71–80 of 406 posts
In fact, it's possible to apply for an exemption to transact business with sanctioned countries. GitHub would probably have a good case for such an exemption and their parent company is already exempted to sell things like Microsoft Office to there.
https://complyadvantage.com/knowledgebase/sanctions-2/ofac-s...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it just makes it a geopolitical reality that you have to somehow punish Russia when it mobilizes ground forces and forcibly annexes pieces of land. Don't forget that Russian-backed insurgents literally shot a passenger plane out of the sky[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
I don't mean this to sound aggressive, but would you agree then with sanctioning the U.S. after its actual military shot down an Iranian passenger plane, inside Iranian waters [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
Say what you will, the US government at least paid out to the victims (although never officially apologized). While Russia denies all involvement to this day and lawsuits are still ongoing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has nothing to do with free speech - the sanctioned account was able to open an issue on GitHub complaining of the way their account had been handled. The account is the victim of a trade embargo, not a gag order.
Their Github Pages page was censored. They are unable to participate in the maintenance of an open source repository. This was done, according to Github, as a requirement to comply with the laws of its state. If that's not a free speech issue, there are no free speech issues.
The government also has a mechanism where someone inadvertently impacted by sanctions can appeal to the Treasury Department and be granted an OFAC "license" that gives them permission to operate outside of the sanction(s). If the goal is to silence those who are subject to the sanctions that would be an odd way to do it.
During the Cold War, the primary thing that distinguished the US side from the USSR side was that, while speech by USSR people and people sympathetic to the USSR (like, say, CPUSA) was published in the US, publishing speech sympathetic to the US in the USSR would get you arrested. It seems like the US has become what the USSR was: companies who publish speech from people in Iran or Crimea are now violating the law by…
I don't think Noam Chomsky has ever been sympathetic to the USSR, he just said that the US was not much better than USSR. For example in that speach he clearly states that USSR was a a flawed totalitarian system from the start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06-XcAiswY4 (he has in fact also stated many times that his political views were indeed censored in the US)
During the Cold War, the primary thing that distinguished the US side from the USSR side was that, while speech by USSR people and people sympathetic to the USSR (like, say, CPUSA) was published in the US, publishing speech sympathetic to the US in the USSR would get you arrested. It seems like the US has become what the USSR was: companies who publish speech from people in Iran or Crimea are now violating the law by…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
> In 1952, the Supreme Court upheld a lower-court decision in Adler v. Board of Education of New York, thus approving a law that allowed state loyalty review boards to fire teachers deemed "subversive".
It had certainly cooled down from outright McCarythism by 1960 but nobody wanted to be accused of Soviet sympathies back then...
I'm sure HN will try throwing some shade here, but just about everyone has sanctioned Crimea, including Canada[1], the EU[2], and Ukraine itself. MasterCard, Visa, Discover, PayPal, etc., etc. also don't work in Crimea. [1] https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re... [2] https://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/special-coverage/eu-sa...
I'm from a US-friendly nation but I get terribly sad when I hear things like this. Contribution to the free software world should transcend where someone is from whether it be China, Russia, Iran or whatever new "enemy" our leaders decide. As much as I dislike Facebook for privacy related reasons, maybe it's time that more tech companies setup a Tor Hidden Service and not ask where people are from. Could this be used…
I'm sure HN will try throwing some shade here, but just about everyone has sanctioned Crimea, including Canada[1], the EU[2], and Ukraine itself. MasterCard, Visa, Discover, PayPal, etc., etc. also don't work in Crimea. [1] https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re... [2] https://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/special-coverage/eu-sa...
https://tariganter.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-internati...
So what? They don't do the same to Turkey(Cyprus) or Israel(Golan Heights).
During the Cold War, the primary thing that distinguished the US side from the USSR side was that, while speech by USSR people and people sympathetic to the USSR (like, say, CPUSA) was published in the US, publishing speech sympathetic to the US in the USSR would get you arrested. It seems like the US has become what the USSR was: companies who publish speech from people in Iran or Crimea are now violating the law by…
I think you could consider the incarcerated victims of the drug war as political dissidents. The laws exist to make sure black people couldn't vote against Nixon, which I'd say is a political imprisonment
