Slashdot Mirror
Still in DMCA Prison
Let's go over the Sklyarov situation. Sklyarov is still in jail. In fact, he's still in Las Vegas, where he is being held without even a bail hearing, much less bail. The excuse given for not having a bail hearing when he was arrested on July 16 was that he was being immediately transferred to San Jose and would get a hearing there. Anyway, a recap of the protests: San Jose, more San Jose, New York, Seattle, Chicago writeup and Chicago pictures, Moscow writeup and Moscow photo and news coverage: New York Times, Business2.com. Wired has Washington's viewpoint - Representative Coble says "there have been very few complaints from intellectual property holders". Well, duh. Linuxplanet has an opinion piece exploring the Digital Millennium Rape Act. Finally EFF has written a letter to U.S. Attorney Mueller, asking for the U.S. to drop the charges against Sklyarov. It seems pretty doubtful that he will, since he won't want to be seen as soft on crime during his Senate confirmation hearings.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Habeas Corpus is Latin for "Produce the body". In legal terms, it means that the government can't imprison someone for more that a couple days without charging him with a crime. I do believe that Sklyarov has already had an arraignment hearing where he was formally charged, then denied bail, so he already had his Habeas Corpus rights fulfilled.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
Woah! I dunno where you got that idea, but the US Consitution applies to every human being within the US borders. Even illegal aliens are protected by the constitution.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Boston write-up and pictures, Wired article on the protests, On-line petition, IDG story, CNN copy of the original Reuters story (better late than never!), ironic page on the AAP website (the AAP issued a press release defending Adobe and the DMCA).
[
Boston Globe:
Adobe shifts, urges hacker's release
CBS News:
Hacker Held Under New Law
ABC News:
Russian programmer arrested at hacker convention for alleged violation of copyright law
MSNBC:
Adobe seeks release of Russian programmer arrested at Def Con
New York Times:
U.S. Arrests Russian Cryptographer as Copyright Violator
Arrest Raises Stakes in Battle Over Copyright
Protesters Target FBI Nominee Over Russian Arrest
Adobe Opposes Prosecution in Hacking Case
Those all seem pretty mainstream to me.
--
Free Mac Mini
-Thomas Jefferson
And ill probably be arrested for quoting him.
But why are we playing by their rules? If we really want to be heard, we should use our abilities to make ourselves heard. America needs the developers, techies, and computer savvy people who oppose the DMCA to function as a country, to remain economically viable, and to remain internationally competetive.
Personally, I think we should show the nation just how much power they've inadvertantly given us. We should strike, or perform some equivalant that cripples the software and internet infrastructure that runs this economy. We should make a statement that shows that unless America listens to the very people who have created this Digital World, we're not going to give it to them anymore.
Sure, we'll get initially labeled as "evil hackers" and social miscreants, but we're educated enough to know that that's the price of freedom. And we're also the only people who can bail the country out of a technical catastrophe. The fact is that America needs us much more than America needs bogus laws that protect the wealthiest of companies. And we're everywhere, in every industry, and influencing every aspect of life.
Like the Patriots who threw tea overboard in Boston Harbor to protest unjust laws, we shall show that without the foundation technology upon which the Nation depends, no law prohibiting it's advancement and the open table research thereof shall survive or be tolerated.
When Howard Coble says:
"The law is performing the way we hoped... As far as I know there have been very few complaints from intellectual property holders."
what he means is
"My customers are very happy with their purchase."
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
- Analogises the crime of copyright infringement with the crime of rape.
- Analogises the prosecution of people for copyright infringement with the wholesale massacre of Jews.
- Wastes half of its length on a boring anti-gun-control rant utterly unrelated to the topic, and
- Destroys the entire case for freedom of information by claiming that hackers should be seen as analogous to mobs killing each other in Chicago (I am not making this up -- the fool's argument is that if hackers want to break the law they will do no matter what the law, therefore they should be allowed the tools to do so)
Quotes like "It's impossible to favor gun regulations and oppose computer regulations and remain philosophically consistent. " are calculated to get half the reasonable people in this country thinking that the DMCA must be a good thing after all, and the linked article's author is a prick of the worst kind for trying to hijack a genuine issue of liberty for his own half-assed political program. Even Eric Raymond has always had the common sense not to stoop this low.I always wondered whether there was a site out there with worse journalistic standards than Slashdot. Michael's found it, and he's linked to it. Congratulations.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Perhaps someone should file a Habeus Corpus petiton?
maybe it's a good thing (long term) that he's not being released. at least then some people might see just what a ridiculous thing this act is... and some courts might have a chance to blow the DMCA out of the water.
For those of you who are webmastering (and who isn't, at least on the side), think about placing EFF's blue ribbon on the front page of your site. Besides being really cool, it helps get out the message that the DMCA is curtailing OUR freedom of speech and keeping an innocent man in jail.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
I use Adobe's PDF format and its Acrobat software to publish texts. If I can't get independent review of the software from noted scholars, then I'm going to be trusting my "very valuable" intellectual property to potentially bad software. That sounds bad for writers and artists everywhere. I also hate the copy protection mechanisms because they gum up the works in my office.
The FBI's job is to enforce the law. Not to enforce only good law that makes sense.
I say, enforce the bad law, expose it for what it is, and get it ruled as unconstitutional. Or, get congress to change the law, in light of the bad ways it is required to be enforced.
It's just sad that some poor sod has to sit in jail while this process goes on.
Just keep in mind, the folks who made the law are to blame, not the folks mandated to enforce it.
Above comment is personal opinion. Poster is not a spokesperson.
no he hasn't
You can't be charged with a Federal Felony without a grand jury determination that :
a) a crime has been committed
b) you are the person that likely committed that crime.
This little thing called the US Constitution requres this.
If you want to know more of the rules do a findlaw search on federal criminal procedure.
CNN recently posted an interview with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft who states "[t]he idea you can get away with it ["cybercrime" (this is an undefined term)] here is an idea we must curtail ... There are no free passes in cyberspace." Ashcroft comments he plans to create "Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) units staffed by 77 personnel, including 48 lawyers" modeled after the existing unit in California, currently prosecuting Dmitry Sklyarov, created by FBI Director nominee Robert Mueller "whose nomination is expected to receive little opposition in Congress."
The CHIPs plan to hold illegal sites and post "a warning that the site has been seized by law enforcement" and present a "clear message that cybercrime carries real penalties for offenders."
The article further states that current EFF Executive Director, Shari Steele, addressed a letter to Ashcroft requesting the release of Sklyarov. Ashcroft had no comment regarding his ageny's charges against Sklyarov.
It looks DMCA will soon accrue an army or firm of brand new federal government attorneys under the Bush administration.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
Ok, and you would not mind to be Dmitry and sit in prison during the duration of such a judgment? I doubt it. This man is not even a U.S. citizen, this is our problem --- this is America's problem that must be settled within our borders and subjecting a non-American to the worse attributes (prison) of such a test is a disgust. Yes, DMCA should be tested. But, not with this case. Dmitry needs to return to Russia to his family.
Let DMCA be tested by Americans. This nation we live in is responsible for this damn law; we should be the ones who deal with it; who correct the wrong.
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
I find it ironic that the current chairman and former CEO of Adobe was quoted as saying that one of the worst parts of being kidnapped is the forced separation from ones family. Isn't that what he has ( in part ) done to Sklyarov ?