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.