Erstellt am: 23. 7. 2012 - 12:16 Uhr
Today's Webtip: Chomsky on the Charter
A couple of weeks ago I had a discussion with someone from an Austrian political party about that party's opposition to ACTA. It was an eye opening experience. I don't know if the position held by this person was representative of the general partyline, but I was shocked to learn that the threat to our civil liberties had little to do with his position. He was actually a bit of a copyright maximalist and felt that the threat to privacy was more or less irrelevant.
The discussion that ensued reminded me of just how difficult it can be to tie together issues like intellectual property, the war on terror and internet anonymity into one coherent argument. It feels like it can take forever to provide the historical context needed to lay the foundation for my opinion. Something that doesn't work too well while talking on the subway.
Luckily, we still have the net and intelligent individuals who have a lot more practice communicating big ideas. People like Noam Chomsky (yes, I'm one of them).
tomdispatch.com has a post that begins with an explanation of a lawsuit that has been filed against members of the U.S. government for "violating the Constitution and international law" with the drone assassination of three U.S. citizens. The introduction explains a bit about the case and the current state of government based threats to civil rights to provide background for an essay by Mr. Chomsky titled "Destroying the Commons: How the Magna Carta Became a Minor Carta"-
I think it might be worth your time to read, no matter on which side of the various issues you might stand.