It is really scary to me that our lawmakers are enacting legislation for topics they have absolutely no personal experience with. Their decisions are based on what can only amount to 100 hours, optimistically, of information sessions given by people representing multinationals with agendas.
All I want to know is what the hell constitutes a "malicious cyber activity". Is that as innocuous as U.S. v Auernheimer?
That's not to say that there couldn't have been criticism if another source provided them with some, but the BBC tend not to provide their own 'opinion' as a criticism (think Wikipedia).
In a Danish context I would imagine the archetypical NPR listener voting for the Social Liberals, who are basically in the exact center (socially liberal, economically free-market, but not radically so in either category).
People in the US have absolutely no idea what "heavily left" means in Europe.
In some places, there is still a distinction between:
(1) Reporting on the news,
(2) Reporting on reactions to the news, and
(3) Providing an outlet's own commentary/opinion on the news.
Its true that a number of popular news outlets try to pass off (2) and even (3) as (1), and that if you are used to that an article that sets out to do (1) and ends up only doing (1) may be confusing.
Of course this varies from country to country with some countries being quite far from neutral in their reporting but the 'beeb' is pretty good at this.
If you want to get away from such bias the best trick that I've found is to go to the news sites of three different countries not directly implicated in the news item and figure out the common elements. Everything else is likely bias or interpretation.
Image 1: [CC on keyboard] - Followed by text about "foreign hackers", "The US Treasury" and "economic ... security challenges."
Image 2: [Anonymous] - Proceeded by text about "individuals or entities that pose a cyber threat", both of which the image presumably represents.
Image 3: [Switch Rack] - Proceeded by assurances regarding the use of this power, followed by FUD and vague threats justifying it.
The final image is critical. It simultaneously represents the Internet, what is an obvious mess and, to those in the know, extremely poor cable management. Each of these associations imply something damning about the order.
I would absolutely expect a BBC reporter to have so carefully crafted such implications.
One could use the same logic to make the argument that this article strongly supports the sanctions:
1: [CC on keyboard] "Hackers are trying to steal your money. We need these sanctions to protect you" 2: [Anonymous] "Look at the scary hacker. Don't you know kids these days can do anything with your computer?" 3: [Switch Rack] "See how complicated the internet is? Don't think about it too much, just let us protect you"
Personally I consider it more likely that those were the first results on the stock image site when the reporter searched for "internet, security, hackers" :-)
It's just the nature of trying to govern an incredibly complicated country.
How do you think that all the laws that the President cites at the top of the order that provide the authority under which the order is issued were passed? [0]
[0] "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (8 U.S.C. 1182(f)), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, [...]" -- https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/04/01/execu...