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Ummm.. An MBA is not a law degree. Google fair use and parody http://www.kentlaw.edu/perritt... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

you think there's some reasonable interpretation of International Law that allows a completely man-made structure to be seen as territory?

A warship.

This has been tried. See the story of "TakemymoneyandnoEulasapply@aol.com." That seems to have had no effect. For an overview of current law, see this legal commentary on terms of use.

When companies have tried to enforce the provisions of an EULA against consumers, the courts have not been that supportive. This usually comes up involving mandatory arbitration clauses and anti-class-action provisions. PayPal lost in court on that one.

And, as always, grammar nazism has its place. In choosing "that" rather than "which", the writer has not meant:

• Restore civil liberties because civil liberties are so precious to the British people,

i.e. the classical liberty of freedom of expression (deployed as speech, assembly, photography etc., all coming under the same principle); instead quite specifically aiming to:

• Restore only those civil liberties which are somehow identified as "precious" to the British people.

This has further degenerated to:

• Consider those civil liberties which a small unrepresentative set of Internet lurkers with too much time on their hands (who may not even be eligible British voters) want to babble about.

Which proves that you haven't actually read the manifesto and are just trolling. Freedom of speech and assembly are specifically addressed, and the problems with photography are coming about because of abuse of anti-terrorist legislation which is also specifically addressed. How much of that they can actually get past the Conservatives is questionable (although quite a bit of that was in the Conservative manifesto too) but all the things you say are not there actually are there. Grammar Nazis get it wrong again.

"we will introduce a Freedom Bill to restore the civil liberties that are so precious to the British character"

And, as always, grammar nazism has its place. In choosing "that" rather than "which", the writer has not meant:

• Restore civil liberties because civil liberties are so precious to the British people,

i.e. the classical liberty of freedom of expression (deployed as speech, assembly, photography etc., all coming under the same principle); instead quite specifically aiming to:

• Restore only those civil liberties which are somehow identified as "precious" to the British people.

This has further degenerated to:

• Consider those civil liberties which a small unrepresentative set of Internet lurkers with too much time on their hands (who may not even be eligible British voters) want to babble about.

And, if current LD coalition behaviour is a model for future LD behaviour, this will become:

• Selectively pick and reinterpret, proposing instead a compromise which no majority wants.

If a man with a history of duplicity offers you something which appears too good to be true, you do not say, "Where do I sign?" Instead you ask yourself, "How is he trying to trick me this time?"

(For a model of past effectiveness, see the Number 10 e-petitions scheme: to reinforce the government's will where in agreement, and to be ignored otherwise.)

Not exactly. Generally, all of the airspace over a territory is within the jurisdiction of that terrority. However, at least in the United States, the federal government has sole jurisdiction over the navigable airways; state jurisdiction does not apply. There's a very interesting blog article about airspace jurisdiction, written about 1 year and half ago on a college legal blog.

I believe the airspace over international waters, is treated exactly like the international waters themselves.

IANAL, TINLA, etc.

There were no dialup modems to which you and your buddies could connect, no external connections to MILNET at all.

Actually there was a way in. Then at UC Berkley Cliff Stole found someone had gained access to a system at Berkley which was then used to access military computers. He later wrote a book, "The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage", about it. Some crackers, as they didn't follow the hacker ethic I won't call them hackers, in Germany being paid by the KGB was able to gain access. Stole found them because of a 75 cent discrepancy between two computers, the one broken into and an accounting system that tracked usage and billing.

You sir, are an pompous ass without a clue-.

I challenge you to find a linguist (Your high-school English teacher who barely graduated college is not a linguist and is most certainly not an authority on language of any kind [except, of course, to her browbeaten high-school students]) who does not agree that a language is 'defined' by usage. Prescriptive definitions arise out of usage, and as the language evolves they quickly become obsolete. Thus while they may serve as useful references for both learning and for identifying universally acknowledged common usages, they most certainly should not be used as authorities for the proscription of usages. Even French, which attempts to be prescriptive [or rather, which the government of one of the nations which speaks it attempts to prescribe] so as to preserve its identity, is de facto if not de jure defined by usage. It is a primary linguistic principle proven by both repeatable experimentation and extensive observation.

See for instance the definitions of gay, nice, ironic etc. from the OED for just a few examples of words whose meanings have evolved significantly over time.

A quick google search would have revealed to you plenty of authorities on the subject.
How about the following two:
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst is hardely "some other dude on SlashDot or GeoCities or IBoughtAnOfficialLookingDomain.org"
The Law Review at Chicago Kent points out (albeit indirectly) the invalidity of your claim specifically with respect to the law

The legal status of shrink-wrap licenses in the US is somewhat unclear. At particular issue is the difference in opinion between the courts in Klocek v. Gateway and Brower v. Gateway. Both cases involved a shrink-wrapped license document provided by the online vendor of a computer system. The terms of the shrink-wrapped license were not provided at the time of purchase, but were rather included with the shipped product as a printed document. The license required the customer to return the product within a limited time frame if the license was not agreed to. In Brower, the Supreme Court of New York ruled that the terms of the shrink-wrapped license document were enforceable because the customer's assent was evident by his failure to return the merchandise within the 30 days specified by the document. The U.S. District Court of Kansas in Klocek ruled that the contract of sale was complete at the time of the transaction, and the additional shipped terms contained in a document similar to that in Brower did not constitute a contract, because the customer never agreed to them when the contract of sale was completed.

I started googling for an agreement I thought I knew existed between the US and the EU stating that the country where the server is hosted has juridiction over transactions over the net where the customer and the server are in separate countries. I'm starting to doubt it actually exists.

I found this document discussing the issues. Sadly it's written in 1999.

I'm not aware of anything that reconizes an EULA as a contract.

I'm not sure if it is windows live, but my school, Illinois Institute of Technology - Chicago-Kent Law School uses something called Outlook web access which is functional enough in Firefox on linux and osx for most students at school.

https://webmail.kentlaw.edu/exchweb/bin/auth/ckmai l.asp

That's the only way to check your email at the school. No pop3 and no imap.

The school says from the 1st day of orientation that all student's laptops must be running winows xp professional. That's right, the school says nothing will work on any other OS and tells students that no support will be provided for anything else. I have a suspicion that they were trained in some MS boot camp and get paid a little bonus to say this to students every year. This results in ~200 sales of XP for Microsoft every year from just one school. At ~$100 each, that's $20,000/yr. I imagine that our school will force everyone to upgrade to vista soon for another big check for MS. Seems to be a great way for MS to force entire groups of people to upgrade to the newest MS OS offering.

Talk about perfect timing. Does anyone know of a Duke Nukem 3D map converter that goes from there to say Unreal? There's one but development only goes up to 2000 and it's incomplete. Of course there's the legality, but for those who already own the game, there shouldn't be a problem.

BTW anyone know if this is any good?

Don't have any which rules them as non-binding, however here are links to a couple of cases which show that EULAs are very legally binding.

http://www.svmedialaw.com/ecommerce-9-eula-upheld- in-dmca-hacker-case.html
http://www.kentlaw.edu/legalaspects/tony_brower.ht m

There has been a lot of discussion about my call for software liability in a column entitled Whose fault is it anyway?, and it shows that this is an issue which needs some serious attention.

"it" is an unclear variable reference. Does the pronoun "it" refer to the call for software liabilty or the column itself? Also, the title of the column should be italicized, underlined, or capitalized for clarity. Finally, the phrase "a lot" is depreciated.

There is also a big difference between consumer software like word processors and web browsers, and the massive information systems used internally in large companies.

Syntax error. No comma is needed after "browsers".

The companies writing the large systems usually have contracts which mean they are liable for damages, and this increases both the cost and the reliability of the resulting programs.

Syntax error: a comma should proceed a "which" as discussed in rule 11.

Many readers commented on the difference between free/open source software and commercial software when it comes to guarantees, and criticised my use of the licence for the Firefox browser as an example.

Syntax error: no comma is needed after guarantees.

something that is paid for

Better: "something for which one pays"

But liability for consequential damage is different from guarantees of proper working.

Awk. Please unobfuscate this sentence.

Cars are a good example here. Motor vehicles have to be safe, and there are rules and regulations governing their development and production which, by and large, keep the roads safe from exploding cars. It does not stop accidents caused by driver error or poor maintenance, but it does make us safer.

Again, confusing pronoun reference. The "it" in the second sentence seems to refer to "rules and regulations". If this was the intent, please correct to "they" as this could cause unexpected results.

And if a group of people build their own cars then they have to follow those same rules in order to be allowed to use public roads, even if they gave their cars away.

The second variable "they" above refers to "group" not "people", which is singular. This sentence could be further optimized. Suggestion: "If a group built their own cars, it would still have to follow those same rules to use public roads, even if it gave the cars away."

It should be the same for software

Uninitialized variable. What is "it"? Please specify.

It is possible to make error-free code, or at least to get a lot closer to it than we do at the moment, but it takes time and effort. Doing it...

Overuse of "it". Please be more explicit in your casting.

Bill, please check your fixes as soon as possible before someone gets the idea to sue. Thanks. /sarcasm

6 days a week, for a dollar or so. Kids to have to work too, in factories and mines.
But your ancestors fought back, and finally won some decent working conditions. Some of them died for our working conditions.

When the investor class gets its way, we Americans will be back to those kinds of conditions. But you don't care, right? As long as YOU can handle it, as long as YOU are OK, then everything is OK, right?

Is this is the same David Cook who created the infamous TaskMaker game for the Mac platform?

A database isn't tangible property.

I would agree with you, but look at how the court argued in United States vs Riggs back in 1990 (yes, the famous E911 BellSouth document case) about applying the "interstate transfer of stolen goods" rule to an electronic file. When the issue of tangibility was brought up, the court briefly compared the electronic file with "a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas", arguing that the "interstate transfer" rule could reasonably be applied to the gas in spite of its "intangibility". Now, even an odorless gas does consist of very tangible atoms, and it seems to me like a rather weak argument for applying the law also to what is essentially a transmission of information. If a TV station broadcasts a movie without paying royalties, is that "interstate transfer of stolen goods" too?

In the E911 case, the "value" of the stolen document was heavily inflated, quoted as $79,499 when a paper copy was actually available from Bellcore for $13.

There are actually two pieces of intangible property involved here. One is the original work as such, the database that may have cost a lot of time and money to compile. The other is an electronic copy of said original, perhaps available for a modest fee. I believe that in both the E911 case and this AOL case, only the copies have been transferred. The difference is that copies of the E911 document was available for sale, while the AOL customer database appearantly wasn't. How do you determine the "value" of something that isn't legally available for sale? Are we talking black market prices with respect to the copy (what someone is prepared to pay for it) here, or estimated damages to the database owner caused by the misappropriation of the information in it?

When a copy of a printed book is stolen, the value is considered to be the retail price for the copy (and that copy is quite tangible). No license fee for a reprint or damages for copyright infringement is ever involved. If an original manuscript is stolen, that is quite a different thing. But if you make an unauthorized copy (on paper) of an unpublished manuscript?

What you are referring to is enforceability of those laws. True, the US may not be able to enforce its laws against those resident in other countries who do not have presence or assets in the USA.

But it means anyone connected with such an operation better not have assets in the US. Or even visit the US.

And, depending on how the law is drafted, perhaps no person in the US (or with assets there) better use such an operation to *send* spam, or face being prosecuted, or other consequences. Vide internet gambling.

So that US laws, alone, could stop (a) American spammers; and (b) anyone in or doing business with America or visiting America or with assets there (NYSE shares, anyone?) from *using* overseas spammers who do not comply with US law.

And for those that are left, the US can just lean on other countries to enact similar laws, either as part of international treaties (GATT and TRIPS, anyone?) or bilateral trade treaties, or just by leaning on them.

Methinks that would do a great deal to cut down on spam...

If you doubt this, see how effectively the US is able to export its copyright laws to other countries. Or Sarbanes-Oxley, as applied to foreign lawyers or accountants. And how it is now doing the same thing with bank secrecy laws (with an emphasis on terrorism; it has done the same previously with respect to evasion of US taxes). There are many relevant links.

99% of the "deep web" probably looks like this. Indexable? Sure. Necessary? No.

(b) HABEAS CORPUS AND JUDICIAL REVIEW.--
(1) IN GENERAL.--Judicial review of any action or decision relating to this section (including judicial review of the merits of a determination made under subsection (a)(3) or (a)(6)) is available exclusively in habeas corpus proceedings consistent with this subsection. Except as provided in the preceding sentence, no court shall have jurisdiction to review, by habeas corpus petition or otherwise, any such action or decision.
(2) APPLICATION.--
(A) IN GENERAL.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, including section 2241(a) of title 28, United States Code, habeas corpus proceedings described in paragraph (1) may be initiated only by an application filed with--
(i) the Supreme Court;
(ii) any justice of the Supreme Court;
(iii) any circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; or
(iv) any district court otherwise having jurisdiction to entertain it.

It authorizes the Attorney General to detain certified terrorists for additional periods of up to six months if their removal is unlikely in the near future and if the alien's release will threaten national security or public safety. It limits judicial review of such detention to habeus corpus proceedings.

And as far as I can tell Klocek v. Gateway is the latest case saying shrinkwrap agreements aren't worth the bits they flip.

This an interesting collection of some related cases.

Can't find what i want because what i said is not true in canada, but if you read this, i think you'll agree that blank cd-rs can hold far more then audio recordings, thus the logic from the same ruling that settled the question of the rios status can be applied to blank cdrs.

Since cdrs can hold far more then just music (just like a hard drive can), they arent taxed (with the exception of audio cdrs, which are).

Good question! Answer: I have no idea. I know very little about private international law, that is, private entities suing each other.

It appears to be a question in flux -- this symposium looks specifically at jurisdiction (the ability to bring cases) and enforcement (the ability to get another country to help you collect).

Here is WIPO commentary on digital rights issues, mentioning 2 recent "Internet treaties." In April WIPO will have a Summit on Intellectual Property and the Knowledge Economy in Beijing.

As for best/worst case scenarios, the US is the 800-lb. gorilla here, and has a ton of intellectual property. The US will have to decide what it thinks the rules should be, then twist arms to get others to sign or or else go it alone. The flip side is that countries like China have not cared much about enforcing IP rights; piracy is a regular business there. This will be a hot issue between the world's have and have-nots, as well as between those on each side of the intellectual property debate.

This is why FatWallet needs to keep pressing the charges of the 512(f) provision and not let Wal*Mart settle out of court.

The problem is that there is at least one court case CDN vs. Kapes where the 9th Circuit ruled that lists of prices ARE copyrightable, because the merchant showed creativity in deciding their prices.

ObDisclaimer: IANAL, but WalMart's lawyers are, and with the above case as precedent, they could almost surely argue their takedown request was in good faith...

Here is a patent suit by the owner of the patents that PanIP claims. It is a good read because American Airlines was found to not be infringing because they were not using ALL the features the patent was for.

http://www.kentlaw.edu/student_orgs/jip/patent/loc kwood.htm

All joking and attempting to dispute the patent aside it might be worth a look to see if your company is violating everything in the patent, if not you can get off (though I am no lawyer).

"I seem to recall hearing stories of courts overturning these schemes; does anybody have any specifics? Cases/judicial opinions, perhaps? I've checked FindLaw, Google, and others, but haven't found anything"

Adobe Systems, Inc. v. One Stop Micro, Inc.

BACKGROUND

Adobe is a software development and publishing company. Among other things, Adobe makes educational versions of their software, which are available to students and educators at a significant discount. Defendant One Stop buys and sells computer hardware and software on the open market. Adobe alleges that One Stop improperly acquired an educational version of Adobe software, which it then adulterated and sold as full retail versions to non-educational users. In its complaint, Adobe alleges that the agreement was a licensing agreement and not an actual sale, that One Stop infringed Adobe's copyright, and that One Stop infringed Adobe's trademark.

DISCUSSION

The court found that the Off Campus Reseller Agreement, which governs the educational seller's relationship with Adobe, was a licensing agreement and not an actual sale. Because the first sale doctrine, implemented by the defendant, is triggered only by an actual sale, and because a copyright owner does not forfeit his right to distribution by entering into a licensing agreement, this factor weighs in favor of the plaintiff. The OCRA is a licensing agreement. Thus, contrary to One Stop's assertions, the OCRA does not represent a first sale between the seller and Adobe. One Stop's failure to trace its Adobe products to a sale renders the first sale doctrine inapplicable and subjects One Stop to potential liability under copyright law.

The court also found that One Stop committed copyright infringement as a matter of law under Section 501(a). By obtaining Adobe software from a party to an Adobe licensing agreement, One Stop was bound by any restrictions imposed by that agreement. Thus, One Stop committed copyright infringement.

Lastly, the court found that One Stop did not infringe Adobe's trademark. Although Adobe attempts to parallel its case to Shell Oil, the Court found Shell Oil distinguishable. The court found that the mere distribution by One Stop of admittedly unadulterated software is insufficient to establish trademark infringement.

CONCLUSION

In Adobe Systems, Inc. v. One Stop Micro, Inc. the Northern District of California held that the agreement under which software was distributed was a licensing agreement, not subject to the Copyright Act provision that copyright did not extend to resale of copyrighted items following their initial sale. The court also found that the license agreement applied to the distributor, even though it was not signatory. Last, the court held that the distributor committed copyright infringement by violating the licensing agreement.

Once again, I attend IIT, so maybe I'm biased here. I also know Dean Perritt and Harold Krent. In fact I've worked closely with Hank Perrit on a variety of projects. We didn't always get along, but I feel confident he will do a good job.

As a bit of a background, Perritt was one of the founders of a program called "Project Bosnia" which is designed to help restore the information infrastructure to Bosnia. Since then it has expanded to KRISYS Net (Kosovo Refugee Information System Network). I had the fortune to work with Perritt on both of these projects. Perritt is very aware of many of the issues that can come up from the filtering of information and government snooping of information as a result of these projects.

I've heard some comments about not being a criminal law expert or constitutional law expert. KentLaw is probably the best school to do this because it has such a focus on technology law. All you need to do is to look at the homepage and see the school has it's stuff together when it comes to the internet and the new world order.

As for IIT's relationship to this whole thing. KentLaw and IITRI operate fairly independently of the school and the main engineering school didn't have much (or anything at all) to do with the proposal. I'm not sure why the names were kept confidential, I just asked who was in charge of it and got a response in a few hours.

Let's see...
Henry Perritt
Here is his bio and home page. Excerpt from a paper of his: The Internet is a revolutionary phenomenon. It is not just a technology, but a way of organizing and connecting human activity, which emphasizes decentralization, specialization, and global cooperation. It is not merely a means for facilitating existing market and political institutions, but a way of redefining them altogether. The Internet is a new kind of market. It can be an electronic town hall in which rules are made, or an electronic courthouse in which disputes are decided.
...
The Internet threatens civic institutions such as the press, old interest groups, and professions (including the bar).
...
The Internet threatens established interest groups because it makes their techniques of recruitment, organization, and maintenance of membership solidarity less relevant.
...
The Internet also threatens market institutions such as stock exchanges.
...
In a larger sense, the Internet threatens traditional political intermediation because it threatens governmental control.
...
Not only must America's existing commitment to rule of law and interstate dispute resolution continue and be strengthened; America must also be more articulate in stressing the need for strong collective security arrangements.

Harold Krent
His bio and list of publications. I plan to review Executive Control Over Criminal Law Enforcement: Some Lessons From History, 38 AM. U. L. REV. 275 (1989).

What disturbs me is that neither Perritt or Krent are experts in criminal and/or constitutional law. It seems to me that that type of experience is what is truly needed while evaluating Carnivore. Carnivore is essentially a device, like any other device employed by law enforcement, for tapping information. I am constantly pissed off when the rules are bent, like in the case at hand, to treat an Internet-related device any differently. Moreover, the dean and the associate dean are to evaluate carnivore? They are one of the same.
Any opinions?
Please excuse me, this information makes me want to vomit.

Let's see...
Henry Perritt
Here is his bio and home page. Excerpt from a paper of his: The Internet is a revolutionary phenomenon. It is not just a technology, but a way of organizing and connecting human activity, which emphasizes decentralization, specialization, and global cooperation. It is not merely a means for facilitating existing market and political institutions, but a way of redefining them altogether. The Internet is a new kind of market. It can be an electronic town hall in which rules are made, or an electronic courthouse in which disputes are decided.
...
The Internet threatens civic institutions such as the press, old interest groups, and professions (including the bar).
...
The Internet threatens established interest groups because it makes their techniques of recruitment, organization, and maintenance of membership solidarity less relevant.
...
The Internet also threatens market institutions such as stock exchanges.
...
In a larger sense, the Internet threatens traditional political intermediation because it threatens governmental control.
...
Not only must America's existing commitment to rule of law and interstate dispute resolution continue and be strengthened; America must also be more articulate in stressing the need for strong collective security arrangements.

Harold Krent
His bio and list of publications. I plan to review Executive Control Over Criminal Law Enforcement: Some Lessons From History, 38 AM. U. L. REV. 275 (1989).

What disturbs me is that neither Perritt or Krent are experts in criminal and/or constitutional law. It seems to me that that type of experience is what is truly needed while evaluating Carnivore. Carnivore is essentially a device, like any other device employed by law enforcement, for tapping information. I am constantly pissed off when the rules are bent, like in the case at hand, to treat an Internet-related device any differently. Moreover, the dean and the associate dean are to evaluate carnivore? They are one of the same.
Any opinions?
Please excuse me, this information makes me want to vomit.

Let's see...
Henry Perritt
Here is his bio and home page. Excerpt from a paper of his: The Internet is a revolutionary phenomenon. It is not just a technology, but a way of organizing and connecting human activity, which emphasizes decentralization, specialization, and global cooperation. It is not merely a means for facilitating existing market and political institutions, but a way of redefining them altogether. The Internet is a new kind of market. It can be an electronic town hall in which rules are made, or an electronic courthouse in which disputes are decided.
...
The Internet threatens civic institutions such as the press, old interest groups, and professions (including the bar).
...
The Internet threatens established interest groups because it makes their techniques of recruitment, organization, and maintenance of membership solidarity less relevant.
...
The Internet also threatens market institutions such as stock exchanges.
...
In a larger sense, the Internet threatens traditional political intermediation because it threatens governmental control.
...
Not only must America's existing commitment to rule of law and interstate dispute resolution continue and be strengthened; America must also be more articulate in stressing the need for strong collective security arrangements.

Harold Krent
His bio and list of publications. I plan to review Executive Control Over Criminal Law Enforcement: Some Lessons From History, 38 AM. U. L. REV. 275 (1989).

What disturbs me is that neither Perritt or Krent are experts in criminal and/or constitutional law. It seems to me that that type of experience is what is truly needed while evaluating Carnivore. Carnivore is essentially a device, like any other device employed by law enforcement, for tapping information. I am constantly pissed off when the rules are bent, like in the case at hand, to treat an Internet-related device any differently. Moreover, the dean and the associate dean are to evaluate carnivore? They are one of the same.
Any opinions?
Please excuse me, this information makes me want to vomit.

Let's see...
Henry Perritt
Here is his bio and home page. Excerpt from a paper of his: The Internet is a revolutionary phenomenon. It is not just a technology, but a way of organizing and connecting human activity, which emphasizes decentralization, specialization, and global cooperation. It is not merely a means for facilitating existing market and political institutions, but a way of redefining them altogether. The Internet is a new kind of market. It can be an electronic town hall in which rules are made, or an electronic courthouse in which disputes are decided.
...
The Internet threatens civic institutions such as the press, old interest groups, and professions (including the bar).
...
The Internet threatens established interest groups because it makes their techniques of recruitment, organization, and maintenance of membership solidarity less relevant.
...
The Internet also threatens market institutions such as stock exchanges.
...
In a larger sense, the Internet threatens traditional political intermediation because it threatens governmental control.
...
Not only must America's existing commitment to rule of law and interstate dispute resolution continue and be strengthened; America must also be more articulate in stressing the need for strong collective security arrangements.

Harold Krent
His bio and list of publications. I plan to review Executive Control Over Criminal Law Enforcement: Some Lessons From History, 38 AM. U. L. REV. 275 (1989).

What disturbs me is that neither Perritt or Krent are experts in criminal and/or constitutional law. It seems to me that that type of experience is what is truly needed while evaluating Carnivore. Carnivore is essentially a device, like any other device employed by law enforcement, for tapping information. I am constantly pissed off when the rules are bent, like in the case at hand, to treat an Internet-related device any differently. Moreover, the dean and the associate dean are to evaluate carnivore? They are one of the same.
Any opinions?
Please excuse me, this information makes me want to vomit.

Let's see...
Henry Perritt
Here is his bio and home page. Excerpt from a paper of his: The Internet is a revolutionary phenomenon. It is not just a technology, but a way of organizing and connecting human activity, which emphasizes decentralization, specialization, and global cooperation. It is not merely a means for facilitating existing market and political institutions, but a way of redefining them altogether. The Internet is a new kind of market. It can be an electronic town hall in which rules are made, or an electronic courthouse in which disputes are decided.
...
The Internet threatens civic institutions such as the press, old interest groups, and professions (including the bar).
...
The Internet threatens established interest groups because it makes their techniques of recruitment, organization, and maintenance of membership solidarity less relevant.
...
The Internet also threatens market institutions such as stock exchanges.
...
In a larger sense, the Internet threatens traditional political intermediation because it threatens governmental control.
...
Not only must America's existing commitment to rule of law and interstate dispute resolution continue and be strengthened; America must also be more articulate in stressing the need for strong collective security arrangements.

Harold Krent
His bio and list of publications. I plan to review Executive Control Over Criminal Law Enforcement: Some Lessons From History, 38 AM. U. L. REV. 275 (1989).

What disturbs me is that neither Perritt or Krent are experts in criminal and/or constitutional law. It seems to me that that type of experience is what is truly needed while evaluating Carnivore. Carnivore is essentially a device, like any other device employed by law enforcement, for tapping information. I am constantly pissed off when the rules are bent, like in the case at hand, to treat an Internet-related device any differently. Moreover, the dean and the associate dean are to evaluate carnivore? They are one of the same.
Any opinions?
Please excuse me, this information makes me want to vomit.

1. It's not IIT that's reviewing it, it's the Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute (IITRI). What? It's "affiliated" with IIT? OK, that's all right then.

2. It's not Kent State (which is in Ohio), but Chicago-Kent College of Law, which is part of IIT in Chicago.
--

Chicago-Kent is the law school of IIT, and not even remotely related to Kent State. Check out http://www.kentlaw.edu/ for more details.

Very clever! You have convinced me.

Hurrah! I've won the argument. Hmm. Perhaps not. I think I detect sarcasm.

Next time my coffee is not 98.6 degrees F, I will sue the restaurant. Because IF it is hotter than that I could possibly burn myself.

Well, we're not speaking of coffee that is merely warmer than 98.6 Farenheight. We're speaking of coffee that is hot enough to cause third degree burns. For comparrison, I keep my hot water heater at home around 120 Farenheight and the water is not hot enough to cause second degree burns. It might be hot enough to cause first degree burns if I soaked in it long enough.

Let's look at the hard facts of the case ( some of which were taken from here and some of which were taken from here ).

1. McDonald's policy at the time was to server coffee at between 160 and 180 degrees, 20 degrees higher than the industry standard
2. The coffee in question was likely to have been hotter than 180 degrees
3. The accident caused third-degree burns on more than 6 percent of the plaintiff's body
4. The burns were so extensive as to require skin grafs and a week long stay in the hospital
5. The plaitiff originally requested reimbursement for actual medical expenses of $11k and only spoke to a lawyer when McDonald's only counter-offered $800
6. McDonald's had already ignored more than 700 similar claims of coffee burns
7. McDonald's refused a third party mediator's reccomendation to settle out of court for $225k
8. McDonald's lied about the over 700 prior incidents in court
9. The Jury tied the 'extravagent' punitive damages to their profit on coffee. based on McDonald's annual profits of more than $1 billion annually, and more than $1.3 million gross daily coffee sales, the jury levied two days of coffee sales receipts as punitive damages for a punitive damage award of $2.7 million The plaitiff had never asked for that exhorbitant sum
10. The judge knocked the actual award down to somewhere around $400k

Here's an idea using my "keen sense (use) of logic and reason", next time you're faced with the horrendous beast of boiling coffee that is too hot to drink...go to the soda machine...hit the little ice button...put an ice cube in the drink.

Personally I don't think I should have to risk third degree burns to myself or the people around me when I go get a cup of joe. It would be different if (a) this were an isolated incident or (b) this were the first incident. As it stands, I don't think causing over 700 documented injuries (some of which were to children) due to burns is indicative of an eye to public safety. I think ignoring that number of injuries does border on being criminally negligent.

At no time have you proved your point

Considering that you have yet to offer an argument that is anything other than an appeal to emotion or an ad hominem attack, I'm not altogether concerned whether you agree with me or not.

Lose the attitude and grow up.

Coming from a person that has yet to offer anything even approaching a reasonable argument, I find the request that I grow up to be fairly amusing.

have a day.

As far as Canadian courts enforcing a judgment against a Canadian person entered by a U.S. court, there is a recent case, Braintech where a Texas court issued a judgment against a Canadian and the Canadian court decided that the behavior didn't violate Canadian law and wouldn't enforce the Texas court judgment.

Such jurisdictional issues are a hot topic in legal circles. If you want to see how a lawyer thinks about these issues, read the text of a speech given yesterday at a conference at George Mason University here. The American Bar Association has an "Internet Jurisdiction" project which you can read about here.

Finally, I think it is important to remember that there are international treaties relating to intellectual property that are very valuable to U.S. citizens because our higher than average standard of living is based, to a significant degree, on the IP that we create. You can read the two treaties that are the basis for the DMCA under the "documents" section here.

I'd like to address some of your points.

1) What I mean is that he projects that capitalism utterly beat communism. But if you measure government vs. private sector, you see for the past 200 years, government is taking up an ever increasing share... This is not untrue. However, his point was that multinational corporations will eventually overrun governments, and the governments will even be operating as businesses instead of public-interest organizations; the world that Bruce Sterling's describing, looks a lot like modern feudalism - the exact opposite of communism. Feudalism is pure hypercapitalism on methamphetamines - it's where the people with the big money control your life. See: tyranny of the land holders. Also see: Robocop's OCP, or the Company Town (also look here)...

2) Uh, what riches? You call his situation 'rich'? And most people would love the idea of getting rich without working for it. Ever heard of the Lottery?

3) Sterling is wise to lambast the problem of the huge population and the lack of children. Look at what he said: his own life expectancy is 110 years. People in his generation, and probably the one before, are going to grow to be very old and gray. To say nothing of the newborns of his time, who would live to be 150. Not seeing my point yet? Go check out Japan. Lots and lots of old folks. Fewer and fewer workers to support them. Their economy is taking serious hits from this burden and it hasn't even started to affect them yet. In Sterling's time and scenario, you have 7 billion people, aging to over 100 years average, and very few kids coming up to support them. This will result in an extremely top heavy population (age wise), and in the US the social security burden would take our crushed economy (in his scenario) and grind it into powder. You'll also see a sharp rise in forced euthanasia, because in that ultra market driven world, an elderly person who is just too expensive to keep providing medical care for, and so on, will be "encouraged" (very strongly so) to put an end to the burden on their family, by visiting Kervorkian. This already DID happen in Germany. A top heavy population with no hope in sight for a baby boom, is one of the worst possible economic situations a nation can get into, and it is guaranteed to cause either a depression, or a national policy switch to the game of lifeboat ethics. Do the 'math' on the dynamics of a population with a less than 1.8 child per couple ratio sometime.

Sterling's scenario isn't perfect; nobody's is. But his scenario is more realistic than you think.

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63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,