Slashdot Mirror
David Touretzky Interview
tklancer writes: "Salon has an interview with David Touretzky (the CMU professor who was kind enough to point out to Judge Kaplan that code is speech during the DeCSS trial). He talks about the court decision and several ongoing free speech battles."
Any mostly unknown geek out there can give the MPAA the finger and create a gallery of css descramblers but to do it as a CS professor at a major university, you risk a lot more, so you've got to have balls.
I think Mr. Touretzky has some interesting points. The most important of which is the Amphetamine Anti-Proliferation act.
Whether you're for or against drugs, you have to recognize that the government is starting to over-step it's bounds where freedom of speech is concerned. It's become sort of a "well, we're all for freedom of speech, just not this type of speech" type of thing
There are serious issues here. We cannot allow agencies, or people, or organizations, or judges to out-law some form of speech simply because it is distasteful or even slightly dangerous (in the non-physical form: excluding libel and slander, which are crimes that are alot harder to commit than one would think). This is exactly the type of thing we must prevent in order to secure our more "traditional" freedoms.
I won't go so far to say that code is definitely a form of speech. Personally, i feel that falls under reverse-engineering arguments. But if it's concievable that the government can take away our right to express ourselves in any way, simply because it's unpopular - then they're one step closer to taking away everything else.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
"And if Kaplan's decision stands, the First Amendment is dead."
It all makes sense now, this whole thing was not about DvD's at all. The Government wanted a loophole so it could start censoring the web, and now they have it. They couldn't pass laws to do it, these were struck down as unconstitutional, but now they have case law to do the work for them. From now on all anyone needs is a "Compelling Reason" to have a specific piece of information censored, they can pull this rabbit out of the hat and PRESTO the web is in the United States is as exciting as a rerun of "Leave it to Beaver".
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
Sums it up quite well.
Most people don't realize that DeCSS is not about piracy. Or CPHack is not about porn. That my case is not aboout whinning or tying injuries.
It's about large corporations mis-using the laws and the courts to silence complaints, to hide the chinks in their armor, and hide the fact that the emperor wear no clothes.
Fight Spammers!
Remember one thing: The government is YOUR government. You PAY their salaries, you vote them in/out, and your local MP is meant to listen to his/her constituents and relay this information to parliament.
That's all very true, but the US government, or rather, its parties, seem to care more about their steady revenue stream than about public opinion. Except in election times. Then they suddenly seem to care for both and awkwardly juggle them around to get the favour of both the people vote for them and the corporations who fund them. I love the smell of a conflict of interests in the morning.
Keep this junk in focus people, if you really think this is a violation of your first amendment rights, IGNORE IT.
In the Second World War, when laws against Jews were first instated by the Germans, they at first weren't enforced at all. Jews went to school, went to work, went along with their normal lives as they always had. Then suddenly when the Nazis had enough laws piled up against Jews (and they got pissed off at a mass peaceful protest against the German occupation by Dutch labourers in Amsterdam) they suddenly started to enforce those laws. Not all at once, mind you, but one by one, the same way they were introduced. First, jews couldn't go to school anymore. Then, they couldn't teach or practice medicine anymore. Then doctors couldn't treat Jews anymore. And in the end, everybody knows what happened.
What I mean by this is, you may ignore a law all you like, and it may be (partly) ignored by the government, but the law IS there, setting a precedent for worse laws in the future.
You cannot morally stand idle while your rights are being slowly but surely nibbled at. It seems the American government is boiling the frog by degrees, and up to now they seem to be quite successful. You're certainly falling for it...
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine