time To Short Nokia

Turns out Finland doesn’t have free speech. Since that’s the engine of innovation and growth, Finns are headed back to reindeer herding.

Gates of Vienna reports:

Last Friday the Finnish TV network YLE published the following brief news item:

A blogger in Finland has been fined for writing offensive material about Africans.

A court sentenced the 30-year old Espoo resident to a fine for inciting racial hatred. It found that the man’s writings on the Internet constituted illegal propaganda.

The judgment ruled that the man slandered Africans by comparing them to animals. In his defense, the man said that laws governing freedom of speech protected his right to express his opinion.

Inciting racial hatred — hets mot folkgrupp in the Swedish version — is the catchall offense used in Finland to suppress politically incorrect speech.

Consider how modern economies would fare without free speech:

- Suppliers would suppress negative consumer reviews, so free markets would collapse.

- Governments would suppress aggrieved voters, so democracy and hence capitalism would be replaced by Fear State collectivism.

- Scientific criticism would be silenced, so growth of scientific knowledge would stall.

- Without the freedom to dissent from perceived state abuses, people would take up arms.

So without free speech you get what Finland was until 18 years ago – an impoverished communist hellhole.

Shame to see it revert.

Free Speech, UN Style

The UN, unsurprisingly, thinks free speech is bad if it offends murderers – presumably because about half of its member nations are run by murderers.

Benjamin Franklin observed that stopping inflammatory speech might sometimes be a good thing, but that unfortunately no human being could be trusted with this authority. Hence the Frirst amendment.

The publication of the Fitna movie provides a textbook example.

Here’s how Islamist censors reacted to Liveleak’s hosting the video:

Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.

This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realised LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one.

Perhaps there is still hope that this situation may produce a discussion that could benefit and educate all of us as to how we can accept one anothers culture.

We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high.

The UN head, appropriately named Mr Ban stands shoulder to shoulder with the Islamists:

“There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence,” Ban said in a statement. “The right of free expression is not at stake here.”…”Freedom must always be accompanied by social responsibility,” Ban said.

“We must also recognize that the real fault line is not between Muslim and Western societies, as some would have us believe, but between small minorities of extremists, on different sides, with a vested interest in stirring hostility and conflict,” Ban said.

Of course there’s no Western “small minority” that saws captives heads off, flies planes into buildings, executes apostates, bombs trains, threatens critics with death, and brutalizes women.

There’s just one: Islamists.

Aided and abetted in their depravity by Mr Ban and his like.

Network Solution’s Easter Egg For Islamism

Network Solutions, the oldest domain name registration company, has marked Easter by censoring one of its customers for potentially being beastly to Islamists. We should thank them for exposing this vulnerability – then deep six them.

This story is hat tip LGF.

The censoree is the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who is planning to post a 15 minute video that apparently suggests Islamists are prone to oppression of their women and kids, and killing the rest of us.

Wilders’ site is registered with and (I think) hosted by Network Solutions and you can see it here. As at 16:23 GMT, it says:

This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site’s content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy. Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation.

That’s a reminder that the Internet is a very fragile vehicle for free speech, since terrorists can infiltrate, bribe, or cow the people we pay to register and host our domains.

There’s some safety in numbers – it’s harder for them to shut down a multi-user service such as WordPress or Blogspot. But not impossible.

Here’s a good suggestion from an LGF commenter (comment #67):

If Wilders wants to distribute the film on the net, then he is going to have to pack it up and stick it up on hosting sites like rapidshare and torrent the thing and let people spread it for him sub rosa.

As an alternate route, I’ve asked Network Solutions to tell me how I can transfer out the domains I have with them to a free-er speech nation (maybe Australia), and will report their reply.

UPDATE 1 – March 24: Network Solutions hosts the official Hizbollah site http://www.hizbollah.org

This from some excellent sleuthing by Flanders Fields – if you want to verify it, go the Network Solutions, select the Domain Names tab, click WHOIS Search, then enter hizbollah.org. You’ll see:

Registrant:
Hizbollah
ATTN: HIZBOLLAH.ORG
c/o Network Solutions
Herndon,
VA 20172-0447

Administrative Contact
….
x97ex6ej4wg@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
ATTN: HIZBOLLAH.ORG
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon,
VA 20172-0447

Technical Contact
Network Solutions, LLC.
customerservice@networksolutions.com13861 Sunrise Valley Drive
Herndon,
VA 20171
US

Now:

Six countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, officially list Hezbollah, or its external security arm, as a terrorist organization…

Whereas Geert Wilders is a democratically elected Member of Parliament for the Netherlands, the staunch NATO member fighting alongside us in Afghanistan.

So Network Solutions has designated itself to be an arm of a terrorist organization.

UPDATE 2 – March 24: Here’s the terror enablers illiterate reply to my email asking how how I pull my domains off them.

Thank you for contacting Network Solutions. We are committed to creating the best customer experience possible. One of the first ways we can demonstrate our commitment to this goal is to quickly and efficiently handle your recent request.

With regard to your concern, please be advised our Corporate Department is already tasked to handle the issue surrounding the domain name FITNATHEMOVIE.COM.

So Network Solutions is not only a terror-enabler, it splits infinitives.

Avoid Google

Google has ceased to censor news about UN corruption. That good, but it’s a reminder that it’s not just the MSM that censors, and the distortion is not just to airbrush terrorists and harm the US.

Google, up to it’s evil tricks:

Google News quietly reinstated Tuesday the articles of a news service that routinely exposes U.N. corruption, a day after FOXNews.com ran a story about the Internet giant’s decision to remove Inner City Press from its search engine…

Someone complained to Google early this month that Inner City Press was a one-man operation, violating the Google News ground rule that news organizations listed must have two or more employees, according to Gabriel Stricker, a Google spokesman.

Lee, who insists his organization has appropriate staff, believes someone within the U.N. pressured Google to drop him. U.N. spokesman David Morrison called the allegations preposterous.

Google said the “de-listing” was due to a misunderstanding and agreed to restore Inner City Press stories to the Google News service.

The reaction to the de-listing, however temporary, had been furious. The non-profit Government Accountability Project lambasted the company, calling Inner City Press “the most effective and important media organization for U.N. whistleblowers”.

In fact the UN fights tooth and nail to hide its corruption from the (mostly US) people that pay for it. It perpetrated the biggest fraud in history and took no responsibility for it, and needs to hide that to maintain the fat-cat lifestyles of its corrupt secretariat

Anyway, thanks to Fox News, this censorship was stopped, but there’ll be plenty more they’ll be blocking, including:

1. Science refuting man-made global warming.

2. Negative stories about rich and/or powerful dictatorships – China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia.

3. Science undermining Darwinism.

4. Science showing differences between sexes, nations, and religions.

5. Plus of course anything confirming that the US has won in Iraq, or that the current president is an honest and competent man.

The solution is to use other search engines – I use Ask, but there are plenty of others.

And I’ve added The Inner City Press to the DU blogroll.

Canada, Privacy, and Freedom

Nations that make a fetish of protecting the privacy of their citizens are often unfree: there’s a good reason for that.

Here’s the latest report from Privacy International:

• The lowest ranking countries in the survey continue to be Malaysia, Russia and China.
• The highest-ranking countries in 2007 are Greece, Romania and Canada.
• The 2006 leader, Germany, slipped significantly in the 2007 rankings, dropping from 1st to 7th place behind Portugal and Slovenia.
• In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world. In terms of overall privacy protection the United States has performed very poorly, being out-ranked by both India and the Philippines and falling into the “black” category, denoting endemic surveillance.
• The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which again fell into the “black” category along with Russia and Singapore.

Privacy is a dimension of freedom, so it’s odd to see free nations like the US and UK at the bottom of the table and collectivist states like Germany and Canada at the top.

The Canadian government just charged Mark Steyn with violating the human rights of Muslims for his eloquent analysis of their benighted religion, and is prosecuting another Canadian, Ezra Levant, for publishing the Motoons.

Since free speech is the core of our freedoms, it follows that Canada is not free. So how come they’re so keen on protecting privacy?

The answer is that Privacy International bases its scoring what governments do – if they have lots of laws and agencies protecting privacy, they get high marks. So all the index measures is the intrusiveness of the state.

In fact privacy protection is inversely related to freedom, since free societies trade privacy for freedom. If I walk the streets late at night, I don’t consider a cop asking my business an intrusion on my privacy, but as evidence of the framework that protects my freedom.

Similarly, if I record a Muslim preaching murder and rape I violate his privacy for the greater good of his potential victims.

Finally the freedom of nations is based on their peoples, not governments – here in Italy there’s a proposal to force bloggers to register with the state, but Italians will ignore that, just as they ignore most other laws coming from their despised central government.

So here’s the rule: democratic nations with strong privacy laws are the least free.

I trust Canadians offended by this post will rise up against their collectivist state, not seek to extradite me in chains.

“Hate Crimes”, “Minorities”, “Cops”, and Luton Airport

Sadly, the Brit county where the cops block free speech to protect criminals hosts the last usable London airport.

Ian Holden, the Bedfordshire cop who plans on arresting Lionheart, runs his Constabulary’s Hate Crimes unit, with this mission:

Bedfordshire Police is commited (sic) to tackling all hate crime in a robust but sensitive manner to help to bring a better quality of life to members of the minority communities.

Community Investigators are in place across the county who liaise with other agencies to provde (sic) members of the ethnic minority community with an opportunity to report hate crime. All Bedfordshire Police officers are skilled in community and race relations and can be expected to deal with any reported crime in an appropriate and sensitive manner…

We need you to report all incidents of hate crime so that we may provide the best service to our communities. No matter how trivial you think the incident is, if you perceive the motivation behind the incident to be your race or religious belief, please tell us about it.

So this spelling-challenged fellow offers a one-way conduit for “minorities” to finger their hosts.

But he doesn’t understand that a hate crime has to first be a crime – it’s not enough for a Pakistani to resent being tarred with the same brush as his pedophile compatriots – here’s the Brit legal definition (my emphasis):

In England and Wales criminal actions are considered hate crimes if they are perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice and hatred.

So you need the criminal action first, then “hate” compounds the crime. Mere hatred isn’t enough, since Common Law protects Brit thought and speech.

Except in Bedfordshire, which must therefor be a very dangerous place for us non-minorities.

The good news is that on this reading of law, Lionheart will (if he plays his cards right) collect healthy damages from the Bedfordshire cops.

But this has wrecked our last airbridge to the UK, because the only tolerable airport left for London is Luton.

That’s in Bedfordshire, which makes it a no-go area – we’d hate to be victimized by the local “minorities” or “cops”.

The Curious Case Of The Brit Blogs That Did Not Bark

The conservative Brit blogosphere is oddly equivocal about reports that a fellow blogger faces arrest for objecting to Brit Muslims sexually enslaving kids.

The story is from a blogger posting as Lionheart (hat tip Gates of Vienna):

I am currently out of the Country and on my return home to England I am going to be arrested by British detectives on suspicion of Stirring up Racial Hatred by displaying written material” contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.

The issue seems to be the blogger’s virulent objection in print to this situation described by the London Times:

Schoolgirls in Lancashire and Yorkshire are falling prey to sinister gangs of pimps. Two men have been sent to jail, but the girls’ mothers, not the police, are at the forefront of the crackdown. Why are the authorities so reluctant to get involved?

The Times describes the MO – young Pakistani men directed by older Pakistani males seek out and befriend young white girls without fathers. Then they rape the kids the day they turn 13 because:

If anyone has sex with a girl under 13, there is a strong risk of being arrested for having sex with a minor. Once they reach 13, however, unless the victim makes a complaint to the police, nothing will happen.

The local cops are covering this up:

Despite evidence from rigorous research by organisations…that the gangs are largely made up of men from the Pakistani Muslim communities, many are determined to downplay this….

In 2004, a controversial documentary on the topic of Asian pimps, Edge of the City, focused on the mothers of two girls being pimped by Pakistani gangs in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

…an assistant chief constable with Lancashire police, says he is aware that several recent cases reported to police in Lancashire have involved Asian men, but that the issue of sexual grooming of young girls is not based solely on race or culture.

Originally due to be screened in May 2004, three years after the Bradford race riots, the documentary was pulled from the schedule at the request of the West Yorkshire Police.

Sexual enslavement of little girls is as old as mankind. But it’s not an acceptable behavior to most Brit natives, and should not be airbrushed out by the cops they pay to enforce the law.

And it’s reasonable to assume that men from a religion that treats women as second-class will be more prone to pimping than Brits. Even Brown’s awful government has woken up to that (my sequencing):

Muslims have three times the unemployment rate of the general population, with more than half economically inactive…

In an attempt to stop young Muslims being seduced by Al-Qaeda, women will be sent on training courses designed for (large corporation) managers to give them the skills and confidence to confront fanatics.

Back to Lionheart, whose legal advisor say received this email (scroll down to comment on 5 Jan at 11:46):

“QUOTE FROM IAN HOLDEN, BEDFORDSHIRE POLICE

The offence that I need to arrest you for is “Stir up Racial Hatred by displaying written material” contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.

You will be arrested on SUSPICION of the offence. You would only be charged following a full investigation based on all the relevant facts and CPS consent.

Paul I will see you on the 19/02/08 when I will tell you everything that you need to know. Due to being out of the office for six weeks I will not have access to my email as of tomorrow 04/01/08.

Ian

Being arrested by Brit cops on suspicion is very nasty (see link above):

Just because it seems unlikely that the Attorney General would grant permission for a prosecution, does not mean that you will not be humiliated by being arrested, fingerprinted (ten fingers, both palms, if applicable), photographed, DNA sampled (all of which will be retained on the Police intelligence databases until your 100th birthday, or longer), and have your computers and mobile phones seized, and internet and phone communications traffic data logfiles etc. snooped through, even if no charges are ever brought against you…

The blogger might have made this up, but we’ve seen it before when Brit cops tried to suppress a documentary on Muslim hate speech in mosques, while giving the perps a free pass.

So how did Brit bloggers react? Here’s one I consider the soundest:

As it stands – from what we can make out – the man is not at this stage to be charged for any offence and the arrest is an “administrative” device which the police are using to secure a formal interview on the record….

At this stage, therefore, one can only counsel a watching brief. Lurid declamations seem hardly warranted, and nor is the general accusation that we are descending into a police state – those who have actually lived in a police state will readily attest to the difference.

That rather downplays the oppressive consequence of a groundless arrest which is indeed similar to, say, Nazi practice. And here’s another well respected Brit conservative blogger:

Now reading (Lionheart’s) post I don’t quite understand exactly what it is that he’s said. I’m also not sure that I’m likely to agree with what I suspect he did say: that one blog post tells me that he’s not really my kind of guy.

Indeed, Lionheart is a bit odd – he capitalizes his posts a lot – but that’s absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the case. Which is that, if what he and the London Times say are true, Brit cops are flying top cover for an immigrant group that sexually enslaves Brit kids.

That makes the pimps and the cops equally disgusting, and suggests the UK will fall quite quickly to Islam.

It follows from the above that the defense of Brit freedoms will fall to the likes of Lionheart, capitalization and all, while the respectable Brit conservatives keep their heads tucked in the sand.

That’s not surprising – last time round, it took the unpolished Oliver Cromwell to dump the Brit elite

The Depravity Of YouTube

Google subsidiary YouTube follows its parent – victimizing the weak and appeasing the strong. There will be a reckoning for this depravity.

We initially dropped Google because it’s run by hypocrites – appeasing China’s dictators while opposing the US government.

It does so because it fears the Chinese dictatorship (which rules by violence) and does not fear the US government (which rules by laws).

Google recently bought YouTube.

Here’s a current YouTube video made by terrorists killing a US tank with an IED. The attack will have seriously injured the crew, and may have killed them.

Thus YouTube provides a pulpit to people who kill the soldiers fighting to keep us (including YouTube and Google) safe, and the Iraqis free.

Now consider this YouTube video of a pregnant woman being told by a Brit Social Services employees how they they plan to take her baby as soon as it’s born.

Except you can’t because YouTube suppressed it to protect the state bullies.

So why does YouTube show the attempted murder of our defenders, and censor state-sanctioned bullying of a poor, partially blind, and heavily pregnant woman?

The answer can only be that YouTube, like Google, fears the strong – who might terrorize it or sue it – and is contemptuous of the weak and law-abiding.

There is good news – a depraved Google leaves a huge gap in the market for a civilized competitor.

Preventing Feedback Becoming Censorship

By facilitating two way communication, the Web enables single issue zealots to suppress free speech. Here’s a suggested fix.

The Web is a product of the enlightenment, but it’s being undermined:

…But the interactions always go something like this:

Interest group wants someone shut up, gathers some friends together, fires off several complaints without any foundation in reality. The site sees the sheer numbers and acts, either out of laziness or I believe sometimes sympathy for the interest group. The delete button is pressed.

The users find they have been deleted out of nowhere (to them) and contacts customer service or abuse. Almost always nothing is done, after many form letters and interactions.

This electronic equivalent of being shouted down by a mob is mostly driven by economics. Financially strapped web businesses can’t hire decent moderators, so leave the decision to censor to a grunt or an algorithm.

But if MySpace, LiveJournal, Digg, YouTube etc. are used by mobs to suppress free speech, that creates a great opening for more transparent competitors.

One nice competitive solution would be to make wannabe censors pay for every entry they want to suppress, say by PayPal. The abusive personality types that like to censor will do so as a habit and usually be economically weak.

So we just need to set the fee high enough to deter the habitual censor – say $50/hit. That would either drive the censors back to their old MySpace, Digg etc (turning these into digital slums), or enable the competitors to hire moderators. Either way, free speech is restored.

The new businesses would still be vulnerable to Saudi funded zealots.

But that helps the FBI track terror sympathizers (subpoena PayPal, ID censor, subpoena his bank account).

What’s not to like?

Websense (2)

Websense has recategorized LGF as “News and Media” rather than “Racism and Hate”. That’s not the end of the matter – the company is inherently flawed.

The problem is that Websense maintains master category lists and automatically distributes these to all of its customers every 2 days.

So it only takes a few trolls – either in the Websense category management team or hacking in from outside – to shut out any site they choose by putting it into a commonly blocked category, such as the “Racism and Hate” they used on LGF.

And unless the unsuspecting customers have time to examine every Websense category update, they’ll never know they’ve been censored – unless the trolls are silly enough to hit a heavily used site like LGF.

Looking at the initial denials from Websense and its subsequent admissions, I’m guessing it was hacked.

Censorship undermines democratic society, and Websense is a censor’s dream – covert, unaccountable and – it seems – easy to subvert.

The company has no place in a free society.