Wozniak begins by explaining he believes individual liberty and the right to own property are essential elements to a free society.
“When I was brought up my dad taught me, for example, [that when] other countries got prisoners in a war, they tortured them. But we, Americans, didn’t torture them. We gave them good food, clothing and everything. And I was so proud of my country” Wozniak says.
“And now I find out it’s just the opposite. And all these things we talk about in the Constitution, that made us so good as a people, they all dissolved with the Patriot Act.
“When I was bought up, I was taught that communist Russia were the ones that were going to kill us, and bomb our country. Communist Russia was so bad because they followed their people, they snooped on them, they arrested them, they put them in secret prisons, they disappeared them. These kinds of things were a part of Russia.
“And nowadays, we’re getting more and more like that.”
Wozniak also has a warning for those who put very personal information on the internet at sites like Facebook. Wozniak says the current legal structure of the cloud poses risks in that end users sign away their IP rights to digital property, likening the lack of ownership to communism.
“You couldn’t own anything [in communist Russia]. Well, nowadays in the digital realm you don’t own anything anymore. It’s all subscriptions… Anything you put on the cloud you don’t own. You’ve signed away the rights to it.
“If they decide deliberately they don’t like you, and cut you off, you’ve lost all the photographs of your life. You don’t own it anyway! When we grew up, ownership was what made America different to Russia."
(ht2 an EPJ reader)
unfortunately the Soviet comparison doesn't work as all the soviets could do was terrorize people in the traditional hamfisted Russian manner. The neo American system offers many distractions to keep the peoples minds focused on other 'issues'.
ReplyDeleteA little alarmist but there's nothing wrong with that
ReplyDelete