The Outside by Mikko Rauhala

[English summary at end]

Valehtelun, moralisoinnin ja rehellisten ihmisten mustamaalaamisen ynnä ahdistelun yhdistys Pelastakaa lapset ry on alittanut itsensä taas. Jo aiemmin mainitsemani oikeusjuttu Matti Nikin lapsiporno.info-sivustoa vastaan käy yhä kierommaksi ja mädännäisemmäksi PeLan uudelleenmääritellessä parodian sekä valehdellessa suoraan päin oikeuden naamaa. Juttu koskee tarkkaan ottaen PeLan omaa nettivihjettä parodioivaa "Pelastakaa pedofiilit"-alasivua, jonka PeLa väittää rikkovan tekijänoikeuksiaan(!). Hovioikeus vankkaan todellisuudentajun puutteeseensa nojaten määräsikin sivuston nimipalvelun hallinnoijan (!) poistamaan se saatavilta 10.000 euron sakon uhalla.

Pelastakaa lapset ry:n vastine ahdisteltaviensa sensuroinnista tekemään valitukseen mm. kehtaa suoraan väittää pedofilian olevan parodioitavuuden ulkopuolella: "Väitteeseen, että joku 'pelastakaa pedofiilit' voisi edes olla 'yhteiskunnallista parodiaa', ei tarvinne edes ottaa kantaa". Herrajumala sentään, sanoi ateisti. Mikään ei ole parodiointikelvotonta, paitsi PeLan väitteet tässä jutussa — vaikeaa nimittäin mennä vielä paljoa absurdimmaksi ja fasistisemmaksi.

Eli PeLan mukaan ei saa tehdä yhteiskunnallista parodiaa pedofiliasta, koska se ei ole parodiaa (QED), ja sitäpaitsi sivun parodiallista tarkoitusta ei ollut ilmaistu siellä, kuten ei myöskään inspiraation lähdettä. Harmi vain että ensimmäinen väite on silkkaa orwellilaista uuskieltä, ja jälkimmäiset taas pelkkää valheellista paskaa, kuten kuka tahansa voi tarkistaa sivuston toisaalla sijaitsevasta kopiosta, erityisesti sen Usein kysytyistä kysymyksistä. (Mainittakoon, että ilmeisesti poistomääräys ja uhkasakko ovat tällä hetkellä vanhentuneet, mutta parodian palauttaminen alkuperäiseen paikkaan odottaa vielä lakimiehen neuvoa.)

Muistakaa, rakkaat lukijat, seuraavan kerran kun tekee mieli lahjoittaa rahaa satunnaiseen hyvään tarkoitukseen: Pelastakaa lapset ry haluaa tuhota sananvapauden lastensuojelun alalla ahdistelemalla heidän kanssaan lastensuojelukeinoista eri mieltä olevia lakijutuilla ja leimaamalla heidät pedofiileiksi. (Tässä vaiheessa huomauttaisin myös, että heidän keinonsa ovat typeriä ja naiiveja. Parempia on saatavissa mm. aiemmasta artikkelistani.)

Boikotoikaa siis Pelastakaa lapset ry:tä. Rahoillenne löytyy varmasti moraalisempiakin ottajia, kuten vaikkapa skientologit.

English summary: Save us from Save the Children

To silence the complaint on the censorship of a "Save the Pedophiles" parody site, the Finnish Save the Children group has resorted to lying, cheating and redefining "parody" such that if they frown upon it, it's not. These professional hysteria monetizers bring in massive income by supposedly promoting child welfare. Too bad that at least as far as the information society goes, they use and promote naive and ineffective means that often cause significant societal damage while doing no good whatsoever.

Been a while, eh? Well, for your amusement, I'll pretend that my interview at the Uncomfortable Questions podcast is newsworthy (after all, I haven't mentioned it here before). The interview should provide some insight into my philosophies on life, the universe and everything. I'm not absolutely certain, though, since I haven't dared listen to it myself, but I did have a bit of fun making it, and some people have positively commented on it.

For the Finnish readership, I've also recently commented on death at my good friend's blog, Jatulintarha.

So there, I suppose this will justify the "Personal" category for a while again. Not to mention this whole blog thing.

PS: On a random funnyish note, I had to implement a particular bad idea as an image composition. This time it's even safe for work, unlike some of my other ones (don't click on that if you've ever wished to unsee something).

One would think that inside the asylum, finding proper medications would be important. Of course, since it is what it is, things are a little bit more complicated.

A couple of big pharma ex research heads put it quite flatly in Michael Heller's Forbes article: Researching many potential avenues for medicines is effectively blocked by the high numbers of potentially relevant patents that everyone's been collecting. It's the same deal with software and development thereof, of course, but even a computer geek must admit that hindering medical research can be, well, fatal, and therefore perhaps not so nice either.

'course, Heller advocates less radical solutions than Piratpartiet, but let's not judge him too harshly for that. His solution would include fine tuning of the patent systems; for instance, the so-called "damages" for patent infringement should be limited to non-astronomical values.

Imagine that; while you still couldn't innovate quite safely, at least you wouldn't perhaps be automatically bankrupt if you were successfully preyed upon. Quite a step forwards that would be!

Meanwhile, we'll just have to trod along without a cure for cancer. You know, because you'd just get sued to hell if you developed one.

Meanwhile, back in the good old US of A, the land of the free, the home of the brave enough to risk indefinite arrest and torture without charges, customs officials are perfectly within their legal rights to confiscate and indefinitely hold your "electronic devices" such as laptops, cameras and phones, plus all your old-fashioned papers, video tapes, or anything else that has information stored on it. This of course should really surprise no-one, as the US is these days a no-fly zone for anyone appreciative of their liberty. It is a bit surprising that the Department of Homeland Security freely admits to the groundless searches. But I suppose they just have nothing to hide.

This sort of invasion of privacy by the Big Brother goes far beyond the usual searches for dangerous and/or illegal items and substances that the customs have traditionally been doing. Personal data is the extension of the user's own memory, and rifling through it without any reasonable suspicion is a gross invasion of privacy.

Up until now, it's all about your garden variety fascism, of course. The excuses used for the practice promote the matter to the realm of stupidity, however. Of course, the stupidity might be feigned — it's getting really hard to tell these days — but the sheer idiocy of the claims does not diminish even if the claimants are completely aware of the nature of the bullshit they're spouting.

The usual suspects are, of course, terrorists, drug smugglers (yay for digital drugs) and last but not least, copyright infringers. Frankly, if a terrorist is so incompetent as to have digital evidence of their doings on them while traversing the customs, they wouldn't be much of a threat to anyone. Your garden variety music fan / copyright criminal might of course be cavalier enough to carry their forbidden data through, and it is quite likely that you can snag lots of these dangerous criminals this way if you really want to.

Realistically, for now they'll probably crack down more on the profiteering infringers and not the casual pirate — unless, you know, they have some other reason not to like a particular fellow (selective law enforcement for the win). Besides, what would they do with a crapload of file sharers? Ship them to Guantanamo bay, where the government themselves have been routinely violating copyrights? Perhaps the DHS should cut a mutually beneficial deal with the RIAA: for bagging infringers into Gitmo, they'd get off the hook for license fees on their "advanced interrogation".

But I digress. Back to the warrantless search policy. I've saved the best for last, you see. At a Senate hearing on the subject in June, one Larry Cunning-as-a-ham exhibited either his total ignorance of factual reality or his complete contempt for the Senate (not that they don't deserve all the contempt they get, mind you) by defending the policy thusly: "[Not searching electronic devices] would open a vulnerability in our border by providing criminals and terrorists with a means to smuggle child pornography or other dangerous and illegal computer files into the country." [cnet]

Reflect on this for a moment.

Really, think about it.

I mean, sure, if you don't search through the laptops and whatnot, there is a greater chance of somebody bringing this stuff into the US through the customs. But are we forgetting something? I have a feeling we are.

If only there were some customs-proof method for the "dangerous" data to be moved over the border easily and securely...

Oh yeah, I know, there's the fucking Internet! Why don't we just transfer our child porn, strongly encrypted of course, over the Internet and carry a clean laptop through the customs. It's what Bruce Schneier would do.

So, especially now that the policy is widely publicized, any but the most dimwitted real criminal (not talking about the make-believe copyright "criminals") will not carry anything incriminating over the borders, there being much better ways to get the data across. The dimwits can be caught anyway, and the policy is thus quite useless especially considering its societal (and business) costs. (Business, you ask? Businesses don't want the corrupt US government to capture their important data either, and always having to blank your laptop and reretrieve the data over the network does have a slight cost, which adds up over time.)

For his mind-boggling performance in the Senate, I would like to present Mr. Cunningham the Award for the Most Heinously Intellectually Dishonest and/or Plainly Idiotic Use of the Child Porn Excuse of All Time.

Congratulations, Mr. Cunningham. It wasn't easy, but you managed to beat all the other numerous fuckwits and charlatans trying to abuse people's dislike of child porn for their own nefarious purposes. Be proud of a job well done.