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Good for this current bill. Let's bring back Free Speech to the citizenry.

Ha! What country do you live in because I want to move there! In the USA we have the strange concept of corporate personhood which grants companies all the rights of a citizen! Luckily a corporate citizen can't hold elected office, but in the USA they have greater political influence than your average human citizen. And yes, they do have freedom of speech.

As an aside, I consider the founding father's original intentions to be largely irrelevant. When they framed the Constitution, women and blacks were excluded from its protection. We are now going through a similar fight and readjustment with homosexuality.

Also as an aside, how long have homosexuals been unable to vote? In what way does the constitution exclude them? Are you proposing a constitutional ammendment to correct this oversight? Yes I realize that there are issues to resolve but I don't think they rise to a constitutional level.

Here's some more info about corporate personhood and the corporate death penalty .

Basically, the idea is since corporations are deemed persons, incorporated under the laws of a particular jurisdiction, that their charter to conduct business be revoked if they committed grievous crimes.

Maybe this heralds the beginning of the end of Constitutional Rights for Legal Fictions -- that whole Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company / 14th Amendment debacle.

(Historical Information)

I halways have to drop this same turd when people recongize what you have above...

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1886 that Corporations were persons.

Please read this: SantaClara Blues: Corporate Personhood vs. Democracy by William Meyers.

This Case is the ABSOLUTE #1 cause of American Plutocracy.

You have been effectively UNABLE to regulate these corporate entities since this time...

Apple have to maximize the shareholder value or the directors might go to jail

Hahahahahhahah! So now, instead of putting directors and officers in jail for legitimate legal transgressions, environmental damage, collusion, union-busting, bribery, corruption and the like, which people have been demanding. Instead the slugs in the corporate offices hide behind SantaClaraCounty vs. Southern Pacific Railroad , officer non-liability, and various other bits of ill-logic, but NOW you suggest that unless they push the moral bounds of the purpose of patents, that they rob from the community that empowers them, that unless they transgress against the public domain and the intellectual pursuits of a free community - that they WOULD GOTO JAIL!

What a sad fucking statement that is. If that is true, which I accept, probably is; that if it is true, you Yankees need to do some serious re-thinking about the methods to which you organize your goddamned affairs.

7) Microsoft may not meddle in the the legislative processes of Fderal, State or local governemnts or bodies that make recommendations to them, with their work on UCITA being a prime model of behaviour that is prohibited to them as a monopoly.

This is impossible. As most people, who are opposed to American Plutocracy understand, you cannot hinder corporations this way. You see, they are full and equal legal persons protected under the constitution - which is the ROOT CAUSE of the corporate domination of America... this is why there is no political will to break up the MS monopoly... the Plutocratic Government of America knows better than to bite the hand that feeds it... there can be no political will, now or ever in the future, to control capitalism (via anti-trust laws or anything else) as long as this situation remains in America.

See here: The Santa Clara Blues

IANALBPOO/. (IANAL but play one on slashdot) but I understand there is ANOTHER ruling (much more recent) which gauranteed that corporations are entitled to spend money, without interference to "lobby" (read: bribe) the political system... is anyone farmiliar with this case? I understand it uses SantaClaraCounty as a its legal foundation...

There is a method of killing Corporations. You can enact the death penatly by revoking their charter.

There are activists involved in trying to revoke the charters of Unocal and Tobacco Companies... see here: http://lists.essential.org/1998/corp-focus/msg0003 3.html and http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/feature/humanrts/res istance/mokhiber.html. The idea and practice are 'out of favour' at the moment, but in the past, Corporate charters were often revoke when companies commited wrong-doings. Americans have lost the ability to demand action of their politicians, the DoJ who should be upholding laws are neglecting them. The laws exist to do this now. People arent using them. Seeing how American Corporations have the same rights as American citizens, but none of the responsiblity and consequnces, these corporate acts - those of profit seeking - have become self-justifiying and unstoppable. YOU CANNOT HINDER COMMERCE is the rule of the day in America. I am a Canadian (who just applied for his Portuguese (mother was portuguese) citizenship to provide an escape hatch to the relative Sanity of the EU (escaping from just these issues i am discussing)), but i can assure you America, and Americans, you have a very real and immediate problem in your hands, your democracy *has* been subverted , your government is absolutely out of control in almost every respect - I have come to know this living so close to America, regrettably within the very real sphere of control that extends out of imperialist america, and I have watched things change dramatically in the last 8-10 years.... (im only 27).

The Plutocratic American Government hasnt the will to do this (bite hands that feeds them..) - as we see here in this ridiculously-light judgement against M$, the ability for the government (enabled by the citizenry) has been made impotent.

I am astonshed at this ruling, it really is telling that the anti-corporatist movement needs to remobalize in the face of anti-terrorist hysteria, and that the root cause of the attacks of 09.11 are the same problems that allowed M$ to skate - yet again.

Well, i guess we can hold out for Europe to do a deeper dive into M$'s monopoly abuse and corruption...

If you want to do something in American politics, stop voting for the Republicans *OR* the Democrats.

Vote Communist (..as I do..), Socialist, Green, Libertarian, Natural-Law, Elephant-Party - vote for ANTYHING other than the Plutocratic bastards who've sold your community and democracy to the highest bidder, vote for ANYONE who is interested in making *REAL* change... the republicrats have had a cuddly-power-sharing relationship for 100years.. shake shit up Yankees!

Begin to advocate for an end to FPTP (see .sig), demand a repeal of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company [118 U.S. 394 (1886)] which gives corporate entities the same right as a natural person.

A major goal of the Earth Liberation Front is "to speed up the collapse of industry, to scare the rich".

Even more moderate groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists betray socialist views. In a PBS Frontline story on Genetically Modified foods, Jane Rissler denounced claims that GM foods would help feed the hungry in poor countries by saying: "The biggest problem behind hungry people is lack of money" which, if believed, lays a nice foundation for redistributing wealth. Of course, most people believe that hungry people need food, not money.

The Anarchist Golfing Association (Anarchist being another name for Libertarian Socialists) is nothing more than an attack on what is viewed as the capitalist's favorite pasttime.

Some of the "anti-capitalist" views by environmentalists are likely attributed to the fact that industry does pollute, but some of these groups go beyond reasonable concern.

-bk

I've found a chronology of the Earth Liberation Front's actions. It seems as though much of the activities in 2000 were dedicated to torching new oversized houses being built in sprawling neighborhoods.

When you get there, for gosh sakes, dont start rambling about how terrible spam is (because if its not spam it will be something else tomorrow...) ask him SPECIFICALLY to support the effor to repeal Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company [118 U.S. 394 (1886)], Read more here

If you are American, this is the greatest gift you can give to the world.

It is not your senator doing this...

The "right" to do this stems from Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company [118 U.S. 394 (1886)], Read more here

Its not congresspeople - its case law, specifically its:

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company [118 U.S. 394 (1886)], Read more here

And please, for the sake of us all (literally) would you Yankees *PLEASE* do something about this... the rest of the world is watching your government get more and more corrupt and your corporations using your (wonderfull) bill-of-rights as tools of imperialism.

The *right* to do this stems from Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company [118 U.S. 394 (1886)], Read more here

This is the wellspring of power from which most of America s ills originate. This is why you will not be able to stop Spammers (or pollutors or corrupt congresspeople or warmongers) Close this well and take back control of your country...

Simple - Anyone who values Democracy and dislikes the class-based rule (your present plutocratic government) should join with those who seek to repeal this case. This is the brass-ring with which Americans can restore their Democracy... otherwise, we wait for the next revolution.

Oh, that's crap. As I understand it, one way to troll is to completely go off the handle without bothering to address the substance of what you're objecting to. From that vantage, I don't see how "This argument is crap and I stopped reading" is any less trollish than unloading on RMS and his penchant for insisting that others follow his semantics. People are allowed to think that RMS's opinions are wrong. They are allowed to say so in very strong (even offensive) terms, and simply doing so doesn't make them trolls.

More to the point, if you'd read the entire article you would have hit some interesting stuff. While a good part of it is tiresome KDE vs. Ximian Gnome partisanship, there's also a perfectly reasonable call for the FSF to release information on their finances.

Point is, just screaming "troll" isn't a good enough argument against Powell's article. It fails to contest, for example, Powell's claim that

it is absolutely undeniable that the FSF has thrown its support behind a desktop controlled by two for-profit companies, one of which has an officer who sits on the FSF's board; the same company has purchased advertising aimed at confounding those who are seeking a desktop that is truly free in every rational sense of the word; and the other company has suggested that users can assist its product in surviving but help it avoid paying its bills by donating to the Free Software Foundation, or else an officer of that company has flung down and danced upon his fiduciary responsibilities by saying, in a communication that is part of his corporate function, that people might want to send money to the FSF instead of the company.

I mean, when you look at it that way, it reeks. If the FSF wants to represent the interest of hackers and geeks in the public sphere, I think it's perfectly reasonable that us hackers and geeks call them when they're out of line (or, as is the case here, when there's enough going on to make them look like they're out of line). Just because they're not the RIAA doesn't mean they're saints. If they're not doing anything wrong, the only thing releasing information would do is completely exhonorate them.

Lastly, let's not forget that they're a Foundation, not an individual. Organizations, whether foundations or corporations, can't (or at least, shouldn't be allowed to) claim the same rights as individuals.

Before you go off on me, here's my line of thinking: if you give an organization the same rights as an individual, the organization will have greater rights in a de facto sense. They have resources (time, money, personnel, etc.) to fight when their rights are infringed that individuals simply don't have. I mean, I don't have a legal team to fight for me when I say something that pisses someone off and they take me to court, but major corporations and organizations do. They, by entension, have more real free speech than I do simply because they can defend what they say and I can't -- this holds true even though we technically have the same rights.

The US Supreme Court made a huge mistake when it decided that corporations have personhood. Extending that outward, I think we have every right to see the finances of a corporation or organization, and every right to want to see them when that organization claims to represent us. It's always a good idea to be a little wary of anyone who claims to speak for anyone else, even if they're the FSF, even if they're right most of the time. Just because everything they did yesterday was good doesn't mean we can assume everything they're doing today is all peaches.

America didn't invent the corporation

Well, actually you didnt. But America is responsible for the present state of the Economic World. America has been used by Capitalists as a breading/staging ground on the rest of the planet.

Please read these two links here and here. American Plutocrats have managed to use the natural resources of the unexploited 'America'. They are now starting a campaign of Imperialism this world has never seen through the WTO, World Bank et al.

AMERICANS have got to take control of their Government and bring these groups back to reality... please do it soon... No one likes the direction you're (were) heading.