the owner of that company, pete ashdown, is an outright great guy. he even tried to run for a senate seat last election[1] -- without PAC $ and a focus on passing a constitutional amendment to overturn citizen's united. But instead utah got stuck with good ol' Orrin Hatch, which was one of the chief proponents of building the NSA datacenter in bluffdale that is going to store all the stuff collected by PRISIM et. al. [2]
the world needs more Pete Ashdowns and more Xmissions.
Don't forget Hatch's "contributions" to the US run back decades.
1. The shuttle solid rocket boosters were built in Utah. Hatch is credited with bringing that pork to Utah. Otherwise, the boosters could have been built somewhere along a waterway and floated down to the vehicle assembly building, but coming from Utah they have to be built in pieces and shipped overland. Thus the need for an O-ring where the pieces fit together. Politics contributed to the Challenger disaster.
(I admit, all politics are debatable, and there were other contributing factors in the Challenger disaster, but shipping the SRBs from Utah is just stupid, in my opinion.)
2. Pro-bailouts, pro-debt, and extremely pro-copyright:
Orrin Hatch wanted to make it legal for intellectual property holders to remotely destroy the computers of pirates.
> Mr Hatch said damaging computers "may be the only way you can teach someone about copyright".
> "If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Mr Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines."
> He said if a few hundred thousand people suffered damage to their computers, the online community would realise the clampdown was serious.
> "There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Mr Hatch added.
Look at how powerful America is today, and imagine how powerful it would be if it was run pragmatically every step of the way. Long term, the world might be a better place because of people like Orrin Hatch.
> the world needs more Pete Ashdowns and more Xmissions.
Yes sir, we do.
Also, fun fact for the tin foil hat crowd: Pete is Mormon.*
*EDIT: I've heard too much "Mormons run the NSA/CIA" BS lately. I'm not Mormon and I think their faith (like most) is absolutely whacky, but I can't say I've ever met one that I didn't like. I know, I know: crass generalization... but damn if it ain't true.
It is curious that his religion would come up. If an individual is Catholic or Protestant, no one brings it up. If you're Mormon it suddenly becomes a topic of conversation.
I take that to mean that most people have heard of us (Mormons) but don't really know much about our belief system, other than we send out young guys in white shirts to knock on your door.
One of my best friends was born and raised Mormon, and if you heard all the stories she has to say about her experience growing up, you'd consider it a topic of conversation if there is the chance that they grew up fundamentalist Mormon in Utah. On the other hand when I lived in North Carolina, I don't recall the few Mormon's I knew there to be any nuttier than Catholics or Protestants. With Mormons (and Baptists too while we're on the topic) at least, it seems that most of the crazy is kept to those who are most fundamentalist (which is generally true of fundamentalism in all its forms).
Her stories about growing up Mormon are only second to another friend of mine whose parents are at the very very top of the Church of Scientology, and has lived in the People's Republic of China for years because she can rely on the Chinese government's persecution of certain religions to get people kicked out of the country if they try to go there and do anything to her. IIRC she's already had to do that once.
Californians in particular have good reason to consider it a topic of conversation because the Church of Latter Day Saints actively meddles in California politics. Prop 8 spending is the most notorious example.[0] They weren't the only religion opposing it, but they certainly spent a boatload of dollars to defeat it.
EDIT: Like I said, all religion is pretty whacky to me. Mormons have the heavy burden of both whacky + young faith. That said, I love and appreciate that Mormons don't murder over cartoons, so way to go! If I had a book, you'd be OK in it! Of course, those FLDS are terrifying... I did read Under the Banner of Heaven a while back, so I'm getting more than just South Park.
"...I can't say I've ever met one that I didn't like." - Unfortunately, I've met a few that really forced their faith on others. However, several of my very best friends and honorary family members are very devout LDS members. While we disagree about religious tenets, we have extreme respect for one another and would defend the other's right to disagree to the death, without hesitation.
I'll count myself grateful because the vegetarians I know are so chill :-)
And I now have a scary mental image of a rabid rabbit-vegetarian chimera defending a vegi-patch with it's teeth bared. Yep - definitely grateful that I don't know anybody like that :-)
At one company I worked for, everyone in the acquired group I worked with was Mormon. They were all chill, awesome people! My thought about it at the time was, "Damn, if Mormons are all like this, it might be awesome to join!" Not that I would, but they were all awesome folks.
A company I worked for recently had a 50/50 split. We also had one team of a dozen that was all LDS. I liked everyone of them, they were all personable and highly proficient. Management had no problems until it slipped that during the process of hiring a new teammember they had discriminated against an applicant who had indicated support for gay rights in her facebook profile. Ironically, while gay marriage was definitely being talked about, the biggest gay rights topic at the time was housing and workplace non-discrimination for the LGBT community.
In Utah specifically these are typically referred to as "Jack Mormons", those who are officially members of the Church and raised so, but no longer actively participate.
In addition to the praises from @ryankschaw & @letney's, Pete is involved in a lot of local causes and provides free internet to many organizations.
I've been with Xmission for the better part of a decade now, and the service they provide has almost always rocked. On the rare occasion when it didn't, their service department did rock, keeping customers informed as progress was made - even if the problem wasn't under Xmission's control (for example, at one point I was connected via a phone line which got cut - they actually followed up with the phone company and would call my cell phone to give me updates).
When I realize, after reading these stories, that I read them on "RussiaToday" I always feel a bit sad.
A former advisor to Vladimir Putin, has labeled the channel as "the best Russian propaganda machine targeted at the outside world" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network))
These news are important here, but we have to be careful not to associate concepts like "freedom of speech" and "example of democracy" with countries like Russia, given the actual situation the people there live under I am not sure we can say Russia holds human rights in the highest regard in my opinion.
Concerns of RussiaToday are warranted but in this case they are just parroting NPR [1] who in turn are repeating a story by The Salt Lake Tribune [2] (but NPR actually bothered to credit them).
> When I realize, after reading these stories, that I read them on "RussiaToday" I always feel a bit sad.
Why?
> "the best Russian propaganda machine targeted at the outside world"
I trust RT with issues outside Russia's geopolitical influence. See they have it easy then, they don't have to lie. Just have to tell the truth that CNN and NBC are not telling. So they are pretty good with that. Al-Jazeera is good for news outside Qatar and its close neighbors and so on.
Because it looks like an instrumental use of these events.
> "the best Russian propaganda machine targeted at the outside world" I trust RT with issues outside Russia's geopolitical influence, they don't have to lie.
The problem with propaganda is that they don't only emphasize the desired facts, they even blatantly twist some of them.
The propaganda of one country can be a useful (because different) filter on the events in another, so long as one doesn't forget that it is propaganda. Particularly useful is when one can find several different such angles and triangulate.
It is an event that I am interested in. It did happen. Isn't it rather scary that our "free" press didn't pick it up . Well it is clear why...but still interesting.
As I said. I wouldn't believe a word RT says about Putin, Russia, or anything that happens in its sphere of influence. But they are pretty good when it comes to other parts of the world.
For the most part RT is just like Voice of America or France 24. It produces foreign language content almost solely for the goal of influencing opinion abroad.
It is just as fair as calling into question a story from Iran's Press TV.
Russia Today is the equivalent of Fox News in America. Keep that bias in mind as you browse their other articles and videos.
Russia Today is exceptionally critical of American politics, and their international video newscasts are pretty much dead center criticisms of America. They barely mention Russian affairs, if at all. Whenever I catch a glimpse of them on MHz WorldView I have to change the channel.
No idea why you were downvoted, there's nothing outrageous in your comment.
Every time I watch RT, I can't help getting the impression that it's on a mission to criticize and attack the US at every opportunity. All this, while ignoring far more egregious crimes within Russia itself. It's blatant, unashamed hypocrisy.
These news are important here, but we have to be careful not to associate concepts like "freedom of speech" and "example of democracy" with countries like Unites States of America, given the actual situation the people there live under I am not sure we can say United States of America holds human rights in the highest regard in my opinion.
Is it frightening to you that this also makes sense? So I guess we'll have to get all our news from Wikileaks from now on.
Well, of course RussiaToday is Russian propaganda, the same way that CNN, or NewYorkTimes are propaganda of American empire.
It is very simple, there are big news Institutions that power will dominate, one way or another, like infiltrating people in key positions, or with laws that make collaboration with Government a benefit, and non compliance a great cost.
Do you know that when Snowden talked with people in media like the Washington Post, the first thing they did was to report to the NSA and FBI?
While the situation in Russia is absolutely bad, in relative terms it improves, while in the US you used to be free, in relative terms the police State grows by the second.
I too came to comment about how I knew it was XMission before I clicked and wanted to mention the great things Pete Ashdown has been up to. But, I see others have already covered that.
While we're on the topic. Pete, please expand Utopia Fiber to Lehi! You promised :) [0]
I work for a small ISP and pretty much "run the show". Since joining the company, I've been successful in getting approval from the owners on what I feel are appropriate retention policies and such. There's still a lot to be done but my hope is to someday be running our operation very similar to how Mr. Ashdown is running his.
I think I'll sign up w/ Xmission for a hosting account for a few months (even though I have no need for it) as a show of support.
Read it the right way. The described behavior is the right thing to do, brave and patriotic. But two things will happen here:
1. It will not be forgotten. The behavior to resist those warrants will result probably in imprisonment, and in every case it will be made sure he doesn't get more power. Source is that case: http://www.atlassociety.org/brc/blog/2013/06/10/was-telecom-...
2. The data is accessed anyway, the suggested way of doing that as far as was disclosed to infiltrate the company, either by using a mole or a backdoor (sure, both is possible). At least that would happen if it were an ISP outside of the USA, I don't believe they make that distinction anymore.
As a wee lad, I uploaded my first bits of HTML onto Xmission's shared hosting in 1997. Good memories. Thanks to them, I didn't have to succumb to Geocities advertisements.
Er, so, not rolling over for bullshit requests is a very good thing (telcos take note), but I'm not seeing a difference here from any company that doesn't comply with improper requests, but does comply with "proper" ones, just a matter of scale:
"The government began sending data requests to Ashdown 15 years ago but the entrepreneur, who launched his business in 1993, acquiesced just once - at the advice of his lawyer. He agreed to hand over the data only after receiving an FBI request accompanied by a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2010. Local governments and police in Utah were behind most of the other formal inquiries that he received."
(except that he confirms that he received and complied with a FISA order)
the world needs more Pete Ashdowns and more Xmissions.
1. http://peteashdown.org/archive/2012/ 2. http://www.nextgov.com/big-data/2013/06/utah-senator-who-pus...