SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
In a piece of legislation currently being considered by the United States Senate, the U.S. government will allocate $30 million to enable Hong Kong residents to bypass China's Great Firewall. While residents of one of the most densely populated and developed cities in the world are not directly surveilled by the firewall, a controversial National Security Law which was enforced last year bred fears that the region's internet regulation policies would come to mirror those in Mainland China, where the Great Firewall restricts access to internet platforms such as Google and Facebook.
[...] The bill, officially dubbed the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 (USICA), allocates $30 million in funds starting from the next fiscal year. Its Section 3309 aims to aid in developing technologies and programs for an "open, interoperable, reliable and secure internet" for Hong Kong residents.
It then lists down the objectives that this funding will have to achieve. These objectives include diversifying the portfolio of technologies at the disposal of the U.S. government for combating internet censorship.
A full list of these objectives, according to the Act, is:
(i) to make the internet available in Hong Kong;
(ii) to increase the number of the tools in the technology portfolio;
(iii) to promote the availability of such technologies and tools in Hong Kong;
(iv) to encourage the adoption of such technologies and tools by the people of Hong Kong;
(v) to scale up the distribution of such technologies and tools throughout Hong Kong;
(vi) to prioritize the development of tools, components, code, and technologies that are fully open-source, to the extent practicable;
(vii) to conduct research on repressive tactics that undermine internet freedom in Hong Kong;
(viii) to ensure digital safety guidance and support is available to repressed individual citizens, human rights defenders, independent journalists, civil society organizations and marginalized populations in Hong Kong; and
(ix) to engage American private industry, including e-commerce firms and social networking companies, on the importance of preserving internet access in Hong Kong.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Saturday May 29 2021, @09:39PM (11 children)
Seems to be more a British problem than mine, so why are my tax $$$ going to this?
Not that I don't have sympathy for the Hong Kongers, but I have my own problems that I could use some of this evidently extra cash on.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @11:40PM (5 children)
Someone in Hong Kong paid some US politicians a large amount of money. Perhaps it was as much as $1 million. In return, those politicians have now directed the taxpayers' money so as to give to that someone in Hong Kong $30 million.
They pretty up by calling the initial investment a "contribution" and the payout an "allocation for the Hong Kong residents", but it's a bribe. Direct bribing is "illegal", so they do things this way to keep the money flowing in all nice and legit. Everyone wins. Well, except the taxpayers but who the fuck ever gave a damn about those rubes?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @12:25AM (2 children)
They should have just handed $30 million to the Tor project.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @04:04AM (1 child)
Nice, so instead of the money going toward crooked Jewish elements in the U.S.Government, it would go toward crooked Jewish purple-haired trannies working for crooked Jewish elements of the U.S. Government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:35AM
Your schtick does get old. If anyone took you seriously, they would start checking their trunks for Jews before starting the car. Mount a camera in the walk-in closet to verify the Jew wasn't hiding in there. Where does it end? Is there a Jew hiding in the dark corner of my refrigerator?
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Sunday May 30 2021, @03:33AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @04:50AM
Do you honestly have to have every single step spelled out for you? This isn't a Hong Kong spy handing a Senator a bag of cash. It's sent through multiple layers of foundations, charities, think tanks, political action committees, and the like. What do you think all those organizations are FOR? They're to funnel the money and launder it along the way, not whatever it might say in the organization's newsletter.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:16AM (3 children)
"We are the friends of liberty everywhere". Very old quote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:31PM (1 child)
And it has never been true, ever. What's the real reason?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:34PM
To help the poor oppressed peoples of the ... hah ha sorry couldn't do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @02:48AM
We are the friends of liberty everywhere...until Edward Snowden ratted us out!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @08:04PM
someone already posted
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=43160&page=1&cid=1140113#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
You should realize a few things about the world, with one being that if you want to compete, you have actually compete. And this is not always about the dollars and cents. It would actually make you confused when you realize that US can spend these dollars and cents because it has already spent dollars and cents in the past.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fakefuck39 on Saturday May 29 2021, @09:48PM (11 children)
HK does not go through the great firewall. It's not planned to go through the great firewall, nor does China want that. China is able to trade on the western market only through HK - if HK were to go through the firewall, China would lose access to all western stock markets. No one in China is planning to make HK go through the firewall..
So what does our government do? Take our tax dollars, and allocate them to fix a foreign problem which does not exist.
But that can't be the reason. So what is the reason?
IDEA Act - tacked on to this crap legislature. It didn't pass on its own, now it's being pushed through as an addon to a bill that pretends like it's an "Own the Chinese" bill. The IDEA Act expands the patent office to collect more data, including demographic data. It was presented a couple of year ago by a bunch of congress rednecks, and fell flat on its face. Now they're trying to pass is in a hidden way, attached to this democrat bill. A bill which gives lots of our cash, to a bunch of special interest groups, at a cost of about $200 billion.
https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2021/05/20/idea-act-added-amendment-u-s-innovation-competition-act/id=133791/ [ipwatchdog.com]
The act itself is a response to the chip shortage, and attempts to jumpstart the american semiconductor industry. Anti-china is a popular thing, so it's being sold as such. Thing is, the chip industry is in korea, taiwan, and japan. It's not in China. So this is a pile of complete bs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @09:52PM (10 children)
》 Thing is, the chip industry is in korea, taiwan, and japan. It's not in China. So this is a pile of complete bs.
Taiwan *is* China. Report to reeducation camp now.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fakefuck39 on Saturday May 29 2021, @10:11PM (9 children)
There are two levels of real answer to this sarcastic joke.
First, there's the Chinese side - there was a revolution, they conquered all of China except the part the original government escaped to - Taiwan. Now newChina wants to claim Taiwan, despite never having conquered it.
Then there's the american righeous undereducated sjw hipster version: Taiwan is the real China, the old China, and newChina that's been around only 70 years isn't really even China at all.
Then there's the real version: The tyrant oldChina government escaped to Taiwan - a place with its own people an culture that was never part of oldChina. They conquered it, killed a lot of people, and were eventually killed by the Taiwanese, who liberated their country from oldChina.
Ether way you look at it, Taiwan is or ever was about as much China as Korea is Japan. If Mexico invaded the US and won, then Biden and friends escaped to Canada, Mexico doesn't get to claim Canada is Mexico, nor does Biden get to claim Canada is the US.
There's no need for reeducation. There is only need for education.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday May 29 2021, @10:36PM (8 children)
Cui bono?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday May 29 2021, @10:52PM (7 children)
Who has to gain by newChina claiming Taiwan? That would be China. Countries have things go gain by expanding their territory. If you need to be explained how, I unfortunately can't help you - a kindergarten education can though.
Who has to gain by claiming Taiwan is the real China, because the oldChina government went over there to rule and instead got killed? Hipster millenials, scoring those internet points by looking edgy.
Taiwan, like Korea, like Hainan, was a conquered territory of Japan. Then a conquered territory of China. It's unfortunately too small and too weak to fight off conquerors, so it must side with other, bigger conquerors, such as America/France/UK, to not be conquered again. That -also unfortunately -does not give them country status recognizable by the world. Strange, how with all the American anti-china rhetoric, our leaders can't just come out and say "we recognize Taiwan as a country." No, instead, we declare war on tiktok, because a bunch of kpop fans trolled an orange clown.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday May 29 2021, @11:07PM
Everything is "conquered territory". Where do we stop? I mean, I understand the business of the whole thing, so does it matter, aside from the profits? As long as it's more profitable, they/we will make chips, not war. The story to me sounds like an old news reel
Let's remember Pearl Harbor, and the Alamo..
Yeah, it just occurred to me that it's Memorial Day Weekend, a time for heavy propaganda.. when the lights go on again, all over the world..
Sorry, got old time radio on...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday May 29 2021, @11:16PM (2 children)
:-) Never mind all that. I only asked who gets the 30 mil
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @11:40PM
Probably the Jews in U.S. government who are teaming up with the Chinese to sell America up the river. BLM, Antifa, and the cartels are still around to launder Jewish money.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:24AM
to anyone they want.
The bill
https://www.democrats.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/DAV21A48.pdf [senate.gov]
Section 3309 is on page 1010.
GRANT RECIPIENTS.—Grants authorized under this paragraph shall be distributed to multiple vendors and suppliers through an open, fair, competitive, and evidence-based decision process—(i) to diversify the technical base; and(ii) to reduce the risk of misuse by bad actors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @12:41AM (2 children)
I went to kindergarten and I can tell that sentence makes little, if any, sense.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:19AM (1 child)
The first thing they should have taught you, is that a period ends a sentence. If you indeed try to read two sentences, as one - it will indeed make very little sense. I suggest repeating kindergarten, as you likely missed other important teachings by being born in Kentucky.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:43AM
GP AC is from New Jersey, the Garbage State. He grew up in the shadow of the Pulaski Skyway, eating leaded paint chips and breathing the exhaust from leaded gasoline engines. Not all idiots are from Kentucky.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @09:58PM
Seems like tiny crumb to piss off China. Don't feel strongly either way about this.
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Saturday May 29 2021, @10:05PM (3 children)
How much money is allocated to fix the fact that all stories posted today on the main page show zero comment counts despite having a positive quantity of comments?
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Saturday May 29 2021, @10:07PM (2 children)
30 million. That’s the lowest number Washington politicians understand.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @10:42PM (1 child)
If they gave 1/30 of that money to Soylentnews, that'd be a great day for all of us, don't you think?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @11:25PM
No, because then the blue hairs would spot an opportunity. As soon as the check was cashed, they would infiltrate, fire martyb for being male, use half the money to construct a transgender bathroom, donate the rest to support pronoun research and shut down the servers for being too much of a distraction.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday May 30 2021, @12:57AM (6 children)
A better use for that money would be to ensure that more of the USA's OWN citizens have enough to eat.
But no, the USA has to keep meddling in the politics of other countries when aprox 35 million of their own Citizens don't have enough, if they have anything at all, to eat.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:07AM (2 children)
I'm almost out of my hot pocket stash, and my microwave is on its last leg.
I'm also out of mountain dew, and don't know how long my emergency RC Cola reserve can last.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:44AM (1 child)
How is your stock of moon pies?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @10:07AM
DAYS TO NEXT MARDIS GRAS: 275
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:17AM
(Score: 3, Funny) by srobert on Sunday May 30 2021, @03:50PM (1 child)
But if you give them food they won't go back to work. It's the real threat of dire poverty that keeps us prosperous.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:41PM
Save that shit for the proles. Gimme my donation.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:23AM
You could've at least prepended it with North America and slotted in an Advancement towards the end for a cuter acronym.