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Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#151

Post by jessaustin »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #150
DrScientist wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's list some stuff that doesn't look good. Guantanamo - detention and physiological torture without trial. Hounding of whistler blowers of illegal activity - Snowdon, Manning, Assange etc. Destabilizing countries around the world - many with democratically elected governments. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... ) Now, of course, this is largely directed at other countries citizens ra…

The vast majority (at least 99.9%) of the documents that Snowden, Manning, and Assange leaked contained no illegal activity. No judge would classify them as whistlebowers.

OK you've outed yourself here. It is ridiculous to claim that Snowden and Manning are not whistleblowers. You're probably down with redefining "whistleblower" to only include made-up imaginary people like the supposed "CIA agent" who was so secretly stationed in the White House that she overheard multiple private two-person conversations.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#152

Post by aprvchndrs »

pdonis wrote: post #126
La1n wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has a lot of influence in what people see and read. In that way the definitely have a lot of power. "Force" doesn't have to be military, soft power[1] is very much able to change policy, culture and views of people, and google holds more than a lot nation states. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power

> Google has a lot of influence in what people see and read. Google only has as much influence as individual users of their services give it.

And a lot of people give Google that power.

Which means Google holds a lot of soft power in the eyes of the government.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#153

Post by lern_too_spel »

jessaustin wrote: post #151
lern_too_spel wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority (at least 99.9%) of the documents that Snowden, Manning, and Assange leaked contained no illegal activity. No judge would classify them as whistlebowers.

OK you've outed yourself here. It is ridiculous to claim that Snowden and Manning are not whistleblowers. You're probably down with redefining "whistleblower" to only include made-up imaginary people like the supposed "CIA agent" who was so secretly stationed in the White House that she overheard multiple private two-person conversations.

> It is ridiculous to claim that Snowden and Manning are not whistleblowers.

I just explained why they aren't. Are you going to explain why you think they are or just include me in your wild conspiracy theories?

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#154

Post by JoeAltmaier »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #153
jessaustin wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK you've outed yourself here. It is ridiculous to claim that Snowden and Manning are not whistleblowers. You're probably down with redefining "whistleblower" to only include made-up imaginary people like the supposed "CIA agent" who was so secretly stationed in the White House that she overheard multiple private two-person conversations.

> It is ridiculous to claim that Snowden and Manning are not whistleblowers. I just explained why they aren't. Are you going to explain why you think they are or just include me in your wild conspiracy theories?

Why no judge could class them that way (and its reasonable to doubt that). Still, as a nation we object to what they uncovered, and many are glad to learn of the massive overreach of authority these organizations are daily perpetrating.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#155

Post by lern_too_spel »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #154
lern_too_spel wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is ridiculous to claim that Snowden and Manning are not whistleblowers. I just explained why they aren't. Are you going to explain why you think they are or just include me in your wild conspiracy theories?

Why no judge could class them that way (and its reasonable to doubt that). Still, as a nation we object to what they uncovered, and many are glad to learn of the massive overreach of authority these organizations are daily perpetrating.

Whatever your thoughts on what the leakers uncovered in the less than 0.1% of documents that weren't simply legal things that the organizations were tasked to do, my point is that they would never be classified as whistlebowers. This feeds into the larger point that you cannot compare the US to Turkey for its treatment of indiscriminate leakers of state secrets vs. Turkey's much worse treatment of people who simply disagree with a dictator and expect anybody to take you seriously.

Unrelated to the topic of discussion, what massive overreach do you think these organizations are daily perpetrating?

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#156

Post by pdonis »

aprvchndrs wrote: post #152
pdonis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google has a lot of influence in what people see and read. Google only has as much influence as individual users of their services give it.

And a lot of people give Google that power. Which means Google holds a lot of soft power in the eyes of the government.

But the government can't "fix" that by regulating. Governments trying to regulate things to shield people from the consequences of their own bad decisions doesn't work.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#157

Post by lucb1e »

pdonis wrote: post #125
lucb1e wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't force a shop owner to sell his products to you if he doesn't want to. The very first article of the Dutch constitution actually says that people have to be treated equally in equal cases. If you live in a country with a similar principle, do you know how this works with someone refusing to do business with you? If they sell to your peer, wouldn't they have to have a reason for not selling to you (i.e. to…

> The very first article of the Dutch constitution actually says that people have to be treated equally in equal cases. Is that supposed to apply to the Dutch government? Or to everyone? Constitutions normally say what the government can and can't do; they don't normally directly tell ordinary citizens what they can and can't do.

I know discrimination is illegal in general (the government, companies, and individuals are all not allowed to discriminate), and I assume that comes from this article since the second sentence mentions religion and skin color specifically, so then I assume the first sentence of this article should also apply to everyone equally. But that's just conjecture, I'm not a lawyer.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#158

Post by lucb1e »

Aperocky wrote: post #135
lucb1e wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't force a shop owner to sell his products to you if he doesn't want to. The very first article of the Dutch constitution actually says that people have to be treated equally in equal cases. If you live in a country with a similar principle, do you know how this works with someone refusing to do business with you? If they sell to your peer, wouldn't they have to have a reason for not selling to you (i.e. to…

Right, if they sell to Dutch, they must not discriminate which Dutch. You can’t force a foreign company to sell on Dutch soil _at all_ if they don’t want in, period.

I was not necessarily referring to international transactions, just curious about what the person wrote since I indeed also believe that to be true (also in the Netherlands) even though I separately learned of this part of the constitution that (now that I put two and two together) seems contradictory, at least within the Netherlands. Since there are quite a few Dutch people here, I figured someone might know.

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#159

Post by DrScientist »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #155
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why no judge could class them that way (and its reasonable to doubt that). Still, as a nation we object to what they uncovered, and many are glad to learn of the massive overreach of authority these organizations are daily perpetrating.

Whatever your thoughts on what the leakers uncovered in the less than 0.1% of documents that weren't simply legal things that the organizations were tasked to do, my point is that they would never be classified as whistlebowers. This feeds into the larger point that you cannot compare the US to Turkey for its treatment of indiscriminate leakers of state secrets vs. Turkey's much worse treatment of people who simply d…

Hmm, so he published originally to Greenwald about 9-10 k docs - so you are saying about 9-10 docs contained illegal stuff?

Or are you counting all the documents he downloaded and looked at but didn't publish??? Maybe you are including every book he ever read as well?

Remember the leak as a whole was essentially that the US ( and it's allies ) were hoovering everything up it could - phone and data, via any means necessary - often illegal means, just in case it was useful, with no respect for either national or international law.

Whether you think it was necessary or not, common knowledge or not - it was illegal at the time and people like the director of national intelligence lied directly to congress about it happening.

Yep it's not as bad a Turkey or North Korea - but that doesn't make it ok...

Re: Google's Monopoly-Based Foreign Policy

#160

Post by lern_too_spel »

DrScientist wrote: post #159
lern_too_spel wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever your thoughts on what the leakers uncovered in the less than 0.1% of documents that weren't simply legal things that the organizations were tasked to do, my point is that they would never be classified as whistlebowers. This feeds into the larger point that you cannot compare the US to Turkey for its treatment of indiscriminate leakers of state secrets vs. Turkey's much worse treatment of people who simply d…

Hmm, so he published originally to Greenwald about 9-10 k docs - so you are saying about 9-10 docs contained illegal stuff? Or are you counting all the documents he downloaded and looked at but didn't publish??? Maybe you are including every book he ever read as well? Remember the leak as a whole was essentially that the US ( and it's allies ) were hoovering everything up it could - phone and data, via any means nece…

> Remember the leak as a whole was essentially that the US ( and it's allies ) were hoovering everything up it could - phone and data, via any means necessary - often illegal means, just in case it was useful, with no respect for either national or international law.

No international law covers state data collection, and none of the leaks said the US hoovered up everything it could. The only illegal US program in the leaks was phone metadata collection. It seems you are remembering documents that don't exist.

> so you are saying about 9-10 docs contained illegal stuff?

I said fewer.

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