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posted by on Tuesday July 21 2015, @04:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the someone-stomp-these-guys-already dept.

From this article on vice.com:

The self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) has severely restricted use of the internet in its de-facto capital of Raqqa, requiring that all residents — including those in the militant group's ranks — access the web from observed internet cafes, according to international monitoring organizations.

An IS leaflet photographed and circulated by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), advises that "all owners of shops with satellite internet must comply with the following: Removing Wi-Fi boosters in internet cafés as well as private wireless adaptors, even for soldiers of the Islamic State."

...

Activists worry that internet restriction is intended to clamp down on citizen journalists, human rights workers, and potential IS defectors.

Even under IS rule, activists have managed to sneak out videos, images, and accounts of daily life. In September, a woman with a camera hidden in her niqab walked through the city narrating her experience. The smuggled footage was aired on French TV.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @09:13PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2015, @09:13PM (#212094)

    To be honest, it's hard to take the bumper-sticker-argument of "small government" seriously in any context. Everyone except some anarchists believe in some role for a government, and rather than have an honest debate about exactly what that is, the phrase invents a false ideal to attack functions they happen to not personally like.

    Indeed. I haven't really heard any tea partier honestly answer the question of what part(s) of the federal government should get cut back. Hint: if you claim that you would start off by weilding the budget axe at "foreign aid" (or any other discretionary spending, for that matter), you are either dishonest or you haven't really taken a serious look at the federal budget.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2015, @03:11AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2015, @03:11AM (#212168)

    I haven't really heard any tea partier honestly answer the question of what part(s) of the federal government should get cut back

    Apparently because you've never bothered to listen.

    You may not read this either but I'll try to keep it short and to the point:

    Government debt is about $20 trillion (much higher if unfunded liabilities are accounted for). If the government keeps spending like it is, it will default, likely by printing money (inflation) rather than refusing to pay. That will cause consumer prices on imported goods to skyrocket, which will destroy the economy.
    Increasing taxes will make it more expensive to employ/work.
    The best solution (even if not the most politically palatable one) is to reduce spending.
    The amount of reduction required isn't in the order of a few billion here of there; it's hundreds of billions that needs to be cut. This means every government agency and employee is going to have to justify their budget. Otherwise they should be axed.
    Defense needs cutting, benefits need cutting, and entire agencies (as many as possible) need to be abolished.
    Everyone would scream about this, but that only goes to show how dependent the economy has become on government, which is entirely ass about from how the USA got wealthy in the first place.
    If nothing changes, eventually everyone will be paid in worthless dollars that can't buy anything, so even if the budget becomes $50 trillion it won't matter because nothing will get done and everyone will be much much worse off than if the right thing had been done earlier.
    If interest rates on the national debt goes up, it's all over; the federal budget will be consumed by interest.

    If you've been brainwashed by Keynesian dogma, you will not understand this and I pity you. Otherwise it should be blatantly obvious.

    PS. The tea party movement began with Ron Paul. It has nothing to do with neocon religious bullshit, but given the amount of negative press it gets it must really be pissing the establishment types off so that's good.