Slashdot Mirror

There are certainly some people in government who are sympathetic to the RIAA because of legal bribes in the form of lobbyists and campaign contributions

And there are certainly some people in the government who swore to uphold the law even if they feel it isn't 100% correct. There is a system in place for changing laws that are out of line with the good of the people but the wanton breaking of laws isn't part of that system. It would be much different if any of this was done as a form of protest but none of it is. And even in protest it should only be done to show how absurd the law really is. If this kid was doing it in protest he would have proclaimed his guilt proudly along with some statement. Instead he, and most of his ilk, hide behind excuse after excuse and hope for the best. Anytime one of these people slips through the fingers of system you guys act like it's some great victory. The only victory from your camp should be a meaningful change to copyright law but next to none of you are active in this cause. Sure, lobbyists hold power but the people who proclaim to be for sensible copyright have a representation too but the vast majority of you have no interest in the legitimate fight, only the free music that's to be had.

The only answer is because it's illegal and in many cases, some people have interests in seeing the law enforced even when there's no real benefit to society in it. They fine you for posession because it's illegal, they don't think they like pot smokers, and they can.

The problem with marijuana at this point isn't the recreational user, for the most part, but the organizations that drug money keeps alive. The fact is that drug money keeps gangs together and keeps violence on the street. It's no different than the alcohol prohibition.

Marijuana laws are another area that I think a lot of people would be behind reform but sadly the violence on the streets and the other unwholesome activities of criminal organizations are going to continue to be fueled by casual users until marijuana is legally sold through regulated dealers.

And again, smoking a joint and listening to Pink Floyd in your living room isn't a legitimate form of protest.

Anybody got a link to the actual TRO?).

the actual TRO

He posted the same on his blog (which is not quite shuttered). Someone will make a mirror of it, too, according to one of his comments on that entry.

I planned to submit that as a story when it becomes available, but feel free to do that yourself if I don't get to it right away.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

Umm, no it isn't. The facts are the same (because the story is the same), but I wrote that myself. Obviously, I listed the same two reasons she did, but that's because they're the reasons Mr. Patry gave. I didn't copy & paste even one line, and the editors added that part in parentheses as you can verify with the firehose.

Now, if you think it's a copy & paste, would you like to point out where PJ apologized for referencing his bio without a disclaimer? Because I don't think she did. And why would she link to past Slashdot stories? I had to Google those up.

So check your facts next time before you lie like that.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

What is happening is a licensed player is playing a DVD in a manner that the DVD Forum has authorized. Period.

Playing a DVD in a way that isn't authorized by DVD forum, though, is not in itself a violation of DMCA. It only becomes a violation if the DVD's copyright holder says that playing on non-licensed players is not an allowed condition for bypassing CSS. (And so far, AFAIK, all CSS-protected DVDs are from MPAA member companies.)

Circumventing the license brings you into conflict with the license

I'm comparing the two situations of playing on a licensed player, versus playing on a not-licensed player. The non-licensed player's manufacturer isn't doing anything that conflicts with the license, since they aren't operating under the terms of a license.

Interestingly enough, some DVD copying software makers were sued by MPAA and Macrovision and not by the DVD Forum. The original DeCSS trial involved the DVD Forum and not MPAA or Macrovision.

Of course, I remember that. DVDCCA didn't want DeCSS published because 1) the source code revealed their trade secret 2) It removed manufacturers' reason to get a license from them in the first place -- it killed their monopoly. DVDCCA lost those cases. The trade secret cat got out of the bag, and legitimately, since it was obtained through reverse engineering.

All that aside, I really was talking about the MPAA case: movie copyright holders who sued on the grounds of DMCA violations. There is no law that directly says you must license anything to be allowed to play a DVD or that you must get a DVDCCA license to descramble CSS. But there is a law (DMCA) that says you're not allowed to play a DVD without the copyright holder's permission, and they only grant permission if you use a licensed player. (Likewise, since a non-licensed player is "primarily intended" to play DVDs, and since each time someone uses it, that user is violating DMCA, then trafficking in that player is also a DMCA violation.) That's why the MPAA won their case and DVDCCA lost theirs.

It's all about content copyright holders, not DRM inventors. That's a subtle distinction, but a very important one. And my point was that the conditions under which a copyright holder grants permission to play their content, can be complex. And undocumented..

All of this is clearly documented if you bother looking. Nothing secret whatsoever.

Licensing patents is documented. Consumers getting permission to play their DVDs is not. Buy a DVD and look carefully outside and inside the case. Does you see anything that says you're allowed to play it on a Sony player but not with xine? Do you see anything at all, that says you're allowed to bypass CSS at all? That's what I mean by "secret."

Harassment and emotional abuse can be performed in person or over the Internet, and I've got to imagine that charges for wanton malicious actions against a minor will have much stiffer penalties than a simple ToS violation.

From what I understand, the whole reason the government is charging the woman for violating the TOS is because they can't get her on other charges. The amicus brief appears to agree:

There are state and federal statutes that regulate harassing and otherwise harmful speech, carefully identifying speech that falls outside of First Amendment protection. See, e.g., 47 U.S.C. Â 223(a)(1)(C); R.S.Mo. 565.090 (former). Neither of those statutes appears to criminalize the communications from "Josh Evans" to Miss Meier here.

That's not to say that the prosecutor is taking the right approach, but apparently it's not as simple as just charging her with harassment or verbal abuse or something.

Read & Learn, And Legalize Marijuana

Since the article is often pulled from websites, the first article you should read and burn into your mind is this, Google for the title and archive a copy for yourself:

"A break-in to end all break-ins"
"In 1971, stolen FBI files exposed the government's domestic spying program"

It's an amazing story, and in 2008, how much has this expanded into every corner of our lives? The majority of Americans are brainwashed sheep consumers with a limp wet noodle for a brain, thrashing around with their Wii and Paris Hilton media like a fat dinoasaur in a tar pit. Stay informed, we have no privacy, encryption is good but useless with acoustic monitoring, reflections in the eye and objects in your environment, etc.! If it's electronic, there's always a loophole. You shine brighter with each electronic device you use, in many ways. Don't trust Hushmail or any web based mail service to keep anything of yours secure or to provide any reasonable degree of security. Secure your computer room and rig your computer to shut down if you use encryption like Truecrypt or other when your environment is entered by someone other than you or those you permit and trust (you shouldn't trust anyone, everyone has a price)

Compromising Reflections or How to Read LCD Monitors Around the Corner
http://www.infsec.cs.uni-sb.de/~unruh/publications/reflections.pdf [uni-sb.de]

And more:

http://www.eff.org/wp/detecting-packet-injection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_remailer
http://cryptome.org/tempest-law.htm
http://seclab.uiuc.edu/pubs/LeMayT06.pdf
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dfrankow/files/lam-etrics2006-security.pdf
http://cryptome.org/nsa-vaneck.htm
http://www.alobbs.com/macchanger
http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live--encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/five_stages.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-92/SP800-92.pdf
http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP_Home.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-84/SP800-84.pdf
http://all.net/books/document/harvard.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc3/
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html
http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/csep590/06wi/
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/mcnamara/links.html
http://lifeha

Since the article is often pulled from websites, the first article you should read and burn into your mind is this, Google for the title and archive a copy for yourself:

"A break-in to end all break-ins"
"In 1971, stolen FBI files exposed the government's domestic spying program"

It's an amazing story, and in 2008, how much has this expanded into every corner of our lives? The majority of Americans are brainwashed sheep consumers with a limp wet noodle for a brain, thrashing around with their Wii and Paris Hilton media like a fat dinoasaur in a tar pit. Stay informed, we have no privacy, encryption is good but useless with acoustic monitoring, reflections in the eye and objects in your environment, etc.! If it's electronic, there's always a loophole. You shine brighter with each electronic device you use, in many ways. Don't trust Hushmail or any web based mail service to keep anything of yours secure or to provide any reasonable degree of security. Secure your computer room and rig your computer to shut down if you use encryption like Truecrypt or other when your environment is entered by someone other than you or those you permit and trust (you shouldn't trust anyone, everyone has a price)

Compromising Reflections or How to Read LCD Monitors Around the Corner
http://www.infsec.cs.uni-sb.de/~unruh/publications/reflections.pdf

And more:

http://www.eff.org/wp/detecting-packet-injection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_remailer
http://cryptome.org/tempest-law.htm
http://seclab.uiuc.edu/pubs/LeMayT06.pdf
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dfrankow/files/lam-etrics2006-security.pdf
http://cryptome.org/nsa-vaneck.htm
http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live--encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/five_stages.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-92/SP800-92.pdf
http://csrc.nist.gov/itsec/guidance_WinXP_Home.html
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-84/SP800-84.pdf
http://all.net/books/document/harvard.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc.html
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc2/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-keyc3/
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/emsec/optical-faq.html
http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/csep590/06wi/
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/mcnamara/links.html
http://lifehacker.com/software/home-server/geek-to-live--set-up-a-personal-home-ssh-server-205090.php

IAANAL, but is a breach of TOS the same as a breach of contract? That is, is a usage license the same as a contract?

EULAs are very sticky. Most of the issues stem from whether software is "licensed or sold," or from the fact that the consumer has little recourse if he or she does not accept the license ("No returns on opened software")

Terms of Service contracts, the type which you agree to prior to the exchange of funds or use of the service, are more cut and dry. Unless a clause is unconscionable, it is just as binding as any other contract.

To make things even more complicated and hard to research, many lawyer types and media outlets do not distinguish between the two of these, or the sometimes confusing terms "clickwrap license," "browserwrap license," "shrinkwrap license," etc.

More interesting reading.

Tell that to the founding fathers who wrote the Federalist, and anti Federalist papers in a 100% anonymous fashion.

"The tradition of anonymous speech is older than the United States. Founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym "Publius," and "the Federal Farmer" spoke up in rebuttal. The US Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized rights to speak anonymously derived from the First Amendment.

The right to anonymous speech is also protected well beyond the printed page. Thus, in 2002, the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring proselytizers to register their true names with the Mayor's office before going door-to-door.

These long-standing rights to anonymity and the protections it affords are critically important for the Internet. As the Supreme Court has recognized, the Internet offers a new and powerful democratic forum in which anyone can become a "pamphleteer" or "a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox."

http://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity

See also:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_n11_v26/ai_16763603

Since you still refuse to publish a URL of your supposed YEARS of fighting the voting machine.

We'll start you off nice and slow this morning.

Your homework consists simply reading several articles. Then removing your foot from your mouth.

Hunt for the (backdoor)kill switch in microchips.

US reveals plans to hit back at cyber threats (note the part about CHIPS)

Investigating Machine Identification Code Technology in Color Laser Printers (if you can do this you can do anything)

The Hunt for the Kill Switch (This is the best of the articles in my opinion)

So your idea of "computerized tabulation" will work only if the public John Doe/ Jane Doe/ You/ Me/ Slashdot Readers/ "We The People" and anyone else is allowed to destructively reverse engineer every electronic voting machine component under an electron microscope looking for backdoor logic (Which is NOT allowed), and any network, hub, switch, vault, radio transmitter, Radio receiver, or memory device that might have been used in conjunction with the election (Again the public is NOT allowed to, not to mention it would be physically impossible and too costly at the expense of bringing down the entire communications infrastructure.), and monitor the whole spectrum 24/7 at all geographic locations during an election. (ain't going to happen) And monitor the power supply for rogue signals, or frequency or voltage anomalies.

So really what your saying is it's okay for someone to walk in on election day, reach into their pocket, activate their hidden transmitter, and flip the vote, by a plethora of methods.

And that's just the HARDWARE.

Shall we wait until you digest all that before we talk about the SOFTWARE and WHAT'S ALREADY BEEN FOUND?

hint #1
Top To Bottom Review

hint #2
Federal Vote-Counting Accuracy Mandate Is Ignored
Violations abound, but no federal action is taken

And again I remind you that 100% hand counts of ballots that have 100% chain of custody (even that is broken) with 100% public oversight (currently the public is denied access and ballots have been illegally destroyed) have never been compared to the 100% machine tabulation.

Furthermore your continued publicizing of the myth that "hand counted paper ballots are unrealistic due to population." Is just that. A MYTH!

If your ideas are so open source, show them right here right now. Quit saying you don't know where to take these ideas, I'm telling you right now.

Publish it! Publish it right here, right now.

Get a free frigging yahoo/geocities account, and publish it. Make a god damned blog and publish it. Rar the shit up and upload it to Rapidshare. Create an account at sourceforge and PUBLISH IT!

Let's not forget that Blizzard was one of the early abusers of the DMCA hammer.

That plus the fact that they deleted hundreds of my diablo 2 characters is why I have never subscribed to WoW. Play an MMO for the non-add impaired instead.

The bad thing about trying to take out R4 or any other similar card manufacturer is that they also hit us the homebrew developers :(

Similar fight happened with Blizzard Vs BnetD.
http://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd

That + how they deleted your Diablo 2 account after 90 days ticked me off at Blizzard badly enough I never subscribed to WoW.

And yet that darn pesky article seems to think otherwise.

Hasbro also asked Facebook to remove the game for violating copyright law under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Which is it? If it is a trademark then the DMCA does not apply. The 'C' doesn't stand for 'Trademark'. And if they are claiming that this is a copyright violation then they are on pretty thin legal ice as there isn't a lot about the game which is copyrightable.

So which is it? Copyright or trademark? Has Hasbro engaged in perjury by issuing a DMCA takedown notice over a trademark dispute, or are they pursuing an unwinnable copyright case?

Slashpac, anyone?

Done.

Here is a link with a few addresses to send your thoughts on this stupidity:

http://www.eff.org/about/staff

Spam deserves spam.

When I said it was like the DHS, I wasn't thinking in terms of it having a cabinet post or being a Department instead of an Agency.

I was thinking of it being a giant boondoggle that unnecessarily expands the Federal government, wastes taxpayer money, and takes away freedom to justify its own existence rather like the TSA. But yeah, the comparison with the War on Drugs is also quite apt, if they're going to be seizing peoples' computers and whatnot.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

"I believe he did something illegal." is an opinion. "He did something illegal." is a statement of fact.

If you can't tell the difference, you have a problem.

The two statements say exactly the same thing - you are saying he did something illegal. Whether he did or did not do something illegal is not a question of opinion, but a question of fact.

http://w2.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-defamation.php

Can my opinion be defamatory?

No - but merely labeling a statement as your "opinion" does not make it so. Courts look at whether a reasonable reader or listener could understand the statement as asserting a statement of verifiable fact. (A verifiable fact is one capable of being proven true or false.) This is determined in light of the context of the statement. A few courts have said that statements made in the context of an Internet bulletin board or chat room are highly likely to be opinions or hyperbole, but they do look at the remark in context to see if it's likely to be seen as a true, even if controversial, opinion ("I really hate George Lucas' new movie") rather than an assertion of fact dressed up as an opinion ("It's my opinion that Trinity is the hacker who broke into the IRS database").

Upon review, you're correct about their weird subsidiary relationships.

But I think it's important to remember that, when dealing with voting machines, Diebold machines would be branded "Premier Election Systems", so people ought to associate the two names as belonging to the same ethically-challenged company.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

Remember folks, Diebold is now known as "Premier Election Solutions"--they changed their name to get away from the bad PR! So don't call them "Diebold" any more and don't forget!

Just like MediaSentry becoming "SafeNet", we shouldn't be so quick to forget who the scumbags are!

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

> I can't for the life of me understand why the major media, when they cover a litigation news story, never give you the actual document to read. In these days of electronic filing of almost all federal court papers it is inexcusable.

Most likely because they don't understand it and they don't expect anyone else to. Yet what they fail to realize is that people come to understand things only when they keep *trying* to understand those things they do not. That's why I try to dig up a few 'educational' links whenever I submit, even if it's just a quick nod to Wikipedia (and always an old version, lest the Wikipedia editors get upset with me).

Sure, anyone with half a brain could Google that stuff themselves, but most are too lazy or don't think it's worth the bother. But I'm sure a few people might click on it and learn something, so every drop helps, however small.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

We usually get so much inaccurate legal speculation, that it's a good thing to have original sources like that to link to.

To that I'd like to add that there is a type of fair use specific to trademarks and relevant to this case--nominative fair use. I mentioned that in my submission, but I guess this guy beat me to submitting it.

I'm mentioning it because, otherwise, we'll probably have someone trying to apply the four factor test from copyright law to trademarks once the issue comes up... :-)

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

There should, no, there MUST be an option to prevent it from falling back on an unencrypted connection. Failure to implement this means you may as well not have encryption at all, since you never know if it's encrypted or not. The EFF needs your donations so it can go all over the world and fight to repeal laws allowing government idiots to snoop on communications, and to create laws that make it illegal to snoop or to create laws that allow such snooping. Governments all over the world are out of control.

Yeah, but then you can tell pretty closely what they are. Port number & encrypted protocol are pretty indicative.

Instead, encrypting the majority of traffic would make the sniffing capability moot.

But frankly, I'd rather see them use Tor, maybe with some optimizations for latency-critical operations.

Thank you so much for making the point about the insane precedent this establishes. It was enough to finally make me get off my butt and call my senators about it.

For those who haven't called:
If you're a US citizen, you can go to https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?alertId=389&pg=makeACall and fill in your zipcode to get your senators' phone numbers and a script to read to them to indicate your opposition to the FISA Amendments Act and support for the amendments that remove the telecom immunity from the act.

The case law for online anonymity is currently unsettled (yes, I know some of those are incompatible jurisdictions.)

As much as we don't like Lori Drew and her despicable, possibly criminal behavior, this isn't the way to go about it (from the posts so far, seems most here agree that way.)

No anonymity would lead to a boring internet... people would begin to resort (more) to (ab)using open proxies to get the job done.

Interesting how the comments questioning fair use are generally moderated "1", while the ones insisting that of course making personal backups is fair use get moderated "5".

Anyway here's what the EFF, not exactly a bastion of copyright absolutists, says in their Fair Use FAQ:

Although the legal basis is not completely settled, many lawyers believe that the following (and many other uses) are also fair uses:

Space-shifting or format-shifting - that is, taking content you own in one format and putting it into another format, for personal, non-commercial use. For instance, "ripping" an audio CD (that is, making an MP3-format version of an audio CD that you already own) is considered fair use by many lawyers, based on the 1984 Betamax decision and the 1999 Rio MP3 player decision (RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia, 180 F. 3d 1072, 1079, 9th Circ. 1999.)
Making a personal back-up copy of content you own - for instance, burning a copy of an audio CD you own.

"Many lawyers believe" is a far cry from the parent's comment that making personal backups has been "heavily tested". I'd say this better supports the grandparent comment: "Don't bet on it."

The EFF also says:

Courts have previously found that a use was fair where the use of the copyrighted work was socially beneficial. In particular, U.S. courts have recognized the following fair uses: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research and parodies.

Note that making personal backups is quite different in flavor than any of these activities, which are all oriented around improving intellectual debate and discussion.

Don't make us get probable cause! Probable cause is for losers! And put the bumpers back into my bowling lanes!

I'm a big fan of sarcasm, but instead of going the bumper-sticker advocacy route, I'd suggest visiting the ACLU and clicking the Donate Now button. That way when someone slams you with a "What are you? A pinko liberal card-carrying member of the ACLU?", they'd be at least partially correct for a change.

Similarly, you can visit the EFF website and become a member. Don't know if they give you a card to carry, but the free T-shirt could be worn by any geek with pride.

While I expect some of the more egregious abuses of the current administration may end when it packs up its bags and heads out the door, I don't expect to see the trend they represent to subside, or that in the future, there will fewer stories on Slashdot and in the mainstream press where the ACLU, the EFF and similar groups aren't forced to take yet another action to protect our rights.

Google does face additional liability if most videos are copyrighted material, and Viacom would likely be vindicated.

The Betamax case specifically disagrees with you by saying that even if a technology is primarily used for infringing purposes it's safe provided that there exists substantial noninfringing use.

This trustworthy site, among other things, describes the outcome of the Betamax case, including the Supreme Court upholding the right to make the Betamax VTRs even though only about NINE PERCENT of use was noninfringing use based on the facts adduced at trial.

OK, I'm back. There's no way to say it nice, so I'll not mince words - the summary is inflamatory garbage. TFA says

Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google's liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.

It doesn't say why Viacom needs user names; maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet, but TFA is pretty light on details too, and since IANAL reading the ruling won't do me much more good than a lawyer reading uncommented source code.

TFA says the EFF is getting involved.

You mean sometimes there are comments in source code?! Someone needs to tell my former co-workers.

I find your comment about the registration and tracking of typewriters telling, when put in context.

OK, I'm back. There's no way to say it nice, so I'll not mince words - the summary is inflamatory garbage. TFA says

Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google's liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.

It doesn't say why Viacom needs user names; maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet, but TFA is pretty light on details too, and since IANAL reading the ruling won't do me much more good than a lawyer reading uncommented source code.

TFA says the EFF is getting involved.

It mentioned the Secret Service and counterfeiting. And tracing the original printer surely would forensically confirm that threatening letters were created from a specific machine I do believe I also heard a xerox tech confirm the unique tracking dots when my company signed off on a new Xerox Workcenter 7665.

Here's a better link with the EFF talking on this subject:

http://p2pnet.net/story/6620

Some colour laser printers secretly hide tiny tracking dots in every document, says the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). The mini-markers are ostensibly to help identify counterfeiters but, "We've found that the dots from at least one line of printers encode the date and time your document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer," says EFF staff technologist Seth David Schoen, going on:

This was 2004, 2005. I'd guess most new printers and copiers sold since have a high market penetration containing this technology.

Within that article is a link directly to the EFF, showing the marking tracking technology:

http://w2.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/

This guide is part of the Machine Identification Code Technology project. It explains how to read the date, time, and printer serial number from forensic tracking codes in a Xerox DocuColor color laser printout.

Happy reading. ^_^

McCain has been in favor of it all along

No, actually he has flip-flopped.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

OFF is really just obfuscation. Also, the instructions how to put the non-copyrighted parts together are distributed openly, leaving the publishers vulnerable. Users seeking real security should go for anonymizing networks like Tor or GNUnet

Now maybe if all of us /.'ers put our money together we can stop this evil force...

I donate to EFF whenever possible, they seem to be the most in-line with my thoughts and feelings on most of the issues they raise. I do believe they offer a monthly subscription as well.

A few things that make this debate simpler than you think...

Foreign-to-foreign calls are just a red herring - if they really couldn't tap them without a warrant (and under current law, they already can; 50 U.S.C. Â1802(a)(1)) they could just write "except for foreign-to-foreign calls" into the FISA law.

It came out a while ago that the issue really is email. You don't know where the person actually is with 100% certainty if the message hasn't been delivered, so that's why they want all this legalese with "reasonably believed to be outside of the US". This is what they really want and they're using foreign-to-foreign calls as an excuse to push for this.

None of this changes the fact that the 4th Amendment protects American citizens from warrantless surveillance. If they want to be able to wiretap American citizens without a warrant for any reason whatsoever (including national security), they ought to pass a Constitutional amendment.

None of this changes the fact that those private companies knowingly violated multiple federal laws that were put in place to prevent and protect against exactly this sort of behavior. Do you think Congress would give you immunity for breaking multiple federal laws? (assuming you had the connections and enough money) Isn't this two-tier system of justice, where the rich can buy the right to violate the law while everyone else must suffer justice, the antithesis of what makes America great?

There's one problem:
Wachovia tells their users to enter their credentials on the unsecured front page, which then submits to a secure script processing said credentials.
What you might be forgetting: What if I set up interception on my shared WiFi (or somewhere at the backbone of the hypothetical ISP I might be working for) to grab all HTTP requests for / going to r3wec01.wachovia.com and add a tiny bit of JavaScript that, in addition to the page working as it usually does, posts all keypresses to a script of my choosing?
Without access to WB's certificate, I couldn't do that on a properly secured HTTPS site. Thanks to unencrypted HTTP, it's pretty trivial.

Prize money in the $100K and up ranges are available for primes that are found above 10 million digits. If you can get the cluster to search for a 10 million digit prime and you end up finding it, you'd earn your Department a cool $100,000 in extra funding. I haven't read the exact rules for the Prime95 program invlovement, but you'd still get a good grant for your Dept. from just crunching 1s and 0s on your idle processes.

> As a side note, I also don't really understand the significance of Vitamin D's fat solubility making it any more or less dangerous in higher dosages.

Water-soluble vitamins just get peed out at the end of the day, per my understanding, while fat-soluble vitamins stick around longer, so it's easier for them to build up in the body. They're both still potentially dangerous in high doses, though, which is why I said they're "more" prone to it.

Maybe that wasn't the best way to explain it, but I only really included that factoid so that people don't go thinking that because they work the night shift, they really need to load up on vitamin D, because more isn't always better, just like you said.

- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property

Not exactly the same issue but closely related: There are similar cases about 3D models at the stock model site Turbo Squid. Lockheed Martin claimed that a 3D model of their B-24 Bomber constitutes a "trademark infringement". The Ford Motor Company has abused DMCA copyright takedown orders on 3D representations to enforce their trademark claims on their real-world vehicles as well. This incorrect use of DMCA has been going on at Turbo Squid for years. http://www.johnmacneill.com/WWII_Bomber.html At least the EFF made Lockheed withdraw its trademark claim on the B-24 model. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/05/b-24-liberated

Anyone seen a position from the McCain camp?

Sure have. Apparently, we shouldn't grant immunity to the telecoms--no, wait, I mean we should grant immunity to the telecoms. Of course, the wiretapping was legal anyway, though on second thought maybe it wasn't.

So there you have it: John McCain's stance on wiretapping and telecom immunity. hope that cleared things up for you. :-)

Anyone seen a position from the McCain camp?

Sure have. Apparently, we shouldn't grant immunity to the telecoms--no, wait, I mean we should grant immunity to the telecoms. Of course, the wiretapping was legal anyway, though on second thought maybe it wasn't.

So there you have it: John McCain's stance on wiretapping and telecom immunity. hope that cleared things up for you. :-)

Anyone seen a position from the McCain camp?

Sure have. Apparently, we shouldn't grant immunity to the telecoms--no, wait, I mean we should grant immunity to the telecoms. Of course, the wiretapping was legal anyway, though on second thought maybe it wasn't.

So there you have it: John McCain's stance on wiretapping and telecom immunity. hope that cleared things up for you. :-)

Anyone seen a position from the McCain camp?

Sure have. Apparently, we shouldn't grant immunity to the telecoms--no, wait, I mean we should grant immunity to the telecoms. Of course, the wiretapping was legal anyway, though on second thought maybe it wasn't.

So there you have it: John McCain's stance on wiretapping and telecom immunity. hope that cleared things up for you. :-)

Text of the House bill, see section 802.f:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-6304

EFF analysis of the immunity portion of the bill:

http://www.eff.org/files/AnalysisHR6304-v5.pdf

Title II of H.R. 6304 is in substance the same as the original telecom immunity provisions of S. 2248, with only a few inconsequential changes. Most critically, it still prevents the court from ruling on the legality of the telecomsâ(TM) assistance in warrantless surveillance.

This may not be immediately evident on first read since the structure has changed considerably: the provisions for so-called "retroactive" immunity in the original billâ(TM)s Section 202 have been combined with the so-called "prospective" immunity from the original Section 203.

But the substance of this unconstitutional bill is still the same:

Cases Will Still Be Dismissed Based On A Permission Slip From The President.

As before, cases against telecoms that provided assistance "in connection with" (p. 89:20) the Presidentâ(TM)s warrantless surveillance program âoeshall be promptly dismissedâ (p. 89:2) so long as the AG certifies to the court that they got a piece of paper "indicating" (p.90:10) that the surveillance was "authorized by the President ... and ... determined to be lawful" (p. 90:12-13), i.e., the piece of paper that we already know they got, based on the Senate Intelligence Committee's Report.

Any readers who live in his district should give him a call and voice their opposition to the bill, reminding him we need hope and change from his office.

The rest of us ... call your senators and tell them to vote no.

Don't just grumble and complain here, make your voice heard where it really counts.

The only feed I enjoy that has not already been listed previously is
EFF Updates which is EFF Press Releases

From reading almost everything out there on this subject - the best item to date is the legal deposition filed by the expert witness on behalf of the EFF (F. Scott Marcus) which is indicative of a substantially large Narus box network at AT&T and other telecoms. (Most probably extant in at least 20 cities throughout America.

This provides the Bush Crime Family with an awesome capacity to spy on everyone for both financial intelligence and political intelligence and election-rigging (along with the existing TIA: over 70 government contractors performing domestic surveillance together with the NSA and NGA elements).

Of course, MAIN CORE (that database composed of over 8 million American "domestic terrorists" -i.e., citizens who have written or worked against the BushCo criminal activities...) is a subelement of this network.