http://venturebeat.com/2004/10/27/spooks-and-google/
http://m.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/08/google_spooks_gdrive/
http://thefeldmanblog.com/2010/02/05/google-and-the-spooks-joins-forces-with-spy-agency/

Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 05:20:19 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: FDA Net-regulations — “Drug Lords” from HotWired

http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/42/global4a.html

HotWired

The Netizen

“Drug Lords”

Global Network

by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)

Washington, DC, 17 October

Forget the Communications Decency Act and the censor-happy Clinton administration.

Instead, it now seems like we have to keep an eye on the pinstriped bureaucrats at the US Food and Drug Administration, who are hatching their own schemes to regulate the Net.

I just got back from the agency’s two-day conference in the Maryland suburbs, entitled “FDA and the Internet: Advertising and Promotion of Medical Products.” Discussions drifted from troublesome-to-the-Feds notions of drug use in America Online chat rooms to emerging international Net-regulatory agreements, but all the talk shared a kind of benevolent paternalism.

Consumers can’t be trusted to make their own choices. The Federal government must protect us from reading what only doctors are allowed to see. Netizens can’t even be trusted to figure out when they’re leaving a Web site after they click on a link.

Drug industry representatives on the panel this morning appeared less than overly concerned with regulatory threats to free speech. Jamie Marks from Body Health Resources said: “It’s very important that drug companies police the sites they link to.” The panel also discussed how to prevent sites that celebrate or even talk about illicit drug use from linking to sites operated by pharmaceutical companies.

Even search engines like AltaVista could be hit by FDA regulations. Sara Stein from Stanford University noted, “Search engines have begun to sell links … that’s another area of disclosure that’s required.” Translation: the FDA is looking to have a say in how to label medical advertisements on Web sites.

The FDA’s also working the international angle. They brought in to the conference speakers from France, Britain, Switzerland, Brazil, and the Netherlands – all of whom were particularly interested in online drug promotion, since US advertising laws are currently so permissive.

J. Idanpaan-Heikkila, the World Health Organization’s director of drug management and policies, said that real-world claims promoting pharmaceuticals should be “in good taste,” adding, “I think this is applicable to the Internet.”

Cedric Allenou, the French Embassy’s health attache, predicted more controls: “In France, as in the United States, there is a lack of regulation on the Internet. But these issues will soon be discussed by the French government.” When asked what his country would do if a US server distributes information banned in France, he replied: “If your Web site is not in France, you’re not under French rule. This is a problem with French Internet regulation.”

John Rothchild, an attorney from the Federal Trade Commission – which will announce its own Net-regulation plan later this year – said: “Based on some hasty research I did last night, I can report it is feasible to control access to our Web site based on what country the accesser is in…. I don’t know the technical details, but according to the technical people at the FTC, non-US domain names have a two-letter suffix.”

Rothchild apparently didn’t realize that many companies outside the United States have domain names ending in nothing but .com.

At the end of the two-day conference, meanwhile, the one question left unanswered by attendees was not whether the FDA should regulate the Net, but how long it will take them, and how far they’ll go.

Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 05:20:19 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: FDA Net-regulations — “Drug Lords” from HotWired

http://www.netizen.com/netizen/96/42/global4a.html

HotWired

The Netizen

“Drug Lords”

Global Network

by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)

Washington, DC, 17 October

Forget the Communications Decency Act and the censor-happy

Clinton administration.

Instead, it now seems like we have to keep an eye on the pinstriped

bureaucrats at the US Food and Drug Administration, who are hatching

their own schemes to regulate the Net.

I just got back from the agency’s two-day conference in the Maryland

suburbs, entitled “FDA and the Internet: Advertising and Promotion of

Medical Products.” Discussions drifted from troublesome-to-the-Feds

notions of drug use in America Online chat rooms to emerging

international Net-regulatory agreements, but all the talk shared a

kind of benevolent paternalism.

Consumers can’t be trusted to make their own choices. The Federal

government must protect us from reading what only doctors are allowed

to see. Netizens can’t even be trusted to figure out when they’re

leaving a Web site after they click on a link.

Drug industry representatives on the panel this morning appeared less

than overly concerned with regulatory threats to free speech. Jamie

Marks from Body Health Resources said: “It’s very important that drug

companies police the sites they link to.” The panel also discussed how

to prevent sites that celebrate or even talk about illicit drug use

from linking to sites operated by pharmaceutical companies.

Even search engines like AltaVista could be hit by FDA regulations.

Sara Stein from Stanford University noted, “Search engines have begun

to sell links … that’s another area of disclosure that’s required.”

Translation: the FDA is looking to have a say in how to label medical

advertisements on Web sites.

The FDA’s also working the international angle. They brought in to the

conference speakers from France, Britain, Switzerland, Brazil, and the

Netherlands – all of whom were particularly interested in online drug

promotion, since US advertising laws are currently so permissive.

J. Idanpaan-Heikkila, the World Health Organization’s director of drug

management and policies, said that real-world claims promoting

pharmaceuticals should be “in good taste,” adding, “I think this is

applicable to the Internet.”

Cedric Allenou, the French Embassy’s health attache, predicted more

controls: “In France, as in the United States, there is a lack of

regulation on the Internet. But these issues will soon be discussed by

the French government.” When asked what his country would do if a US

server distributes information banned in France, he replied: “If your

Web site is not in France, you’re not under French rule. This is a

problem with French Internet regulation.”

John Rothchild, an attorney from the Federal Trade Commission – which

will announce its own Net-regulation plan later this year – said:

“Based on some hasty research I did last night, I can report it is

feasible to control access to our Web site based on what country the

accesser is in…. I don’t know the technical details, but according

to the technical people at the FTC, non-US domain names have a

two-letter suffix.”

Rothchild apparently didn’t realize that many companies outside the

United States have domain names ending in nothing but .com.

At the end of the two-day conference, meanwhile, the one question left

unanswered by attendees was not whether the FDA should regulate the

Net, but how long it will take them, and how far they’ll go.

Both of the aforementioned places are certainly democratic, but not free. Some folks (not you guys) seem to think of the two as one in the same, which is of course untrue.

Sounds like the UN has had way to much reign on its leash in the commonwealth countries. We’re next. Argh.

Instead of feeding upon the people, such a system would feed on government decay and give power back to the people.

Just to survive in early America, you had to work. You had to be self-sufficient to a much larger degree than people are today. If you were a freeloader, you died early. If you were the town drunk, you spent a lot of time in jail, not roaming Wal-Mart cashing in your food stamps. Productivity was not really optional. That breeds a certain mindset that our society no longer possesses. It doesn’t matter if they supported the Revolution or not: They just wanted to mind their own business and wanted others to do the same.

Free trade is proof that your ideas resonate with people, govt is proof that a few people couldn’t “help society” in their own value scale without pulling guns to change other people’s incentives.

And what were the incidents that sparked outrage? Small taxes on few items, restraints on free trade, an over zealous crowd control cop, and using the military to patrol the civilians.

All of those are happening in the US and around the world, on an ever increasing basis. I have hope that soon there will be enough who say “no more” to actually undermine the furtherance of statist control.

The Psychological barrier to anarchy is that humans crave organization, structure, and leadership. Early America bred the free-est form of government the earth had seen up to that point specifically because the colonists were (1) very self-reliant individuals, and (2) skeptical of central authority. If the US government disappeared tomorrow, but we had to keep the same citizens, a new government based on dependency, corruption, and laziness would spring up immediately – because that’s how the majority behaves. While the people reading this thread probably think they are also skeptical of central authority and self-reliant, the fact is that we are an endangered species in 2011. Only when the freeloaders are fully slaves (and aware of that fact) will people yearn for real freedom, again.

Contrast that perception with another that sees government as being expensive, coercive, inept and even at times counter effectual, while it sees that anarchy, neither costing a penny nor lifting a figurative finger, actually accomplishes the “goal” better than directed efforts by any government, and without there even being a goal, stated or unstated, and making no claims whatsoever that all harm will be vanquished.

Bad outcomes will occur in any case, and we don’t want bad outcomes. We have ingrained feelings that to do nothing — will bring about bad outcomes.

But anarchy is not “doing nothing” it’s about doing much by many and finding all of the solutions to an analog problem in an analog way as quickly and effectively is as humanly possible. The price to be paid is excess effort and many failures, but that price is willingly paid.

Governments use “efficient” sequential processing by a relatively few people, and each failure to find a usable solution resets the process to start over again. This is not really efficient at all because a useful solution may not be found for generations, and repeated failures can result in the loss of the whole civilization. A hard re-boot of a civilization is not a pretty sight.

One approach in the battle of perceptions is to point out the mismatch between the stated goals of the government and its actual outcomes is not an anomaly, rather it is the expected outcome, and asking if there is not perhaps a better way.

A huge example of it just appeared in Wired. Pharma companies won’t support this method because they are not selling you a pill to take every day. The Cartel mentioned in the original article is doing everything they can to block this procedure because it is not “profitable enough.” http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/ff_vasectomy/

Before you judge, Havvy, think of your own motivations: Are you a missionary doctor, helping people for free in foreign countries, preventing them from suffering? Most people would rather work for minimum wage – and so our own personal profits are a key motivator in our lives. If we have an idea that cannot benefit us, and it is not “worth our time” to pursue it, then we often simply let it go. If we cannot compete with Microsoft or Pfizer or Wal-Mart, who just “gives” them the idea? Very few of us are so altruistic. We all want to know “what’s in it for me?”

Note: They even mention in the article it was used for “prescription drug spam.”

I have worked with “legit” spammers, though (provided bandwidth). It is not necessary to have a virus or to infect thousands of machines to do it. E-mail is relatively small, especially spam messages, and tons of it can be sent with relatively modest pipes.