Proposed Mexican Telecom Law Would Be a Disaster for Internet Freedom
eff.org
eff.org
This is a big deal for us. The PRI party who was ousted in year 2000 after 70 years ruling Mexico, just regained power in 2012 after using all their corruption, media and populism machinery.
Our president is (or pretends to be) an idiotic ignorant who can't name three books he has ever read. His only opposition comes from social media, twitter and Facebook because he pretty much has all the traditional media in his pocket.
El PRI has an historic record of being trigger happy against their enemies even when these are unarmed students (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_massacre) so it is obvious that he wants to control, censor and shut-down the internet.
Home broadband connections can be had for about US$20-35 per month. Reliable 4G nationwide month-to-month absolutely no contract plans with 2GB+ data can be had for US$25 or less.
They substitute only if everyone you want to call has Skype or GVoice or something. If you want to call people with phone numbers, you need voice specific service. Telmex charges Skype &c big, big interconnect fees to access the regular telephone number voice market.
It's been worth enough to make Slim the world's richest man mostly on the charges for USA-Mexico voice interconnect fees. I used to talk to my US contacts on Skype.
This isn't true. I use google voice and the GrooVe app to make and receive calls to and from land lines. They don't need GVoice; I do. And I have it.
Then again, my GV calls connect to US numbers. On examination, the Google Voice rate to call mexico is indeed ridiculously high ($0.15 / minute -- compare the $7.14 / minute my parents' land line wanted in order to connect to China [GV rate: $0.02]).
But if the use case is talking to family members on a regular basis (seems likely when the cash cow is US -> mexico calls), it shouldn't even be difficult to tell them "if you use the internet, we can all talk for free". Your family seems especially likely to be willing to make some accommodations.
If you see locals as corrupt and the federales as simply lacking ways to investigate and prosecute drug kingpins, then you might want much longer periods of data retention.
Of course, if you're plagued by violence, you might not really care about telecommunications regulation, you might have more important things to worry about, like whether or not the Knights Templar are going to accidentally kill your local preacher's kidnapped daughter before the community can rally to collect the ransom:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:YKL8jFB... [cache because the original story seems to be broken on WSJ]
If this law comes to pass, we'll be pretty much without a voice.
But the Mexican government usually seems somewhat more responsive to public opinion on internet, security, and privacy policy issues than the US government is. So there's some chance these provisions will be changed if enough people care.
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me."
This is relevant since citizens from all over the world must be involved with laws that affect the internet and if we don't care about other countries it may cause a domino effect until it reaches yours. We are all citizens of the Internet.
I don't mind too much if EFF gives some support to Mexican organizations opposing this, but I think the main effort against it should originate from Mexico. Nothing makes conservative Americans more upset than hearing Central or South American leaders lecture the United States on policy. We should be cautious about lecturing or trying to influence other countries. Saving people from themselves is a noble goal, but it has a low success rate, is highly stressful and is not for everyone.
Political corruption and dissociation between the wishes of the people and the actions of government is a problem in most representative democracies, and I don't mean to trivialize that.
It's also seems plausible to me that Central and South American governments might pursue these sorts of policies partly as an evolution of surveillance against gang and drug crime, and therefore partly at the behest of certain U.S. political interests. Which would mean it's quite a political tangle.
Is Mexico's internet policy more significant than China's to the internet as a whole? Will lawmakers or courts of the U.S. or Europe look to Mexico to decide how to proceed on issues of civil liberties on the internet? In other words, is this the best place for freedom-minded technologists to put what little political muscle they have to work?
Is it? Can it not ever apply beyond that? Did the poet make it clear that it only applies to a single body politic?
> Nothing makes conservative Americans more upset than hearing Central or South American leaders lecture the United States on policy.
Is it that important when it upsets some people? Besides some of their lectures are valid especially the ones concerning narcotics legalization.
> We should be cautious about lecturing or trying to influence other countries.
Looking at your previous example, I feel that you're confusing a non-profit organization with the US government.
> Saving people from themselves is a noble goal, but it has a low success rate, is highly stressful and is not for everyone.
Are you saying that the EFF should just give up and quit because the challenge / problem is too difficult?
> Is Mexico's internet policy more significant than China's to the internet as a whole?
Does this really matter? A victory is still a victory no matter how small. I also doubt that the EFF is expending as much resources for this as they would for a SOPA or TPP. Using this logic should people stop fighting for civil liberties in small towns since they're not as big or important as big metros?
It can be, of course, but there are political realities when trying to influence public policy in another country.
> Looking at your previous example, I feel that you're confusing a non-profit organization with the US government.
Unlike governments, non-profits have no political pull in foreign countries other than to get citizens of those countries motivated to organize their own political blocs. Which the EFF should try to do, to a point. But U.S. citizens getting involved is, quite frankly, political interference. We can write all the rhetoric we want on the internet about how logging internet traffic is stupid, and how Mexico shouldn't do it (of course that's true), but is it going to change policymakers' minds in Mexico? I very much doubt it. And internet-using freedom-loving Mexicans willing to get politically involved probably don't need the U.S. based EFF to tell them about political machinations within Mexico.
The U.S. government could use some of its muscle and convince the Mexican government to shelve this proposal, but how well would that go over, when the NSA is selectively logging anything it wants anywhere in the world (anywhere that it can get at and tap)?
Yes, but what does that have to do with constricting the meaning of the poem?
> Unlike governments, non-profits have no political pull in foreign countries other than to get citizens of those countries motivated to organize their own political blocs.
The EFF is all about raising awareness. How does this hurt anyone? Why is it stupid to help raise awareness of an issue in another country?
> Why is it stupid to help raise awareness...
Take a look at the only place I used the word "stupid". Hint: it has nothing to do with the EFF.
I'm attempting to inject some balance, and some political reality, into what I think is head-in-the-clouds liberalism.
I don't know that the EFF is doing anything that hurts people right now; this was but one press release on their website. But anyone, like the poster who started this subthread, who tries to make Mexico's issues the world's issues, has to contend with allocation of limited organization resources (opportunity costs). If organizations in the rest of the world put resources into interfering in Mexico's primarily internal policies, and get nothing out of it, when they could have been fighting policies that more directly affect those organizations' members, is that not harm?
How is it foolish when the cost is low and what does this have to do with being a liberal (ftr I am not a liberal)? Of course let's not forget that your original point was that you felt the poem had a very limited scope.
> has to contend with allocation of limited organization resources (opportunity costs).
Is the cost of writing and posting an article online expensive? What opportunity costs are they missing by writing a single article?
The EFF is not a news agency. They're an advocacy group. They don't need to be impartial when it comes to civil rights and freedom just as the NRA doesn't need to be impartial when it comes to firearms.