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You are already required to report cases of child abuse in most states.

The article mentions this existing law...
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00013032----000-.html
No monitoring requirements, no evidence preservation, weak, etc.
So, you already have to report known cases.

This bill, or is it this one.. is a lot more specific.

The only new monitoring requirement is that a court may require convicted child abusers to use a monitored internet connection and the provider will get an extra $50 a month.
Here's another useful tidbit..
`(f) Protection of Privacy- Nothing in this section shall be construed to require an electronic communication service provider or a remote computing service provider to--
`(1) monitor any user, subscriber, or customer of that provider;
`(2) monitor the content of any communication of any person described in paragraph (1); or
`(3) affirmatively seek facts or circumstances described in subsection (a)(2).

I'm confused by the different versions too, but what is all the fuss over? I don't see where this will have any real impact on commercial WiFi providers, or individuals.

You are already required to report cases of child abuse in most states.

The article mentions this existing law...
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00013032----000-.html
No monitoring requirements, no evidence preservation, weak, etc.
So, you already have to report known cases.

This bill, or is it this one.. is a lot more specific.

The only new monitoring requirement is that a court may require convicted child abusers to use a monitored internet connection and the provider will get an extra $50 a month.
Here's another useful tidbit..
`(f) Protection of Privacy- Nothing in this section shall be construed to require an electronic communication service provider or a remote computing service provider to--
`(1) monitor any user, subscriber, or customer of that provider;
`(2) monitor the content of any communication of any person described in paragraph (1); or
`(3) affirmatively seek facts or circumstances described in subsection (a)(2).

I'm confused by the different versions too, but what is all the fuss over? I don't see where this will have any real impact on commercial WiFi providers, or individuals.

I realize a lot of the reaction from Slashdot has been based on the article. However, the article bears little resemblance to the actual Bill(broken link)

I may be missing something, but I read the Fine Article, and then I read the Fine Bill, and the two don't jibe.

From TFA:

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including "obscene" cartoons and drawings--or face fines of up to $300,000.
That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, hotels, and even some government agencies that provide Wi-Fi. It also sweeps in social-networking sites, domain name registrars, Internet service providers, and e-mail service providers such as Hotmail and Gmail, and it may require that the complete contents of the user's account be retained for subsequent police inspection.

`(a) Duty To Report-
`(1) IN GENERAL- Whoever, while engaged in providing an electronic communication service or a remote computing service to the public through a facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce, obtains actual knowledge of any facts or circumstances described in paragraph (2) shall, as soon as reasonably possible--
`(A) complete and maintain with current information a registration with the CyberTipline of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or any successor to the CyberTipline operated by such center, by providing the mailing address, telephone number, facsimile number, electronic mail address of, and individual point of contact for, such electronic communication service provider or remote computing service provider; and
`(B) make a report of such facts or circumstances to the CyberTipline, or any successor to the CyberTipline operated by such center.

`(f) Protection of Privacy- Nothing in this section shall be construed to require an electronic communication service provider or a remote computing service provider to--
`(1) monitor any user, subscriber, or customer of that provider;
`(2) monitor the content of any communication of any person described in paragraph (1); or
`(3) affirmatively seek facts or circumstances described in subsection (a)(2).

The way I read it, if someone go to Joe Blow's coffee shop and Joe sees him looking at kiddie p*rn, Joe is obliged to report it, but he doesn't have to look over his patrons' shoulders. And AT&T is not obliged to set up some special wiretapping room or keep logfiles so they can rat people out.

IMHO, if you come across someone committing a serious crime, you have a moral duty to report it, and I think child pornography falls into that kind of crime. The vote (409-2) indicates that most people would agree.

I'm curious about the two congressmen/women who voted against it -- and Declan McCullagh.

What part of the Bill is unenforceable? It only states that if you run a free-wifi service and realize that one of your "patrons" is engaged in child pornography that you must report it. This to me is simply common sense. Nothing in the bill talked about offensive cartoons. Nothing referred to anime. The Bill states child porn which has already been defined by the U.S. Supreme court as NOT being animated.

I realize a lot of the reaction from Slashdot has been based on the article. However, the article bears little resemblance to the actual Bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:2:./temp/~c110gRla7T::

Here's a link: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:2:./temp/~c110gRla7T::

Personally I would not pay. IMO it is Fair Use for me to make a backup copy of the DVD movies I purchase. I'm no lawyer, but it seems that the DMCA does allow for copies made for fair use. I'm referring to Sec.1201(c)(1). It seems like there may have been a case that ruled in favor of DVD ripping for personal use considered fair use, but I may be confusing that with the contrary. Regardless of the way it is, I feel that it is fair use for me to rip my legally purchased DVDs for personal uses only. I'm in the process of ripping all my DVDs to my server so I can watch it on demand from my TV or one of the computers. Once I'm done with ripping them, I'll be putting them into storage for safe keeping and freeing up much needed shelf space.

Actually, Ron Paul has sponsored several laws and Constitutional amendments to ban abortion. On the federal level. He might claim to be for states rights, but try looking up some of the laws he has sponsored. Seriously. Just because a candidate knows how to talk to you doesn't mean you should ignore his actual record. Ron Paul is all for legislating his personal morality, and his record shows it.

...He's against network neutrality, he's tried to repeal federal health and worker safety laws twice, he's tried to repeal the minimum wage, he's tried to weaken unions, he's tried to get rid of anti-trust law, to permit federal kickbacks, and much, much more. I haven't been able to find anything about his stance on privacy, but given his record I'm fairly sure he's entirely opposed to federal privacy laws.

Please -- look up Ron Paul's record before you talk about what a great guy he is.

Actually, Ron Paul has sponsored several laws and Constitutional amendments to ban abortion. On the federal level. He might claim to be for states rights, but try looking up some of the laws he has sponsored. Seriously. Just because a candidate knows how to talk to you doesn't mean you should ignore his actual record. Ron Paul is all for legislating his personal morality, and his record shows it.

...He's against network neutrality, he's tried to repeal federal health and worker safety laws twice, he's tried to repeal the minimum wage, he's tried to weaken unions, he's tried to get rid of anti-trust law, to permit federal kickbacks, and much, much more. I haven't been able to find anything about his stance on privacy, but given his record I'm fairly sure he's entirely opposed to federal privacy laws.

Please -- look up Ron Paul's record before you talk about what a great guy he is.

Actually, Ron Paul has sponsored several laws and Constitutional amendments to ban abortion. On the federal level. He might claim to be for states rights, but try looking up some of the laws he has sponsored. Seriously. Just because a candidate knows how to talk to you doesn't mean you should ignore his actual record. Ron Paul is all for legislating his personal morality, and his record shows it.

...He's against network neutrality, he's tried to repeal federal health and worker safety laws twice, he's tried to repeal the minimum wage, he's tried to weaken unions, he's tried to get rid of anti-trust law, to permit federal kickbacks, and much, much more. I haven't been able to find anything about his stance on privacy, but given his record I'm fairly sure he's entirely opposed to federal privacy laws.

Please -- look up Ron Paul's record before you talk about what a great guy he is.

Actually, Ron Paul has sponsored several laws and Constitutional amendments to ban abortion. On the federal level. He might claim to be for states rights, but try looking up some of the laws he has sponsored. Seriously. Just because a candidate knows how to talk to you doesn't mean you should ignore his actual record. Ron Paul is all for legislating his personal morality, and his record shows it.

...He's against network neutrality, he's tried to repeal federal health and worker safety laws twice, he's tried to repeal the minimum wage, he's tried to weaken unions, he's tried to get rid of anti-trust law, to permit federal kickbacks, and much, much more. I haven't been able to find anything about his stance on privacy, but given his record I'm fairly sure he's entirely opposed to federal privacy laws.

Please -- look up Ron Paul's record before you talk about what a great guy he is.

A few things in response...

Firstly, I believe I had already thoroughly established my understanding of the domain of intellectual property since my paper titled "Technology and the Music Industry: Music Distribution via the Internet" was written in 1996 at the University of Minnesota. Secondly, contrary to your opinion, I can read. In fact, much of my research in that paper was based on a 600-page dissection of intellectual property practices of RIAA and the music industry, including the entire text of Title 17, Chapter 1, of US code, which I've read backwards and forwards. This book, titled "This Business of Music" was published by two experienced IP attorneys, Sidney Shemel and M. William Krasilovksy... one of whom served as General Counsel for intellectual property at Warner Bros. Records.

Secondly, I am a registered copyright owner. I have published a screenplay that was registered both with the Writers Guild of America (west) and the Library of Congress, US Copyright Office, under Registration Number PAu002532809 on October 25, 2000. In fact, I filed a cease & desist notification against a company that was erroneously reproducing portions of my work on an adult oriented search engine. It took less than thirty minutes for the website administrator to comply with my request for removal of the material.

Thirdly, I worked with Qwest Communications Internet Security Enforcement Group for three years and processed hundreds of DMCA investigations per week submitted by RIAA, MPAA, BSA, IDSA, and other criminal investigations involving local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. I have, in the course of that work, been closely involved with our own attorneys and General Counsel.

That being said, upon another examination of Mr. Tehranian's paper I count only two instances of egregious claims of copyright infringement that do not pass the litmus test for Section 107 applicability. These are:

1. The violation of Hanna Barbera's copyright in the likeness of Captain Caveman.

2. The public performance of Mildred S. and Patty Hill's "Happy Birthday", Copyright Warner-Chappell Publishing.

Neither of these examples are likely to be pursued with civil or criminal action as the expenditure to do so far exceeds the potential reward... but I find it interesting that you didn't point out these two and only examples of infringement or the fact that Hanna Barbera is no longer the copyright owner of record since its dissolution and reformation as Cartoon Network.

The rest of the examples given, notably extrapolated in the footnotes (pp. 543-547) are in fact erroneously cited as copyright violations. Footnote 33 is a great example. Works published by the United States government are de facto public domain. The reasoning given in footnote 33 is erroneous because even a cursory examination will show that the litigation was not against individuals for having infringed the copyright. This is not a defensible position. If I were to make photocopies by myself for nonprofit, informational purposes, and then share them with colleagues in a meeting or via the internet, this would constitute fair use. What was of issue in these examples of case law was the fact that Kinkos and other companies were attempting to make a margin of profit on the reproduction of these works for individuals who had requested copies. I was at University of Minnesota at the time. The University Bookstores were affected by these cases. The result was that they could not charge a service fee over and above the basic per page copy fee, as had previously been the practice. Thus, their remedy was simply to avoid making copies on behalf of individuals... but individuals could still go to self-service copiers and use them, and this still constitutes fair use.

The fact of the matter is that both the blog article AND the research paper a

> I gave the bill a read over, but I don't see where ...

section 899B FINDINGS (3)

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c110:4:./temp/~c110dwH98a:e2349:

the US culture was famously isolationist before and during most of WWI.

The US wasn't really isolationist before WWI. The term Banana Republic comes from the early 1900s when the US, in supporting US businesses importing bananas and other fruits supported undemocratic methods of gaining control of Caribbean and Latin American nations. Teddy Roosevelt's Big Stick comes in part front his sending US Marines to Tangier, Morocco to fight against Berbers who had taken US citizens in Morocco hostage. And about 100 years before that, Thomas Jefferson sent the Marines there to fight Barbary pirates.

I often wondered about this. Lets assume they did store all their emails.

A few years later, when the data becomes part of the public record and a historian looks through them to try and reconstruct the discussion relating to an important decision ... the email archive appears not to contain one or two key emails. Unless another email in the record specifically mentions one of the missing ones "re your email of the 27th" - how would we know that the key emails are actually missing ?

If the records don't become public until years after the event, then there would be ample time for someone to go through and remove all references to one or two specific emails before the archives are published. They might not even need to delete an email, something a simple as removing an address from the cc list could allow someone to claim that they hadn't seen a particular email.

One solution I though of would be for the email server to create a secure hash (a one way hash, like SHA-512 or similar) of every email that went through the system. The system would be setup to publish the list of hashes on a live web server that anyone can download (a gzip file of hashes for each day perhaps).

Any external group like the Library of Congress or Ibiblio, could download and archive their own copy of the hashes for each day.

Them when a historian looks at the email archive a few years later, they can compare the contents of the archive with the lists of hashes stored by the external archives. It wouldn't prevent someone from altering the data in the email archive, but it would make it much more difficult to hide the fact that the archive had been tampered with.

To completely erase all traces of a change would require intercepting the email before it reached the mail server, or modifying the lists of hashes stored by all the external groups afterwards. Not impossible, but much much harder to do.

Does his patent pre-date Z39.50 (1995) http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/markup/01.html/ or even earlier?

I did, and I can see how the author of this blog added a lot of spin. for example: He would deny the use of the Federal court system -- and even Federal precedent -- to people discriminated against because of their religious beliefs or sexual orientation If you read the summary text of Bill H.R. 300 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00300:@@@L&summ2=m&, it's looks like power from the federal courts is being handed down to the states so that they can decide how to handle these issues. If the states have the ability to make laws the way they see fit, then citizens are better represented by them.

I fear that Caesar's army is approaching the Rubicon, as anonymity turns into "Privacy"...
Separation of Power turns into the "Unitary Executive"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory#The_George_W._Bush_administration
Prisoners of War turn into "Unlawful Enemy Combatants"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_enemy_combatants#2001_Presidential_military_order
Torture becomes narrowly defined as pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bybee_memo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yoo
Justice for all succumbs to the "State Secrets Privilege"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri
http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/elmasri_order_granting_motion_dismiss_051206.pdf
As Thomas Jefferson once said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefffed.html
It was true when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, it was true in the Civil War, it was true in the Second World War, and perhaps the time is coming when it will be true again.
You might want to think about which side you're going to be on.

SEC. 221. The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

Wiki??? LOL READ IDIOT Called the Federalist Papers They wrote it http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html

Bills are apparently numbered for each session of Congress.

The 109th Congress's HR1201 AKA "Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2005," a bill to alter the Federal Trade Commission Act to punish companies that mislabel copy-protected CDs, got stuck in committee.

The 110th Congress's HR1201 AKA "Freedom And Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007," a bill to alter Copyright Law to add fair use exemptions, is new.

Adding to the confusion, both were proposed by Rick Boucher.

Bills are apparently numbered for each session of Congress.

The 109th Congress's HR1201 AKA "Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2005," a bill to alter the Federal Trade Commission Act to punish companies that mislabel copy-protected CDs, got stuck in committee.

The 110th Congress's HR1201 AKA "Freedom And Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007," a bill to alter Copyright Law to add fair use exemptions, is new.

Adding to the confusion, both were proposed by Rick Boucher.

Paul has proposed two federal Bills this year that would restrict abortion at the Federal Level, and take it away from the decision of individual states:

• February 15, 2007 - H.R.1094: To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception.
• June 6, 2007 - H.R.2597: To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception.

Has anybody who supports Paul actually taken the time to read his proposed Bills in the House?

Paul has proposed two federal Bills this year that would restrict abortion at the Federal Level, and take it away from the decision of individual states:

• February 15, 2007 - H.R.1094: To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception.
• June 6, 2007 - H.R.2597: To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception.

Has anybody who supports Paul actually taken the time to read his proposed Bills in the House?

See. here's the deal, sport; I am a long time registered libertarian, and have at times in the past been very active within the LP Party. I am one of the few who can honestly state that I voted for Paul to be President in 1988. I have also researched Paul, and have discovered that he is no longer a REAL Libertarian, nor would his policies lead "to reducing the government regulations and protecting personal liberties".

I feel that defining Paul as a "libertarian" almost reaches to the level of being personally defamatory. His campaign statements are oppositional to at least four of the Libertarian Party's Platform Planks:

• I.8 Reproductive Rights
• I.9 Sexuality and Gender
• IV.1 Immigration
• III.1 Crime and Victimless Crime

I will expound upon this as I offer up evidence of Paul's less than unyielding defense of both liberty and The US Constitution by analysing a few of his proposed Bills and Resolutions in Congress this year.

H.J.RES.46: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to deny United States citizenship to individuals born in the United States to parents who are neither United States citizens nor persons who owe permanent allegiance to the United States.

Constitutional Amendment - States that a person born to a mother and father, neither of whom is a citizen of the United States nor a person who owes permanent allegiance to the United States, shall not be a citizen of the United States or of any state solely by reason of U.S. birth.

Paul's whole anti-immigrant posturing is both anti-libertarian, and counter to the original Intents of This Nation's founding. If you are opposed to non-American born residents in the U.S., that is one thing, but DO NOT attempt to foist off this belief as "protecting personal liberties", as it hinders the personal liberty of many, who are just looking for a better life. It is facially opposed to The LPs Immigration plank too. This proposed Constitutional Amendment would go even farther, and would withhold citizenship from even humans born within The Nation's Border.

H.R.193: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make higher education more affordable by providing a full tax deduction for higher education expenses and interest on student loans.

Make College Affordable Act of 2007 - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow taxpayers, their spouses, dependents, and grandchildren a tax deduction from gross income for certain higher education expenses and for interest on certain student loans. Includes as higher education expenses undergraduate tuition and fees and reasonable living expenses while attending an institution of higher education.

H.R.1056: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow individuals a credit against income tax for tuition and related expenses for public and nonpublic elementary and secondary education.

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow a tax credit of up to $5,000 (adjusted for inflation after 2007) per student per year for the cost of attendance at any educational institution (including any private, parochial, religious, or home school) organized to provide elementary or secondary education, or both.

H.R.1057: To amend th

See. here's the deal, sport; I am a long time registered libertarian, and have at times in the past been very active within the LP Party. I am one of the few who can honestly state that I voted for Paul to be President in 1988. I have also researched Paul, and have discovered that he is no longer a REAL Libertarian, nor would his policies lead "to reducing the government regulations and protecting personal liberties".

I feel that defining Paul as a "libertarian" almost reaches to the level of being personally defamatory. His campaign statements are oppositional to at least four of the Libertarian Party's Platform Planks:

• I.8 Reproductive Rights
• I.9 Sexuality and Gender
• IV.1 Immigration
• III.1 Crime and Victimless Crime

I will expound upon this as I offer up evidence of Paul's less than unyielding defense of both liberty and The US Constitution by analysing a few of his proposed Bills and Resolutions in Congress this year.

H.J.RES.46: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to deny United States citizenship to individuals born in the United States to parents who are neither United States citizens nor persons who owe permanent allegiance to the United States.

Constitutional Amendment - States that a person born to a mother and father, neither of whom is a citizen of the United States nor a person who owes permanent allegiance to the United States, shall not be a citizen of the United States or of any state solely by reason of U.S. birth.

Paul's whole anti-immigrant posturing is both anti-libertarian, and counter to the original Intents of This Nation's founding. If you are opposed to non-American born residents in the U.S., that is one thing, but DO NOT attempt to foist off this belief as "protecting personal liberties", as it hinders the personal liberty of many, who are just looking for a better life. It is facially opposed to The LPs Immigration plank too. This proposed Constitutional Amendment would go even farther, and would withhold citizenship from even humans born within The Nation's Border.

H.R.193: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make higher education more affordable by providing a full tax deduction for higher education expenses and interest on student loans.

Make College Affordable Act of 2007 - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow taxpayers, their spouses, dependents, and grandchildren a tax deduction from gross income for certain higher education expenses and for interest on certain student loans. Includes as higher education expenses undergraduate tuition and fees and reasonable living expenses while attending an institution of higher education.

H.R.1056: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow individuals a credit against income tax for tuition and related expenses for public and nonpublic elementary and secondary education.

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow a tax credit of up to $5,000 (adjusted for inflation after 2007) per student per year for the cost of attendance at any educational institution (including any private, parochial, religious, or home school) organized to provide elementary or secondary education, or both.

H.R.1057: To amend th

See. here's the deal, sport; I am a long time registered libertarian, and have at times in the past been very active within the LP Party. I am one of the few who can honestly state that I voted for Paul to be President in 1988. I have also researched Paul, and have discovered that he is no longer a REAL Libertarian, nor would his policies lead "to reducing the government regulations and protecting personal liberties".

I feel that defining Paul as a "libertarian" almost reaches to the level of being personally defamatory. His campaign statements are oppositional to at least four of the Libertarian Party's Platform Planks:

• I.8 Reproductive Rights
• I.9 Sexuality and Gender
• IV.1 Immigration
• III.1 Crime and Victimless Crime

I will expound upon this as I offer up evidence of Paul's less than unyielding defense of both liberty and The US Constitution by analysing a few of his proposed Bills and Resolutions in Congress this year.

H.J.RES.46: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to deny United States citizenship to individuals born in the United States to parents who are neither United States citizens nor persons who owe permanent allegiance to the United States.

Constitutional Amendment - States that a person born to a mother and father, neither of whom is a citizen of the United States nor a person who owes permanent allegiance to the United States, shall not be a citizen of the United States or of any state solely by reason of U.S. birth.

Paul's whole anti-immigrant posturing is both anti-libertarian, and counter to the original Intents of This Nation's founding. If you are opposed to non-American born residents in the U.S., that is one thing, but DO NOT attempt to foist off this belief as "protecting personal liberties", as it hinders the personal liberty of many, who are just looking for a better life. It is facially opposed to The LPs Immigration plank too. This proposed Constitutional Amendment would go even farther, and would withhold citizenship from even humans born within The Nation's Border.

H.R.193: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make higher education more affordable by providing a full tax deduction for higher education expenses and interest on student loans.

Make College Affordable Act of 2007 - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow taxpayers, their spouses, dependents, and grandchildren a tax deduction from gross income for certain higher education expenses and for interest on certain student loans. Includes as higher education expenses undergraduate tuition and fees and reasonable living expenses while attending an institution of higher education.

H.R.1056: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow individuals a credit against income tax for tuition and related expenses for public and nonpublic elementary and secondary education.

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow a tax credit of up to $5,000 (adjusted for inflation after 2007) per student per year for the cost of attendance at any educational institution (including any private, parochial, religious, or home school) organized to provide elementary or secondary education, or both.

H.R.1057: To amend th

See. here's the deal, sport; I am a long time registered libertarian, and have at times in the past been very active within the LP Party. I am one of the few who can honestly state that I voted for Paul to be President in 1988. I have also researched Paul, and have discovered that he is no longer a REAL Libertarian, nor would his policies lead "to reducing the government regulations and protecting personal liberties".

I feel that defining Paul as a "libertarian" almost reaches to the level of being personally defamatory. His campaign statements are oppositional to at least four of the Libertarian Party's Platform Planks:

• I.8 Reproductive Rights
• I.9 Sexuality and Gender
• IV.1 Immigration
• III.1 Crime and Victimless Crime

I will expound upon this as I offer up evidence of Paul's less than unyielding defense of both liberty and The US Constitution by analysing a few of his proposed Bills and Resolutions in Congress this year.

H.J.RES.46: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to deny United States citizenship to individuals born in the United States to parents who are neither United States citizens nor persons who owe permanent allegiance to the United States.

Constitutional Amendment - States that a person born to a mother and father, neither of whom is a citizen of the United States nor a person who owes permanent allegiance to the United States, shall not be a citizen of the United States or of any state solely by reason of U.S. birth.

Paul's whole anti-immigrant posturing is both anti-libertarian, and counter to the original Intents of This Nation's founding. If you are opposed to non-American born residents in the U.S., that is one thing, but DO NOT attempt to foist off this belief as "protecting personal liberties", as it hinders the personal liberty of many, who are just looking for a better life. It is facially opposed to The LPs Immigration plank too. This proposed Constitutional Amendment would go even farther, and would withhold citizenship from even humans born within The Nation's Border.

H.R.193: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make higher education more affordable by providing a full tax deduction for higher education expenses and interest on student loans.

Make College Affordable Act of 2007 - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow taxpayers, their spouses, dependents, and grandchildren a tax deduction from gross income for certain higher education expenses and for interest on certain student loans. Includes as higher education expenses undergraduate tuition and fees and reasonable living expenses while attending an institution of higher education.

H.R.1056: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow individuals a credit against income tax for tuition and related expenses for public and nonpublic elementary and secondary education.

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow a tax credit of up to $5,000 (adjusted for inflation after 2007) per student per year for the cost of attendance at any educational institution (including any private, parochial, religious, or home school) organized to provide elementary or secondary education, or both.

H.R.1057: To amend th

Okay! Now THAT is a proper response! Thank you! This will take some research, but you definitely appear to have a very valid point. I hold no sacred candle for the Democrats, and I am pleased to be proven wrong if I can learn something from it.

I will have to look a bit close on this, but thanks for posting the bills.

[hold music]

I pulled up the bills on http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.2128: And you are correct. Strong republican backing in the Senate. That would imply that there is limited Democrat support for this bill, but does not make that an absolute truth. I stand by my previous statement that if the Democrats knew that the permanent ban would not clear the Senate before the temporary ban expired, then the correct thing to do would be to propose the extension and to deal with the permanent ban when time was not such an issue. That being said, I am very curious as to why this bill does not have more Democrat support. I may have to write my legislatures and see what their opinion on the bill is.

-Rick

If the Democrats who voted to condemn Moveon had two brains between them, they would have added language to the bill that condemned the attacks on Max Cleland, John Kerry, John Murtha, the generals who have questioned the war, and Rush Limbaugh's "phony soldiers". Then the Republicans in the Senate would have been forced to condemn the right wing's attacks on those who have served or are serving in the military, or be shown to be political hacks.

[T]he liquid stuff has a far worst nutritional outlook.... all that sugar....

You mean all that high fructose corn syrup is bad for you? Don't tell the corn lobby. America has been using sugar tariffs since before the Spanish-American War over a century ago and does not appear to have stopped since then.

Jones Soda and some other less common brands are switching back to real sugar as a marketing strategy.

The Patent Reform Act of 2007 should make the lives of patent trolls harder.

If you're angry about this, write your senators and tell them to support S.1145. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

Someone mod the parent up...that anyone can read these books at taxpayer expense through the library of congress is a very strong argument against the existence of government censorship.

http://www.loc.gov/

There are many ways to skin this cat. I believe most of them have been mentioned, but I will outline my experiences anyway.

swish-e is a grand-daddy of an indexer. It can act as a robot, crawl your local file system, or get its input from STDIN. If indexing HTML, swish-e will index the document's metatags and provide field searching against them. Swish-e comes with a C, Perl, and PHP API. I don't think swish-e supports anything but ASCII very well.

kinosearch is my new favorite. Written in C but with a Perl API, this indexer works a lot like Lucene. Its resulting indexes (files) may be readable by Lucene. Kinosearch works by initializing a "document" with attributes, filling each attribute with values, and saving the document. Searching is fast an easy. It does not support wildcard searching, but uses extensive stemming instead. Kinosearch does not index files from your file system; you must parse your data and feed it to Kinosearch.

Ht:/dig is nice, but the last time I looked, it had no API. I found this to be too limiting. It indexes documents.

The Google Appliance is cool (and kewl) but also very expensive. This black box (well, it is really gold or blue) does a lot of the work for you. Configuring its output is dependent on your ability to do XSLT. You can feed the Google Appliance database dumps and other streams of data. Nice. I still think the price is steep.

There's Plucene, a Perl port of Lucene. Too slow, and seemingly unsupported.

Lucene and its kin seem to be the Gold Standard these days. I appreciate that, but alas, I don't have any Java experience. Increasingly people swear against SOLR, a Web Services-based interface to Lucene.

Zebra is an unsung hero. It has been around for more than ten years, actively supported and used extensively in Library Land. (I'm a librarian.) This thing can index just about any kind of document. It supports every type of searching feature (stemming, wild card, fielded, Boolean logic, relevance ranked, etc.). It can read files or be fed things from STDIN. Fast!

As an added bonus, I advocate readers explore abstracting their search interfaces with something like OpenSearch or Search/Retrieve via URL (SRU). These abstract layers allow you to create user interfaces to your underlying indexers without worrying what those indexers are. In other words, these abstract layers define the syntax for queries, the transport mechanism to the index, and the structure of the returned result. Given such a framework, you can write an OpenSearch or SRU interface to your index, but if you decide that Lucene is not what you want to use anymore but Kinosearch is, then you can change your indexer without the need to change your user interface. Very nice. OpenSearch is simpler to implement but is weak when it comes to expressive searches and search results. SRU is more robust but also more complicated.

Well, it's not like they didn't try. In 2003 the Protecting the Rights of Individuals Act by Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski and Democrat Senator Ron Wyden. It attempted to put limits on "sneak and peak" searches and roving wiretaps, narrowed the USA PATRIOT Act's definition of terrorism and reinstated judicial review when agencies wished to access library and business records. Not only that, but it would have also restored the primary purpose criteria of FISA surveillance - which is what this court did.

Then there was the Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act , which would have reverted the sections on sneak and peak searches, expansion of pen register and trap and trace authorities, the authority provided to the FBI to gain access to records and other tangible items under FISA, the mandatory detention of aliens, the use of National Security Letters and the broadened definition of "domestic terrorism". Not only that, but it would have restored the primary purpose test for foreign intelligence surveillance under FISA.

Later there was the Security and Freedom Ensured Act (aka SAFE). It would have limited the scope of roving wiretaps, changed the "sneak and peak" delayed notification period from "within a reasonable period" to not later than 7 days after execution of the warrant, restored the requirements for seizure of business records that there are specific and articulate facts that business records are those of a foreign power or agents of a foreign power and prevent the use of National Security Letters to gain access to library records.

Bernie Sanders, Jerrold Nadler, John Conyers Jr., Clement Leroy Otter and Ron Paul proposed an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Bill of 2005 that would have tried to cut off funding to the DoJ for section 215 searches.

None of these attempts went anywhere. However, before you get your knickers in a twist, consider this: the United States is a democratic country. The Bush administration were doing this blatantly. Heck, they wanted to go even further with the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (aka PATRIOT II). Yet, they were still voted in. Tell me now, who was the one who let Bush et al. get these unconstitutional laws passed? Sadly, it was the U.S. people.

I don't live in the U.S. and I don't want to look like I'm passing judgement on a nation I don't reside in. In fact, my personal opinion is that the U.S. has the strongest and best democracy and government the world has ever seen. Truly. It has evolved a system of checks and balances that extraordinarily well. The U.S. Constitution is amazing. The balance between Executive and Judicial power is fantastic. However, hard as it is to say, those living in the U.S. now are really just living on blind luck and have inherited their hard-won freedoms from previous generations. I really don't think that many citizens realise what they are risking when they let maniacs like Dinh, Ashcroft and Gonzalez draft and push through these terrorist laws. If it wasn't for Feingold and Leahy, things would be much worse. And if it wasn't for dissent in the Republican party by such people as Richard Armey, who reported insisted on the original sunsets, U.S. anti-terrorist legislation would be positively dire.

Well, it's not like they didn't try. In 2003 the Protecting the Rights of Individuals Act by Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski and Democrat Senator Ron Wyden. It attempted to put limits on "sneak and peak" searches and roving wiretaps, narrowed the USA PATRIOT Act's definition of terrorism and reinstated judicial review when agencies wished to access library and business records. Not only that, but it would have also restored the primary purpose criteria of FISA surveillance - which is what this court did.

Then there was the Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act , which would have reverted the sections on sneak and peak searches, expansion of pen register and trap and trace authorities, the authority provided to the FBI to gain access to records and other tangible items under FISA, the mandatory detention of aliens, the use of National Security Letters and the broadened definition of "domestic terrorism". Not only that, but it would have restored the primary purpose test for foreign intelligence surveillance under FISA.

Later there was the Security and Freedom Ensured Act (aka SAFE). It would have limited the scope of roving wiretaps, changed the "sneak and peak" delayed notification period from "within a reasonable period" to not later than 7 days after execution of the warrant, restored the requirements for seizure of business records that there are specific and articulate facts that business records are those of a foreign power or agents of a foreign power and prevent the use of National Security Letters to gain access to library records.

Bernie Sanders, Jerrold Nadler, John Conyers Jr., Clement Leroy Otter and Ron Paul proposed an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Bill of 2005 that would have tried to cut off funding to the DoJ for section 215 searches.

None of these attempts went anywhere. However, before you get your knickers in a twist, consider this: the United States is a democratic country. The Bush administration were doing this blatantly. Heck, they wanted to go even further with the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (aka PATRIOT II). Yet, they were still voted in. Tell me now, who was the one who let Bush et al. get these unconstitutional laws passed? Sadly, it was the U.S. people.

I don't live in the U.S. and I don't want to look like I'm passing judgement on a nation I don't reside in. In fact, my personal opinion is that the U.S. has the strongest and best democracy and government the world has ever seen. Truly. It has evolved a system of checks and balances that extraordinarily well. The U.S. Constitution is amazing. The balance between Executive and Judicial power is fantastic. However, hard as it is to say, those living in the U.S. now are really just living on blind luck and have inherited their hard-won freedoms from previous generations. I really don't think that many citizens realise what they are risking when they let maniacs like Dinh, Ashcroft and Gonzalez draft and push through these terrorist laws. If it wasn't for Feingold and Leahy, things would be much worse. And if it wasn't for dissent in the Republican party by such people as Richard Armey, who reported insisted on the original sunsets, U.S. anti-terrorist legislation would be positively dire.

Well, it's not like they didn't try. In 2003 the Protecting the Rights of Individuals Act by Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski and Democrat Senator Ron Wyden. It attempted to put limits on "sneak and peak" searches and roving wiretaps, narrowed the USA PATRIOT Act's definition of terrorism and reinstated judicial review when agencies wished to access library and business records. Not only that, but it would have also restored the primary purpose criteria of FISA surveillance - which is what this court did.

Then there was the Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act , which would have reverted the sections on sneak and peak searches, expansion of pen register and trap and trace authorities, the authority provided to the FBI to gain access to records and other tangible items under FISA, the mandatory detention of aliens, the use of National Security Letters and the broadened definition of "domestic terrorism". Not only that, but it would have restored the primary purpose test for foreign intelligence surveillance under FISA.

Later there was the Security and Freedom Ensured Act (aka SAFE). It would have limited the scope of roving wiretaps, changed the "sneak and peak" delayed notification period from "within a reasonable period" to not later than 7 days after execution of the warrant, restored the requirements for seizure of business records that there are specific and articulate facts that business records are those of a foreign power or agents of a foreign power and prevent the use of National Security Letters to gain access to library records.

Bernie Sanders, Jerrold Nadler, John Conyers Jr., Clement Leroy Otter and Ron Paul proposed an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations Bill of 2005 that would have tried to cut off funding to the DoJ for section 215 searches.

None of these attempts went anywhere. However, before you get your knickers in a twist, consider this: the United States is a democratic country. The Bush administration were doing this blatantly. Heck, they wanted to go even further with the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (aka PATRIOT II). Yet, they were still voted in. Tell me now, who was the one who let Bush et al. get these unconstitutional laws passed? Sadly, it was the U.S. people.

I don't live in the U.S. and I don't want to look like I'm passing judgement on a nation I don't reside in. In fact, my personal opinion is that the U.S. has the strongest and best democracy and government the world has ever seen. Truly. It has evolved a system of checks and balances that extraordinarily well. The U.S. Constitution is amazing. The balance between Executive and Judicial power is fantastic. However, hard as it is to say, those living in the U.S. now are really just living on blind luck and have inherited their hard-won freedoms from previous generations. I really don't think that many citizens realise what they are risking when they let maniacs like Dinh, Ashcroft and Gonzalez draft and push through these terrorist laws. If it wasn't for Feingold and Leahy, things would be much worse. And if it wasn't for dissent in the Republican party by such people as Richard Armey, who reported insisted on the original sunsets, U.S. anti-terrorist legislation would be positively dire.

The budget request for FY 2008 (which starts in two weeks) was for a little over $M703 - about 23.5 times the Google prize.

You jest, but there are currently 243 fields in the MARC21 standard, and the list isn't getting shorter. And I haven't counted how many use attributes are in Z39.50 Bib-1, but it must be pretty close to that.

The moral of this story is that the "something wrong" that you may be doing is using a RDBMS for something that it's not good at.

You've deflected my logic by saying that it's under some other law ...

If you read the DMCA, from what I understand it's not illegal to circumvent DRM for non-infringing use (backups of DVD's, etc.). As far as I can tell, it is illegal to "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic" some thing (program, device, etc.) or some way (method, service etc.) that enables someone to circumvent DRM.

To summarize: it's not illegal to actually do the circumvention for fair use, but it is illegal to make available a way for someone to do so. I'm not a lawyer, but that's what I got from actually reading the law itself.

So it sounds like this guy is in trouble for "offer[ing] to the public" some way to get the coupons in some infringing way.

Oh come now, so the President doesn't make or break science policy? Ever heard of the National Science Foundation? They do a lot of lobbying in congress for science. I think the Pres. has a lot of influence over congress, don't you?

i wonder what percentage of cds released 20-25 years ago actually work nowdays :)