Question:
Western businesses will be forced out of lucrative markets

The Western firms being incentivized to produce and distribute this software will require at least some market penetration to be able to reach these dissidents. This means they have business interests in these countries that may well be important to their own bottom line and to jobs back home. Putting these relationships and long-standing business arrangements at risk through a risky gamble like software specifically to help rebels is foolhardy. When regimes that are the target of these efforts get wind of these efforts, they will no doubt sever ties, damaging long term business interests, which is particularly damaging considering it is in authoritarian regimes like China and Vietnam that technology companies see the greatest room for growth. 1 The illusory benefits of catalysing regime change are far outweighed by the huge potential business costs. Furthermore, the ability of businesses to help effect change in these countries is hampered by this policy. It is the business interests linked directly into these economies that generate the most sharing of ideas and principles. It is through these channels that eventual reforms shall flow. It is best not to cut the tap for an all-or-nothing play.

1 The Star Online. “Intel Upbeat on South-East Asia, Sees Double-Digit Growth for Processor Manufacture Next Year”. 12 November 2012. http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/12/11/business/12441053&sec=business

Engagement will still occur. The software exists to aid in uprisings, which is the endpoint of the regime, or at least a signal of its imminent change. It is a play that Western governments should back on a human as well as political level. The subsidies and incentives, furthermore, can be sufficient to compensate companies if things do indeed go sour. This would be expected, in fact, since the companies, acting rationally will have to be coaxed into producing and supplying this technology.

Governments are often obliged to do things that the population doesn’t like – raising taxes is an obvious example. However, it is also recognised that sometimes the government has to do these things in order to represent the long-term, best interest of its people – whether or not it is a popular measure at the time.

If it is true that people cannot easily get jobs in the developed world for lack of language skills then there will surely still be a pressure to learn the language or languages of international discourse. What this policy offers is access by a much wider audience to the various benefits that expanded academic knowledge can offer. It will expand the developing world's knowledge base and not in any way diminish the desire to learn English and other dominant languages. It should be remembered that it is not just academics that use academic papers; students do as well, as do professionals in everyday life. Clearly there cannot be an expectation that everyone learns English to be able to access research. While there may be fewer languages in academic use there is not such a narrowing of language for everyone else.

It is wrong that civil society should have reduced influence over the governance of the internet with governments making all the key decisions. Many governments around the world are not democratic and so cannot be said to represent their people while even those that are democratic are prone to advancing the interests of minorities of their constituents as shown by treaties and legislation such as SOPA and ACTA. Governments of all stripes whether authoritarian or democratic do not have a good record of transparency; ICANN on the other hand does. [1] ICANN works on a "bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model" meaning that ICANN is very inclusive bringing together governments, experts, private companies and ngos, potentially even individuals can get involved and have their say. [2]

[1] ‘ICANN Accountability & Transparency’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

[2] ‘About Us’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers .

People are capable of assessing a biased idea after discovering its bias, while it is dangerous to present potentially biased ideas as genuine, for this limits discussion. This is especially so in the status quo, where the suspicions of who may be funding think tanks remain when they choose not to disclose their funders. A blanket obligation of all think tanks to reveal their funding allows for open discourse and thus more space to discuss the ideas themselves.

Many politicians in their campaigns make an explicit or implicit point out of emphasizing their family values and other aspects of their “private” life, for example by being photographed with their loyal family and through taking a stance on such issues as divorce, single mothers, sex education or drugs. If the public image such people seek to create is at variance with their own practices, such hypocrisy deserves to be exposed. This would not be to the detriment of democracy but in fact may improve it as it would encourage future politicians to ensure that they live by what they preach, rather than cynically trying to manipulate the media into creating a false image of who they are only for it to be fatally undermined by their own actions.

How do we determine what is proportionate? If some valuable intellectual property, such as part of the designs for the US's latest fighter jet the F35, which were hacked in 2009. [1] Then what can be the response to this? Can it simply be the cost of developing this design? If so then what about the strategic loss the state has suffered, how can that be calculated in? So long as it is excluded state sanctioned cyber-attacks will not be deterred.

[1] Gorman, Siobhan, Cole, August, and Dreazen, Yochi, ‘Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jen Project’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html

Oppressive regimes have turned to the use of advanced surveillance technology in response to activists’ learning to evade more conventional methods of surveillance, and by moving their organizations online. Western surveillance technology has filled a niche that was once open for dissidents. By placing this ban, even if the regimes turn back to old methods, they will still be hampered in the crushing of dissent. Furthermore, no regime has the resources or power to have physical surveillance as pervasive as the technology denied them would allow. Electronic surveillance therefore can cast a much broader net that would allow the government to repress many more people who would not be subject to more labour intensive physical surveillance.

While cyberbullying is indeed a danger to children, it is not an excuse to invade their personal life-worlds. The UNCRC clearly states that “(1) No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation,” and that, “(2) The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attack.” These ‘interferences’ or ‘attacks’ not only apply to third parties but to parents as well. [1] Moreover in less traditional ‘offline’ spaces children have far greater ability to choose which information they share with their parents and what they do not. As online spaces are not inherently more dangerous than those offline, it seems reasonable to suggest that similar limitations and restrictions on invasions of privacy that apply online should also apply offline. What a parent can do is to be there for their children and talk to them and support them. They should also spend time surfing the Internet together with them to discuss their issues and problems. But the child should always also have the opportunity to have his or her own protected and private space that is outside the every watchful surveilant eye of the parent..

[1] United Nations Children’s Fund. Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Fully revised 3rd edition. Geneva. United Nations Publications. Google Search. Web. May 2013.

It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.

Real politick is not the only consideration democracies should entertain when they engage in international relations. Indeed, the Western powers have sought since World War II to develop a system of international justice that recognizes the primacy of peoples’ rights irrespective of where they are born. This principle is constantly compromised as democracies jockey for influence with undemocratic regimes, bolstering those regimes and their repressive norms in the process. In order to be consistent, and to serve the true interests of justice, democracies must not aid undemocratic governments in the repression of their people.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Justice demands that those who seek actual political redress be sorted from opportunistic marauders

The technology of anonymity can have the effect of providing needed security to dissidents seeking to make their country a better place, but it is just as likely to provide cover for the violent opportunists that arise in the midst of the chaos. When the state is unable to locate the culprits, and even to sort between those who are dissidents from those who are mere criminals, everyone involved gets blamed for the worst excesses of the chaos, discrediting the people with legitimate claims. Anonymity is a dangerous tool to give anyone, but particularly so in the context of violent uprising where it can be taken up by anyone. All governments, even authoritarian ones, have a right to defend their citizens from violent criminals capitalizing on mayhem. Western governments only make the cause of justice, often a tenuous one in these countries, all the more likely to go undefended, as governments are forced to clamp down on everyone, and find excuse in the looters to discredit the entirety of uprising with the same brush of destruction. Worse still is the possibility that the technology could fall into the hands of dangerous groups such as terrorists and militants who might use the greater safety of anonymity to increase their reach and scope of violence so turning the software against its creators.

Regimes will paint everyone as looters and disturbers of order irrespective of anonymity. This software changes that status quo by offering the political dissidents, the real people regimes will be trying to root out during and in the aftermath of uprisings, a means of not falling immediately foul of the state security forces. They are the people that need protection in this scenario because it is on them that the success of the uprising and its ideals rest.

Governments are often obliged to do things that the population doesn’t like – raising taxes is an obvious example. However, it is also recognised that sometimes the government has to do these things in order to represent the long-term, best interest of its people – whether or not it is a popular measure at the time.

If it is true that people cannot easily get jobs in the developed world for lack of language skills then there will surely still be a pressure to learn the language or languages of international discourse. What this policy offers is access by a much wider audience to the various benefits that expanded academic knowledge can offer. It will expand the developing world's knowledge base and not in any way diminish the desire to learn English and other dominant languages. It should be remembered that it is not just academics that use academic papers; students do as well, as do professionals in everyday life. Clearly there cannot be an expectation that everyone learns English to be able to access research. While there may be fewer languages in academic use there is not such a narrowing of language for everyone else.

It is wrong that civil society should have reduced influence over the governance of the internet with governments making all the key decisions. Many governments around the world are not democratic and so cannot be said to represent their people while even those that are democratic are prone to advancing the interests of minorities of their constituents as shown by treaties and legislation such as SOPA and ACTA. Governments of all stripes whether authoritarian or democratic do not have a good record of transparency; ICANN on the other hand does. [1] ICANN works on a "bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model" meaning that ICANN is very inclusive bringing together governments, experts, private companies and ngos, potentially even individuals can get involved and have their say. [2]

[1] ‘ICANN Accountability & Transparency’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

[2] ‘About Us’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers .

People are capable of assessing a biased idea after discovering its bias, while it is dangerous to present potentially biased ideas as genuine, for this limits discussion. This is especially so in the status quo, where the suspicions of who may be funding think tanks remain when they choose not to disclose their funders. A blanket obligation of all think tanks to reveal their funding allows for open discourse and thus more space to discuss the ideas themselves.

Many politicians in their campaigns make an explicit or implicit point out of emphasizing their family values and other aspects of their “private” life, for example by being photographed with their loyal family and through taking a stance on such issues as divorce, single mothers, sex education or drugs. If the public image such people seek to create is at variance with their own practices, such hypocrisy deserves to be exposed. This would not be to the detriment of democracy but in fact may improve it as it would encourage future politicians to ensure that they live by what they preach, rather than cynically trying to manipulate the media into creating a false image of who they are only for it to be fatally undermined by their own actions.

How do we determine what is proportionate? If some valuable intellectual property, such as part of the designs for the US's latest fighter jet the F35, which were hacked in 2009. [1] Then what can be the response to this? Can it simply be the cost of developing this design? If so then what about the strategic loss the state has suffered, how can that be calculated in? So long as it is excluded state sanctioned cyber-attacks will not be deterred.

[1] Gorman, Siobhan, Cole, August, and Dreazen, Yochi, ‘Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jen Project’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html

Oppressive regimes have turned to the use of advanced surveillance technology in response to activists’ learning to evade more conventional methods of surveillance, and by moving their organizations online. Western surveillance technology has filled a niche that was once open for dissidents. By placing this ban, even if the regimes turn back to old methods, they will still be hampered in the crushing of dissent. Furthermore, no regime has the resources or power to have physical surveillance as pervasive as the technology denied them would allow. Electronic surveillance therefore can cast a much broader net that would allow the government to repress many more people who would not be subject to more labour intensive physical surveillance.

While cyberbullying is indeed a danger to children, it is not an excuse to invade their personal life-worlds. The UNCRC clearly states that “(1) No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation,” and that, “(2) The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attack.” These ‘interferences’ or ‘attacks’ not only apply to third parties but to parents as well. [1] Moreover in less traditional ‘offline’ spaces children have far greater ability to choose which information they share with their parents and what they do not. As online spaces are not inherently more dangerous than those offline, it seems reasonable to suggest that similar limitations and restrictions on invasions of privacy that apply online should also apply offline. What a parent can do is to be there for their children and talk to them and support them. They should also spend time surfing the Internet together with them to discuss their issues and problems. But the child should always also have the opportunity to have his or her own protected and private space that is outside the every watchful surveilant eye of the parent..

[1] United Nations Children’s Fund. Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Fully revised 3rd edition. Geneva. United Nations Publications. Google Search. Web. May 2013.

It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.

Real politick is not the only consideration democracies should entertain when they engage in international relations. Indeed, the Western powers have sought since World War II to develop a system of international justice that recognizes the primacy of peoples’ rights irrespective of where they are born. This principle is constantly compromised as democracies jockey for influence with undemocratic regimes, bolstering those regimes and their repressive norms in the process. In order to be consistent, and to serve the true interests of justice, democracies must not aid undemocratic governments in the repression of their people.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Aiding of the agents of chaos will allow the government to discredit the uprisings as being instigated and abetted by the West

The fact that dissidents can be conflated with other rioters gives real power to the government to discredit the uprising. Firstly, they can report the rioting and looting in tandem with the uprising, as they hide behind anonymity, making it difficult to ascertain specific agents and their directives. Secondly, the regime can identify the West as the instigator of the unrest. This is what Iran’s leaders did during the Green Revolution, when it blamed the foreign tools of dissent like Twitter and other social media for aiding in the rebel protests. 1 This two-pronged attack can be used to drive a wedge between the general public and the leaders and primary agents of dissent seeking to build a broad base of support, a necessary prerequisite for an uprising to succeed. While anonymity gives some ability for individual leaders to hide themselves in the crowd, they lose their moral authority and impact when they can be easily construed as cowardly Western-backed agénts provocateur.

1 Flock, E., “Iran Gets Back E-mail Access, But Other Sites Remain Blacked Out Ahead of Protest”. Washington Post. 13 February 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/iran-gets-back-e-mail-access-but-other-sites-remain-blacked-out-ahead-of-protest/2012/02/13/gIQAgxz5AR_blog.html

In an uprising the government is going to try to level lots of accusations. Some will stick, some will not. In this case the government has a touch more ammunition on the anti-Western front, but this is entirely overwhelmed by the boon of protecting the leaders and organizers, who are at greatest risk using the social media needed to coordinate the uprising, and are the most essential to a successful outcome. The benefits of providing anonymity clearly outweigh the tangential costs of giving a bit more mud to the government to sling.

Governments are often obliged to do things that the population doesn’t like – raising taxes is an obvious example. However, it is also recognised that sometimes the government has to do these things in order to represent the long-term, best interest of its people – whether or not it is a popular measure at the time.

If it is true that people cannot easily get jobs in the developed world for lack of language skills then there will surely still be a pressure to learn the language or languages of international discourse. What this policy offers is access by a much wider audience to the various benefits that expanded academic knowledge can offer. It will expand the developing world's knowledge base and not in any way diminish the desire to learn English and other dominant languages. It should be remembered that it is not just academics that use academic papers; students do as well, as do professionals in everyday life. Clearly there cannot be an expectation that everyone learns English to be able to access research. While there may be fewer languages in academic use there is not such a narrowing of language for everyone else.

It is wrong that civil society should have reduced influence over the governance of the internet with governments making all the key decisions. Many governments around the world are not democratic and so cannot be said to represent their people while even those that are democratic are prone to advancing the interests of minorities of their constituents as shown by treaties and legislation such as SOPA and ACTA. Governments of all stripes whether authoritarian or democratic do not have a good record of transparency; ICANN on the other hand does. [1] ICANN works on a "bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model" meaning that ICANN is very inclusive bringing together governments, experts, private companies and ngos, potentially even individuals can get involved and have their say. [2]

[1] ‘ICANN Accountability & Transparency’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

[2] ‘About Us’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers .

People are capable of assessing a biased idea after discovering its bias, while it is dangerous to present potentially biased ideas as genuine, for this limits discussion. This is especially so in the status quo, where the suspicions of who may be funding think tanks remain when they choose not to disclose their funders. A blanket obligation of all think tanks to reveal their funding allows for open discourse and thus more space to discuss the ideas themselves.

Many politicians in their campaigns make an explicit or implicit point out of emphasizing their family values and other aspects of their “private” life, for example by being photographed with their loyal family and through taking a stance on such issues as divorce, single mothers, sex education or drugs. If the public image such people seek to create is at variance with their own practices, such hypocrisy deserves to be exposed. This would not be to the detriment of democracy but in fact may improve it as it would encourage future politicians to ensure that they live by what they preach, rather than cynically trying to manipulate the media into creating a false image of who they are only for it to be fatally undermined by their own actions.

How do we determine what is proportionate? If some valuable intellectual property, such as part of the designs for the US's latest fighter jet the F35, which were hacked in 2009. [1] Then what can be the response to this? Can it simply be the cost of developing this design? If so then what about the strategic loss the state has suffered, how can that be calculated in? So long as it is excluded state sanctioned cyber-attacks will not be deterred.

[1] Gorman, Siobhan, Cole, August, and Dreazen, Yochi, ‘Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jen Project’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html

Oppressive regimes have turned to the use of advanced surveillance technology in response to activists’ learning to evade more conventional methods of surveillance, and by moving their organizations online. Western surveillance technology has filled a niche that was once open for dissidents. By placing this ban, even if the regimes turn back to old methods, they will still be hampered in the crushing of dissent. Furthermore, no regime has the resources or power to have physical surveillance as pervasive as the technology denied them would allow. Electronic surveillance therefore can cast a much broader net that would allow the government to repress many more people who would not be subject to more labour intensive physical surveillance.

While cyberbullying is indeed a danger to children, it is not an excuse to invade their personal life-worlds. The UNCRC clearly states that “(1) No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation,” and that, “(2) The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attack.” These ‘interferences’ or ‘attacks’ not only apply to third parties but to parents as well. [1] Moreover in less traditional ‘offline’ spaces children have far greater ability to choose which information they share with their parents and what they do not. As online spaces are not inherently more dangerous than those offline, it seems reasonable to suggest that similar limitations and restrictions on invasions of privacy that apply online should also apply offline. What a parent can do is to be there for their children and talk to them and support them. They should also spend time surfing the Internet together with them to discuss their issues and problems. But the child should always also have the opportunity to have his or her own protected and private space that is outside the every watchful surveilant eye of the parent..

[1] United Nations Children’s Fund. Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Fully revised 3rd edition. Geneva. United Nations Publications. Google Search. Web. May 2013.

It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.

Real politick is not the only consideration democracies should entertain when they engage in international relations. Indeed, the Western powers have sought since World War II to develop a system of international justice that recognizes the primacy of peoples’ rights irrespective of where they are born. This principle is constantly compromised as democracies jockey for influence with undemocratic regimes, bolstering those regimes and their repressive norms in the process. In order to be consistent, and to serve the true interests of justice, democracies must not aid undemocratic governments in the repression of their people.

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Think tanks’ power of objectivity is the best form of marketing for biased views

Think tanks are considered more credible than corporate marketing. [1] In the case of corporate marketing the recipient is aware that he is being sold a product. In the case of think tanks, the recipient believes he is being given unbiased information. Therefore, it is tempting for corporations to finance think tanks and encourage them to reach the conclusions that they otherwise would promote through marketing. This way, think tanks can be powerful tools for promoting a biased agenda: if done successfully the same message is communicated but in the form of credible information rather than manipulative marketing. In fact, it is common practice for journalists to quote think tanks without labelling their political bias. [2] And they most certainly don’t say if there is funding from a particular interest for example with the supposedly free market Institute of Public Affairs in Australia that somehow ends up arguing for government investment and intervention in Northern Australia – a position suspiciously close to several big mining companies. [3] This violates people’s freedom to make an informed decision, and can give biased views disproportionate and undue influence. By forcing them to disclose, any corruption or bias will become obvious to all.

[1] Mayer, Jane. “Covert Operations”, A Reporter at Large, The New Yorker. 30 August 2010 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

[2] Dolny, Michael. “What’s in a Label?”, Extra!, FAIR. 1 May 1998 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/Whats-in-a-Label/

[3] MediaWatch, “Disclosing the funding of think tanks”, ABC News, 27 May 2013, http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3768536.htm

It does not matter if think tanks are used in this way, so long as the conclusions that are reached by the think tanks are true. If there is objective value in an idea it should be communicated as well as possible. If this cannot be done with conventional marketing, it is good for it to be possible through a think tank. If the think tank’s idea and conclusion is wrong, the fact that it is presented objectively makes it no less falsifiable. Think tanks do not exist in a vacuum, and for every false idea presented as positive there will be another think tank to scrutinise it. In either case, the consumer is given useful information in an accessible way that can still be questioned.

Governments are often obliged to do things that the population doesn’t like – raising taxes is an obvious example. However, it is also recognised that sometimes the government has to do these things in order to represent the long-term, best interest of its people – whether or not it is a popular measure at the time.

If it is true that people cannot easily get jobs in the developed world for lack of language skills then there will surely still be a pressure to learn the language or languages of international discourse. What this policy offers is access by a much wider audience to the various benefits that expanded academic knowledge can offer. It will expand the developing world's knowledge base and not in any way diminish the desire to learn English and other dominant languages. It should be remembered that it is not just academics that use academic papers; students do as well, as do professionals in everyday life. Clearly there cannot be an expectation that everyone learns English to be able to access research. While there may be fewer languages in academic use there is not such a narrowing of language for everyone else.

It is wrong that civil society should have reduced influence over the governance of the internet with governments making all the key decisions. Many governments around the world are not democratic and so cannot be said to represent their people while even those that are democratic are prone to advancing the interests of minorities of their constituents as shown by treaties and legislation such as SOPA and ACTA. Governments of all stripes whether authoritarian or democratic do not have a good record of transparency; ICANN on the other hand does. [1] ICANN works on a "bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model" meaning that ICANN is very inclusive bringing together governments, experts, private companies and ngos, potentially even individuals can get involved and have their say. [2]

[1] ‘ICANN Accountability & Transparency’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

[2] ‘About Us’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers .

Many politicians in their campaigns make an explicit or implicit point out of emphasizing their family values and other aspects of their “private” life, for example by being photographed with their loyal family and through taking a stance on such issues as divorce, single mothers, sex education or drugs. If the public image such people seek to create is at variance with their own practices, such hypocrisy deserves to be exposed. This would not be to the detriment of democracy but in fact may improve it as it would encourage future politicians to ensure that they live by what they preach, rather than cynically trying to manipulate the media into creating a false image of who they are only for it to be fatally undermined by their own actions.

How do we determine what is proportionate? If some valuable intellectual property, such as part of the designs for the US's latest fighter jet the F35, which were hacked in 2009. [1] Then what can be the response to this? Can it simply be the cost of developing this design? If so then what about the strategic loss the state has suffered, how can that be calculated in? So long as it is excluded state sanctioned cyber-attacks will not be deterred.

[1] Gorman, Siobhan, Cole, August, and Dreazen, Yochi, ‘Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jen Project’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html

Oppressive regimes have turned to the use of advanced surveillance technology in response to activists’ learning to evade more conventional methods of surveillance, and by moving their organizations online. Western surveillance technology has filled a niche that was once open for dissidents. By placing this ban, even if the regimes turn back to old methods, they will still be hampered in the crushing of dissent. Furthermore, no regime has the resources or power to have physical surveillance as pervasive as the technology denied them would allow. Electronic surveillance therefore can cast a much broader net that would allow the government to repress many more people who would not be subject to more labour intensive physical surveillance.

While cyberbullying is indeed a danger to children, it is not an excuse to invade their personal life-worlds. The UNCRC clearly states that “(1) No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation,” and that, “(2) The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attack.” These ‘interferences’ or ‘attacks’ not only apply to third parties but to parents as well. [1] Moreover in less traditional ‘offline’ spaces children have far greater ability to choose which information they share with their parents and what they do not. As online spaces are not inherently more dangerous than those offline, it seems reasonable to suggest that similar limitations and restrictions on invasions of privacy that apply online should also apply offline. What a parent can do is to be there for their children and talk to them and support them. They should also spend time surfing the Internet together with them to discuss their issues and problems. But the child should always also have the opportunity to have his or her own protected and private space that is outside the every watchful surveilant eye of the parent..

[1] United Nations Children’s Fund. Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Fully revised 3rd edition. Geneva. United Nations Publications. Google Search. Web. May 2013.

It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.

Real politick is not the only consideration democracies should entertain when they engage in international relations. Indeed, the Western powers have sought since World War II to develop a system of international justice that recognizes the primacy of peoples’ rights irrespective of where they are born. This principle is constantly compromised as democracies jockey for influence with undemocratic regimes, bolstering those regimes and their repressive norms in the process. In order to be consistent, and to serve the true interests of justice, democracies must not aid undemocratic governments in the repression of their people.

Appeasement does not work to increase internet freedom. This has been shown time and time again with China. China has slowly been becoming more and more accepted into the international system; it gained Security Council membership in 1971, joined the WTO in 2000, and held the Olympics in 2008 to celebrate its new role on the world stage. Yet this has not meant they have relaxed internet censorship, far from it, it simply becomes more refined and difficult to detect. [1] Even China’s version of twitter is very fast at censoring posts, despite there being 70,000 messages per minute, almost a third of deletions are completed within 30 minutes. [2] Engagement simply shows that there is no cost to repressive regimes if they continue as they have been. It is therefore enabling them to continue their repression.

[1] Roberts, Eric, ‘Where Censorship in China is Headed’, International Trends concerning Freedom of Information on the Electronic Commons, 2008, http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/cs181/projects/international-freedom-of-info/china.html

[2] Mozur, Paul, ‘Just How Fast Are China’s Internet Censors? Very.’ China Realtime Report, 8 March 2013, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/03/08/just-how-fast-are-chinas-internet-censors-very-a-new-study-finds/

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Think tanks may become smoke screens for criminal groups

In the status quo, the ability of think tanks to be non-transparent potentially provides a framework for criminal groups, or in extreme cases organisations, to handle large amounts of money without revealing where their money comes from or goes. We are allowing extremist groups to be exempt from answering to the government or shareholders in their management of money or information. In the US and Canada, think tanks are also exempt from tax. [1] By this mechanism, false think tanks can be used, for example, to channel money from openly extremist groups that could otherwise not access those parts of the world.

[1] 26 USC § 501 - Exemption from tax on corporations, certain trusts, etc., Legal Information Institute http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/501

There is no necessity to disclose think tank funding publically in order to circumvent this issue. As long as there are public institutions that scrutinise think tanks and are also bound to secrecy unless there are anomalies, the risk of terrorism can be successfully regulated. Being a think tank does not prevent an organisation from having to be transparent to government about their finances. It is unnecessary to expose think tanks that do not act illicitly to the general public.

Governments are often obliged to do things that the population doesn’t like – raising taxes is an obvious example. However, it is also recognised that sometimes the government has to do these things in order to represent the long-term, best interest of its people – whether or not it is a popular measure at the time.

If it is true that people cannot easily get jobs in the developed world for lack of language skills then there will surely still be a pressure to learn the language or languages of international discourse. What this policy offers is access by a much wider audience to the various benefits that expanded academic knowledge can offer. It will expand the developing world's knowledge base and not in any way diminish the desire to learn English and other dominant languages. It should be remembered that it is not just academics that use academic papers; students do as well, as do professionals in everyday life. Clearly there cannot be an expectation that everyone learns English to be able to access research. While there may be fewer languages in academic use there is not such a narrowing of language for everyone else.

It is wrong that civil society should have reduced influence over the governance of the internet with governments making all the key decisions. Many governments around the world are not democratic and so cannot be said to represent their people while even those that are democratic are prone to advancing the interests of minorities of their constituents as shown by treaties and legislation such as SOPA and ACTA. Governments of all stripes whether authoritarian or democratic do not have a good record of transparency; ICANN on the other hand does. [1] ICANN works on a "bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model" meaning that ICANN is very inclusive bringing together governments, experts, private companies and ngos, potentially even individuals can get involved and have their say. [2]

[1] ‘ICANN Accountability & Transparency’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

[2] ‘About Us’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers .

Many politicians in their campaigns make an explicit or implicit point out of emphasizing their family values and other aspects of their “private” life, for example by being photographed with their loyal family and through taking a stance on such issues as divorce, single mothers, sex education or drugs. If the public image such people seek to create is at variance with their own practices, such hypocrisy deserves to be exposed. This would not be to the detriment of democracy but in fact may improve it as it would encourage future politicians to ensure that they live by what they preach, rather than cynically trying to manipulate the media into creating a false image of who they are only for it to be fatally undermined by their own actions.

How do we determine what is proportionate? If some valuable intellectual property, such as part of the designs for the US's latest fighter jet the F35, which were hacked in 2009. [1] Then what can be the response to this? Can it simply be the cost of developing this design? If so then what about the strategic loss the state has suffered, how can that be calculated in? So long as it is excluded state sanctioned cyber-attacks will not be deterred.

[1] Gorman, Siobhan, Cole, August, and Dreazen, Yochi, ‘Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jen Project’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html

Oppressive regimes have turned to the use of advanced surveillance technology in response to activists’ learning to evade more conventional methods of surveillance, and by moving their organizations online. Western surveillance technology has filled a niche that was once open for dissidents. By placing this ban, even if the regimes turn back to old methods, they will still be hampered in the crushing of dissent. Furthermore, no regime has the resources or power to have physical surveillance as pervasive as the technology denied them would allow. Electronic surveillance therefore can cast a much broader net that would allow the government to repress many more people who would not be subject to more labour intensive physical surveillance.

While cyberbullying is indeed a danger to children, it is not an excuse to invade their personal life-worlds. The UNCRC clearly states that “(1) No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation,” and that, “(2) The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attack.” These ‘interferences’ or ‘attacks’ not only apply to third parties but to parents as well. [1] Moreover in less traditional ‘offline’ spaces children have far greater ability to choose which information they share with their parents and what they do not. As online spaces are not inherently more dangerous than those offline, it seems reasonable to suggest that similar limitations and restrictions on invasions of privacy that apply online should also apply offline. What a parent can do is to be there for their children and talk to them and support them. They should also spend time surfing the Internet together with them to discuss their issues and problems. But the child should always also have the opportunity to have his or her own protected and private space that is outside the every watchful surveilant eye of the parent..

[1] United Nations Children’s Fund. Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Fully revised 3rd edition. Geneva. United Nations Publications. Google Search. Web. May 2013.

It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.

Real politick is not the only consideration democracies should entertain when they engage in international relations. Indeed, the Western powers have sought since World War II to develop a system of international justice that recognizes the primacy of peoples’ rights irrespective of where they are born. This principle is constantly compromised as democracies jockey for influence with undemocratic regimes, bolstering those regimes and their repressive norms in the process. In order to be consistent, and to serve the true interests of justice, democracies must not aid undemocratic governments in the repression of their people.

Appeasement does not work to increase internet freedom. This has been shown time and time again with China. China has slowly been becoming more and more accepted into the international system; it gained Security Council membership in 1971, joined the WTO in 2000, and held the Olympics in 2008 to celebrate its new role on the world stage. Yet this has not meant they have relaxed internet censorship, far from it, it simply becomes more refined and difficult to detect. [1] Even China’s version of twitter is very fast at censoring posts, despite there being 70,000 messages per minute, almost a third of deletions are completed within 30 minutes. [2] Engagement simply shows that there is no cost to repressive regimes if they continue as they have been. It is therefore enabling them to continue their repression.

[1] Roberts, Eric, ‘Where Censorship in China is Headed’, International Trends concerning Freedom of Information on the Electronic Commons, 2008, http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/cs181/projects/international-freedom-of-info/china.html

[2] Mozur, Paul, ‘Just How Fast Are China’s Internet Censors? Very.’ China Realtime Report, 8 March 2013, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/03/08/just-how-fast-are-chinas-internet-censors-very-a-new-study-finds/

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
The status quo promotes non-transparency

Non-disclosure can be perceived as objectivity. It is easier for the public to criticise a think tank that is openly associated with a particular funder. That kind of prejudice is stronger than the more general the prejudice against non-disclosure. A person might distrust a non-transparent think tank, but dislike a think tank that is funded by an organisation they are already prejudiced towards. [1] In any comparison between two such organisations the distrusted organisation will have greater impact than the disliked organisation. [2] This gives non-transparent think tanks an advantage over transparent and honest ones. Billionaires are then able to buy influence by secretly funding organisations such as the Global Warming Policy Foundation or the Institute of Economic Affairs that is then listened to, by the media and therefore the public, when their own views would simply be dismissed due to the personal motivations of the backers. [3] By forcing all think tanks to reveal their funding, we level the playing field.

[1] Bentley, Guy. “The state funding swindle: how left wing think-tanks are pulling taxpayer-funded wool over our eyes”, Commentary, The Commentator. 20 September 2012, http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1679/the_state_funding_swindle_how_left_wing_think_tanks_are_pulling_taxpayer_funded_wool_over_our_eyes

[2] “The Political Activity of Think Tanks: The Case for Mandatory Contributor Disclosure”, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 115, No. 5, March 2002, pp. 1502-1524. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1342554

[3] Monbiot, George. “The educational charities that do PR for the rightwing ultra-rich”, Comment is Free, The Guardian. 18 February 2013 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/18/charities-pr-rightwing-ultra-rich

It is already in the interest of think tanks to be transparent. Think tanks exist in societies that depend on open communication and the free flow of ideas. Numerous organisations exist to criticise and unmask non-transparent think tanks: [1] this is sufficient incentive for them to reveal their funding. There may be exceptions in which the benefits of non-disclosure overrule the disadvantages in terms of trust, but these are rare, and it does not follow that it will be abused.

[1] Who Funds You, Political Innovation, http://www.whofundsyou.org/about

Governments are often obliged to do things that the population doesn’t like – raising taxes is an obvious example. However, it is also recognised that sometimes the government has to do these things in order to represent the long-term, best interest of its people – whether or not it is a popular measure at the time.

If it is true that people cannot easily get jobs in the developed world for lack of language skills then there will surely still be a pressure to learn the language or languages of international discourse. What this policy offers is access by a much wider audience to the various benefits that expanded academic knowledge can offer. It will expand the developing world's knowledge base and not in any way diminish the desire to learn English and other dominant languages. It should be remembered that it is not just academics that use academic papers; students do as well, as do professionals in everyday life. Clearly there cannot be an expectation that everyone learns English to be able to access research. While there may be fewer languages in academic use there is not such a narrowing of language for everyone else.

It is wrong that civil society should have reduced influence over the governance of the internet with governments making all the key decisions. Many governments around the world are not democratic and so cannot be said to represent their people while even those that are democratic are prone to advancing the interests of minorities of their constituents as shown by treaties and legislation such as SOPA and ACTA. Governments of all stripes whether authoritarian or democratic do not have a good record of transparency; ICANN on the other hand does. [1] ICANN works on a "bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model" meaning that ICANN is very inclusive bringing together governments, experts, private companies and ngos, potentially even individuals can get involved and have their say. [2]

[1] ‘ICANN Accountability & Transparency’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

[2] ‘About Us’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers .

Many politicians in their campaigns make an explicit or implicit point out of emphasizing their family values and other aspects of their “private” life, for example by being photographed with their loyal family and through taking a stance on such issues as divorce, single mothers, sex education or drugs. If the public image such people seek to create is at variance with their own practices, such hypocrisy deserves to be exposed. This would not be to the detriment of democracy but in fact may improve it as it would encourage future politicians to ensure that they live by what they preach, rather than cynically trying to manipulate the media into creating a false image of who they are only for it to be fatally undermined by their own actions.

How do we determine what is proportionate? If some valuable intellectual property, such as part of the designs for the US's latest fighter jet the F35, which were hacked in 2009. [1] Then what can be the response to this? Can it simply be the cost of developing this design? If so then what about the strategic loss the state has suffered, how can that be calculated in? So long as it is excluded state sanctioned cyber-attacks will not be deterred.

[1] Gorman, Siobhan, Cole, August, and Dreazen, Yochi, ‘Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jen Project’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html

Oppressive regimes have turned to the use of advanced surveillance technology in response to activists’ learning to evade more conventional methods of surveillance, and by moving their organizations online. Western surveillance technology has filled a niche that was once open for dissidents. By placing this ban, even if the regimes turn back to old methods, they will still be hampered in the crushing of dissent. Furthermore, no regime has the resources or power to have physical surveillance as pervasive as the technology denied them would allow. Electronic surveillance therefore can cast a much broader net that would allow the government to repress many more people who would not be subject to more labour intensive physical surveillance.

While cyberbullying is indeed a danger to children, it is not an excuse to invade their personal life-worlds. The UNCRC clearly states that “(1) No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation,” and that, “(2) The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attack.” These ‘interferences’ or ‘attacks’ not only apply to third parties but to parents as well. [1] Moreover in less traditional ‘offline’ spaces children have far greater ability to choose which information they share with their parents and what they do not. As online spaces are not inherently more dangerous than those offline, it seems reasonable to suggest that similar limitations and restrictions on invasions of privacy that apply online should also apply offline. What a parent can do is to be there for their children and talk to them and support them. They should also spend time surfing the Internet together with them to discuss their issues and problems. But the child should always also have the opportunity to have his or her own protected and private space that is outside the every watchful surveilant eye of the parent..

[1] United Nations Children’s Fund. Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Fully revised 3rd edition. Geneva. United Nations Publications. Google Search. Web. May 2013.

It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.

Real politick is not the only consideration democracies should entertain when they engage in international relations. Indeed, the Western powers have sought since World War II to develop a system of international justice that recognizes the primacy of peoples’ rights irrespective of where they are born. This principle is constantly compromised as democracies jockey for influence with undemocratic regimes, bolstering those regimes and their repressive norms in the process. In order to be consistent, and to serve the true interests of justice, democracies must not aid undemocratic governments in the repression of their people.

Appeasement does not work to increase internet freedom. This has been shown time and time again with China. China has slowly been becoming more and more accepted into the international system; it gained Security Council membership in 1971, joined the WTO in 2000, and held the Olympics in 2008 to celebrate its new role on the world stage. Yet this has not meant they have relaxed internet censorship, far from it, it simply becomes more refined and difficult to detect. [1] Even China’s version of twitter is very fast at censoring posts, despite there being 70,000 messages per minute, almost a third of deletions are completed within 30 minutes. [2] Engagement simply shows that there is no cost to repressive regimes if they continue as they have been. It is therefore enabling them to continue their repression.

[1] Roberts, Eric, ‘Where Censorship in China is Headed’, International Trends concerning Freedom of Information on the Electronic Commons, 2008, http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/cs181/projects/international-freedom-of-info/china.html

[2] Mozur, Paul, ‘Just How Fast Are China’s Internet Censors? Very.’ China Realtime Report, 8 March 2013, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/03/08/just-how-fast-are-chinas-internet-censors-very-a-new-study-finds/

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
People have a right to know where their information comes from

Democracies rely on transparency. Our commitment to transparency means surrendering part of our autonomy for the collective. This does not mean that our autonomy does not still belong to us; the institutions that affect our lives are under a constant obligation to justify their decisions and existence in relation to us. I do not have a right to know everything about the local football club (if I don’t play football and they are not a public company their decisions don’t affect me). Think tanks, however, are highly influential, and directly affect the society in which we live: some have, for example, lobbied successfully against action to prevent global warming. [1] Therefore they are to be considered a power in society, and the principle of transparency must be extended to them.

[1] Monbiot, George. “The educational charities that do PR for the rightwing ultra-rich”, Comment is Free, The Guardian. 18 February 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/18/charities-pr-rightwing-ultra-rich

Think tanks don’t have any legislative power. At the end of the day, what they do is merely make suggestions. If they were active lobbyists they would lose their privileged legal position as an academic organisation. [1] Even if there may be other benefits of them being transparent, the legal concept of transparency cannot be extended to them. That would open the door to forcing other independent private institutions to reveal details of their organisation. Furthermore, think tanks rarely claim to be completely impartial. They usually have an agenda and are aligned with a political party. This concession in terms of impartiality merits equal concessions in terms of demanded transparency. At the end of the day it is their work that influences the agenda and that same work shows where their sympathies lie.

[1] “The Political Activity of Think Tanks: The Case for Mandatory Contributor Disclosure”, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 115, No. 5, March 2002, pp. 1502-1524. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1342554

Governments are often obliged to do things that the population doesn’t like – raising taxes is an obvious example. However, it is also recognised that sometimes the government has to do these things in order to represent the long-term, best interest of its people – whether or not it is a popular measure at the time.

If it is true that people cannot easily get jobs in the developed world for lack of language skills then there will surely still be a pressure to learn the language or languages of international discourse. What this policy offers is access by a much wider audience to the various benefits that expanded academic knowledge can offer. It will expand the developing world's knowledge base and not in any way diminish the desire to learn English and other dominant languages. It should be remembered that it is not just academics that use academic papers; students do as well, as do professionals in everyday life. Clearly there cannot be an expectation that everyone learns English to be able to access research. While there may be fewer languages in academic use there is not such a narrowing of language for everyone else.

It is wrong that civil society should have reduced influence over the governance of the internet with governments making all the key decisions. Many governments around the world are not democratic and so cannot be said to represent their people while even those that are democratic are prone to advancing the interests of minorities of their constituents as shown by treaties and legislation such as SOPA and ACTA. Governments of all stripes whether authoritarian or democratic do not have a good record of transparency; ICANN on the other hand does. [1] ICANN works on a "bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model" meaning that ICANN is very inclusive bringing together governments, experts, private companies and ngos, potentially even individuals can get involved and have their say. [2]

[1] ‘ICANN Accountability & Transparency’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

[2] ‘About Us’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers .

Many politicians in their campaigns make an explicit or implicit point out of emphasizing their family values and other aspects of their “private” life, for example by being photographed with their loyal family and through taking a stance on such issues as divorce, single mothers, sex education or drugs. If the public image such people seek to create is at variance with their own practices, such hypocrisy deserves to be exposed. This would not be to the detriment of democracy but in fact may improve it as it would encourage future politicians to ensure that they live by what they preach, rather than cynically trying to manipulate the media into creating a false image of who they are only for it to be fatally undermined by their own actions.

How do we determine what is proportionate? If some valuable intellectual property, such as part of the designs for the US's latest fighter jet the F35, which were hacked in 2009. [1] Then what can be the response to this? Can it simply be the cost of developing this design? If so then what about the strategic loss the state has suffered, how can that be calculated in? So long as it is excluded state sanctioned cyber-attacks will not be deterred.

[1] Gorman, Siobhan, Cole, August, and Dreazen, Yochi, ‘Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jen Project’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html

Oppressive regimes have turned to the use of advanced surveillance technology in response to activists’ learning to evade more conventional methods of surveillance, and by moving their organizations online. Western surveillance technology has filled a niche that was once open for dissidents. By placing this ban, even if the regimes turn back to old methods, they will still be hampered in the crushing of dissent. Furthermore, no regime has the resources or power to have physical surveillance as pervasive as the technology denied them would allow. Electronic surveillance therefore can cast a much broader net that would allow the government to repress many more people who would not be subject to more labour intensive physical surveillance.

While cyberbullying is indeed a danger to children, it is not an excuse to invade their personal life-worlds. The UNCRC clearly states that “(1) No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation,” and that, “(2) The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attack.” These ‘interferences’ or ‘attacks’ not only apply to third parties but to parents as well. [1] Moreover in less traditional ‘offline’ spaces children have far greater ability to choose which information they share with their parents and what they do not. As online spaces are not inherently more dangerous than those offline, it seems reasonable to suggest that similar limitations and restrictions on invasions of privacy that apply online should also apply offline. What a parent can do is to be there for their children and talk to them and support them. They should also spend time surfing the Internet together with them to discuss their issues and problems. But the child should always also have the opportunity to have his or her own protected and private space that is outside the every watchful surveilant eye of the parent..

[1] United Nations Children’s Fund. Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Fully revised 3rd edition. Geneva. United Nations Publications. Google Search. Web. May 2013.

It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.

Real politick is not the only consideration democracies should entertain when they engage in international relations. Indeed, the Western powers have sought since World War II to develop a system of international justice that recognizes the primacy of peoples’ rights irrespective of where they are born. This principle is constantly compromised as democracies jockey for influence with undemocratic regimes, bolstering those regimes and their repressive norms in the process. In order to be consistent, and to serve the true interests of justice, democracies must not aid undemocratic governments in the repression of their people.

Appeasement does not work to increase internet freedom. This has been shown time and time again with China. China has slowly been becoming more and more accepted into the international system; it gained Security Council membership in 1971, joined the WTO in 2000, and held the Olympics in 2008 to celebrate its new role on the world stage. Yet this has not meant they have relaxed internet censorship, far from it, it simply becomes more refined and difficult to detect. [1] Even China’s version of twitter is very fast at censoring posts, despite there being 70,000 messages per minute, almost a third of deletions are completed within 30 minutes. [2] Engagement simply shows that there is no cost to repressive regimes if they continue as they have been. It is therefore enabling them to continue their repression.

[1] Roberts, Eric, ‘Where Censorship in China is Headed’, International Trends concerning Freedom of Information on the Electronic Commons, 2008, http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/cs181/projects/international-freedom-of-info/china.html

[2] Mozur, Paul, ‘Just How Fast Are China’s Internet Censors? Very.’ China Realtime Report, 8 March 2013, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/03/08/just-how-fast-are-chinas-internet-censors-very-a-new-study-finds/

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Legally requiring disclosure from all benefits think tanks

Even think tanks benefit from the introduction of this policy. The status quo leaves disclosure as a strategic device: think tanks are unwilling to disclose more than their competition for fear of being unfavourably portrayed. Such negative competition, i.e. competition in factors that do not improve the products of the market, makes them unable to make rational decisions about their funding if, for instance, potential funders want to contribute only on the condition that this funding be made public. As a consequence, the advent of organisations who call for transparency has been praised by prominent think tanks like the New Economics Foundation. [1] By depriving everybody of the strategic tool of revealing none or only a part of their funding, think tanks cannot be pressured into hiding or providing certain information about their funders, and they can thus act more independently.

[1] Read, Sam. “Think tank funding matters: it’s central to democracy”, the nef blog, 22 June 2012, http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/entry/think-tank-funding-matters-its-central-to-democracy

Think tanks can choose transparency in the status quo anyway (as shown by nef): this benefit is relatively small. On the other hand, it harms the many other think tanks that need to protect the information of who funds them if, for instance, the funders do not wish to disclose it. It is a loss of freedom for the majority, not a gain.

Governments are often obliged to do things that the population doesn’t like – raising taxes is an obvious example. However, it is also recognised that sometimes the government has to do these things in order to represent the long-term, best interest of its people – whether or not it is a popular measure at the time.

If it is true that people cannot easily get jobs in the developed world for lack of language skills then there will surely still be a pressure to learn the language or languages of international discourse. What this policy offers is access by a much wider audience to the various benefits that expanded academic knowledge can offer. It will expand the developing world's knowledge base and not in any way diminish the desire to learn English and other dominant languages. It should be remembered that it is not just academics that use academic papers; students do as well, as do professionals in everyday life. Clearly there cannot be an expectation that everyone learns English to be able to access research. While there may be fewer languages in academic use there is not such a narrowing of language for everyone else.

It is wrong that civil society should have reduced influence over the governance of the internet with governments making all the key decisions. Many governments around the world are not democratic and so cannot be said to represent their people while even those that are democratic are prone to advancing the interests of minorities of their constituents as shown by treaties and legislation such as SOPA and ACTA. Governments of all stripes whether authoritarian or democratic do not have a good record of transparency; ICANN on the other hand does. [1] ICANN works on a "bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model" meaning that ICANN is very inclusive bringing together governments, experts, private companies and ngos, potentially even individuals can get involved and have their say. [2]

[1] ‘ICANN Accountability & Transparency’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

[2] ‘About Us’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers .

Many politicians in their campaigns make an explicit or implicit point out of emphasizing their family values and other aspects of their “private” life, for example by being photographed with their loyal family and through taking a stance on such issues as divorce, single mothers, sex education or drugs. If the public image such people seek to create is at variance with their own practices, such hypocrisy deserves to be exposed. This would not be to the detriment of democracy but in fact may improve it as it would encourage future politicians to ensure that they live by what they preach, rather than cynically trying to manipulate the media into creating a false image of who they are only for it to be fatally undermined by their own actions.

How do we determine what is proportionate? If some valuable intellectual property, such as part of the designs for the US's latest fighter jet the F35, which were hacked in 2009. [1] Then what can be the response to this? Can it simply be the cost of developing this design? If so then what about the strategic loss the state has suffered, how can that be calculated in? So long as it is excluded state sanctioned cyber-attacks will not be deterred.

[1] Gorman, Siobhan, Cole, August, and Dreazen, Yochi, ‘Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jen Project’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html

Oppressive regimes have turned to the use of advanced surveillance technology in response to activists’ learning to evade more conventional methods of surveillance, and by moving their organizations online. Western surveillance technology has filled a niche that was once open for dissidents. By placing this ban, even if the regimes turn back to old methods, they will still be hampered in the crushing of dissent. Furthermore, no regime has the resources or power to have physical surveillance as pervasive as the technology denied them would allow. Electronic surveillance therefore can cast a much broader net that would allow the government to repress many more people who would not be subject to more labour intensive physical surveillance.

While cyberbullying is indeed a danger to children, it is not an excuse to invade their personal life-worlds. The UNCRC clearly states that “(1) No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation,” and that, “(2) The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attack.” These ‘interferences’ or ‘attacks’ not only apply to third parties but to parents as well. [1] Moreover in less traditional ‘offline’ spaces children have far greater ability to choose which information they share with their parents and what they do not. As online spaces are not inherently more dangerous than those offline, it seems reasonable to suggest that similar limitations and restrictions on invasions of privacy that apply online should also apply offline. What a parent can do is to be there for their children and talk to them and support them. They should also spend time surfing the Internet together with them to discuss their issues and problems. But the child should always also have the opportunity to have his or her own protected and private space that is outside the every watchful surveilant eye of the parent..

[1] United Nations Children’s Fund. Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Fully revised 3rd edition. Geneva. United Nations Publications. Google Search. Web. May 2013.

It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.

Real politick is not the only consideration democracies should entertain when they engage in international relations. Indeed, the Western powers have sought since World War II to develop a system of international justice that recognizes the primacy of peoples’ rights irrespective of where they are born. This principle is constantly compromised as democracies jockey for influence with undemocratic regimes, bolstering those regimes and their repressive norms in the process. In order to be consistent, and to serve the true interests of justice, democracies must not aid undemocratic governments in the repression of their people.

Appeasement does not work to increase internet freedom. This has been shown time and time again with China. China has slowly been becoming more and more accepted into the international system; it gained Security Council membership in 1971, joined the WTO in 2000, and held the Olympics in 2008 to celebrate its new role on the world stage. Yet this has not meant they have relaxed internet censorship, far from it, it simply becomes more refined and difficult to detect. [1] Even China’s version of twitter is very fast at censoring posts, despite there being 70,000 messages per minute, almost a third of deletions are completed within 30 minutes. [2] Engagement simply shows that there is no cost to repressive regimes if they continue as they have been. It is therefore enabling them to continue their repression.

[1] Roberts, Eric, ‘Where Censorship in China is Headed’, International Trends concerning Freedom of Information on the Electronic Commons, 2008, http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/cs181/projects/international-freedom-of-info/china.html

[2] Mozur, Paul, ‘Just How Fast Are China’s Internet Censors? Very.’ China Realtime Report, 8 March 2013, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/03/08/just-how-fast-are-chinas-internet-censors-very-a-new-study-finds/

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim


Question:
Private investors have a right to privacy

The public scrutiny on think tank funders may backlash on perfectly innocent investors. Investors may be accused of corruption if think tanks that share their values independently reach favourable conclusions. Alternatively, minor investors may become guilty by association, for instance, if notorious companies or political parties have been seen supporting the same think tanks – even if this is done for completely different reasons. The motivations of think tanks cannot be made synonymous with their funders, but these funders should also not be made synonymous with each other. Thus for example Policy exchange is both seen as a think tank for UK conservative modernisers – the progressive wing of the party while also having been labelled as a “neo-con attack dog”. [1]

[1] Helm, Toby, and Hope, Christopher, “The top twelve think tanks in Britain”, The Telegraph, 24 January 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/1576447/The-top-twelve-think-tanks-in-Britain.html

This is not an inherent flaw in the system. In the status quo, large investors can still publically advertise the fact that they are funding a project, and this too can have repercussions and bring negative associations for other investors. It is a risk anyone makes when investing in a given idea. The right to privacy of investors in political campaigns was discarded once evidence of potential abuses and political arrangements surfaced. Similarly, this right cannot apply to think tank funders. [1]

[1] “The Political Activity of Think Tanks: The Case for Mandatory Contributor Disclosure”, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 115, No. 5, March 2002, pp. 1502-1524. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1342554

Governments are often obliged to do things that the population doesn’t like – raising taxes is an obvious example. However, it is also recognised that sometimes the government has to do these things in order to represent the long-term, best interest of its people – whether or not it is a popular measure at the time.

If it is true that people cannot easily get jobs in the developed world for lack of language skills then there will surely still be a pressure to learn the language or languages of international discourse. What this policy offers is access by a much wider audience to the various benefits that expanded academic knowledge can offer. It will expand the developing world's knowledge base and not in any way diminish the desire to learn English and other dominant languages. It should be remembered that it is not just academics that use academic papers; students do as well, as do professionals in everyday life. Clearly there cannot be an expectation that everyone learns English to be able to access research. While there may be fewer languages in academic use there is not such a narrowing of language for everyone else.

It is wrong that civil society should have reduced influence over the governance of the internet with governments making all the key decisions. Many governments around the world are not democratic and so cannot be said to represent their people while even those that are democratic are prone to advancing the interests of minorities of their constituents as shown by treaties and legislation such as SOPA and ACTA. Governments of all stripes whether authoritarian or democratic do not have a good record of transparency; ICANN on the other hand does. [1] ICANN works on a "bottom-up, consensus-driven, multi-stakeholder model" meaning that ICANN is very inclusive bringing together governments, experts, private companies and ngos, potentially even individuals can get involved and have their say. [2]

[1] ‘ICANN Accountability & Transparency’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

[2] ‘About Us’, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers .

Many politicians in their campaigns make an explicit or implicit point out of emphasizing their family values and other aspects of their “private” life, for example by being photographed with their loyal family and through taking a stance on such issues as divorce, single mothers, sex education or drugs. If the public image such people seek to create is at variance with their own practices, such hypocrisy deserves to be exposed. This would not be to the detriment of democracy but in fact may improve it as it would encourage future politicians to ensure that they live by what they preach, rather than cynically trying to manipulate the media into creating a false image of who they are only for it to be fatally undermined by their own actions.

How do we determine what is proportionate? If some valuable intellectual property, such as part of the designs for the US's latest fighter jet the F35, which were hacked in 2009. [1] Then what can be the response to this? Can it simply be the cost of developing this design? If so then what about the strategic loss the state has suffered, how can that be calculated in? So long as it is excluded state sanctioned cyber-attacks will not be deterred.

[1] Gorman, Siobhan, Cole, August, and Dreazen, Yochi, ‘Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jen Project’, The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html.html

Oppressive regimes have turned to the use of advanced surveillance technology in response to activists’ learning to evade more conventional methods of surveillance, and by moving their organizations online. Western surveillance technology has filled a niche that was once open for dissidents. By placing this ban, even if the regimes turn back to old methods, they will still be hampered in the crushing of dissent. Furthermore, no regime has the resources or power to have physical surveillance as pervasive as the technology denied them would allow. Electronic surveillance therefore can cast a much broader net that would allow the government to repress many more people who would not be subject to more labour intensive physical surveillance.

While cyberbullying is indeed a danger to children, it is not an excuse to invade their personal life-worlds. The UNCRC clearly states that “(1) No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation,” and that, “(2) The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attack.” These ‘interferences’ or ‘attacks’ not only apply to third parties but to parents as well. [1] Moreover in less traditional ‘offline’ spaces children have far greater ability to choose which information they share with their parents and what they do not. As online spaces are not inherently more dangerous than those offline, it seems reasonable to suggest that similar limitations and restrictions on invasions of privacy that apply online should also apply offline. What a parent can do is to be there for their children and talk to them and support them. They should also spend time surfing the Internet together with them to discuss their issues and problems. But the child should always also have the opportunity to have his or her own protected and private space that is outside the every watchful surveilant eye of the parent..

[1] United Nations Children’s Fund. Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Fully revised 3rd edition. Geneva. United Nations Publications. Google Search. Web. May 2013.

It may be costly and sometimes ineffective to police copyright, but that does not make them any less of a right worth protecting. If artists or firms feel that they might benefit from fighting infringers of their rights, they should have the right to do so, not simply be expected to roll over and give in to the pirates and law breakers. The state likewise, has an obligation to protect the rights, physical and intangible, of its citizens and cannot give up on them simply because they prove difficult and costly to enforce. Furthermore, the ensuring health of the economy is a primary duty of the state and this means aiding its domestic businesses and one of the ways it does that is by acting to enforce copyright both internally and if possible externally.

Real politick is not the only consideration democracies should entertain when they engage in international relations. Indeed, the Western powers have sought since World War II to develop a system of international justice that recognizes the primacy of peoples’ rights irrespective of where they are born. This principle is constantly compromised as democracies jockey for influence with undemocratic regimes, bolstering those regimes and their repressive norms in the process. In order to be consistent, and to serve the true interests of justice, democracies must not aid undemocratic governments in the repression of their people.

Appeasement does not work to increase internet freedom. This has been shown time and time again with China. China has slowly been becoming more and more accepted into the international system; it gained Security Council membership in 1971, joined the WTO in 2000, and held the Olympics in 2008 to celebrate its new role on the world stage. Yet this has not meant they have relaxed internet censorship, far from it, it simply becomes more refined and difficult to detect. [1] Even China’s version of twitter is very fast at censoring posts, despite there being 70,000 messages per minute, almost a third of deletions are completed within 30 minutes. [2] Engagement simply shows that there is no cost to repressive regimes if they continue as they have been. It is therefore enabling them to continue their repression.

[1] Roberts, Eric, ‘Where Censorship in China is Headed’, International Trends concerning Freedom of Information on the Electronic Commons, 2008, http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/cs181/projects/international-freedom-of-info/china.html

[2] Mozur, Paul, ‘Just How Fast Are China’s Internet Censors? Very.’ China Realtime Report, 8 March 2013, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/03/08/just-how-fast-are-chinas-internet-censors-very-a-new-study-finds/

Instruction: Given a claim, retrieve documents that refute the claim