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from the you-can-never-have-too-many-offsite-backups-eh dept.
The Internet Archive plans to create a backup of its data in Canada in response to the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States:
The Internet Archive, a nonprofit that saves copies of old web pages, is creating a backup of its database in Canada, in response to the election of Donald Trump. "On November 9th in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change," the organization wrote in a blogpost explaining the move. "It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change."
[...] The move will cost millions, according to the Internet Archive, which is soliciting donations. In their post, the Internet Archive justified its decision to backup its data in Canada, claiming that Trump could threaten an open internet. "For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions."
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 02 2016, @10:40PM
Read the entire Declaration, not just the last paragraph. Because it also directly declares that, should any government become oppressive, it is just and proper for the citizens to rebel against it. That's part of why the Constitution has a very specific and narrow definition of treason -- they were trying to AVOID repeating the oppression of the government they were escaping, not permanently embed it into the new nation.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
No, they say it should not be taken lightly, but also that all experience has shown that nothing needs to be done specifically to discourage it. It says that people are naturally resistant to change and will therefore willingly suffer for quite some time before being pushed far enough to take action. What they are saying is that they do not themselves take this decision lightly, and they were declaring that this fact should be self-evident because NOBODY would willingly start that war unless the problems were truly insufferable:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."