Sklyarov Bail Hearing Monday

mr_don't writes: "I just saw that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has just posted an Action Alert entitled "What YOU Can Do To Help Set Dmitry Sklyarov Free" ... Around 11am on August 6, 2001, at the San Jose Federal Building, Dmitry is set to have another bail hearing in front of Magistrate Judge Edward A. Infante. Protests are planned to coincide with the hearing. I hope as many people as possible can come to the demonstration... Help the EFF pack the courtroom during the hearing." A short article in the Mercury News mentions the hearing too, as well as the half-million dollar, five-year penalty that could be imposed.

Comments

The point

[4n0nym0u53 C0w4rd]

I think it'll take a good deal of work to get the media (and thus, the public) to understand that this case is different from the typical "evil hacker" story. In general, when somebody gets arrested for some type of computer crime, we hear stories about how they "broke in" to top secret systems, intent on destroying or stealing valuable data and wreaking havoc on the poor victim. In this case, it has to be made very clear that this guy did something that was legal where he lived, then came to the US to do something legal, and was arrested. (An excellent example of both time-shifting and space-shifting if I ever saw one).

Second, it should be made very clear that the original complainant, Adobe, has stated that they don't feel he should be charged.

The third point that should be made is that this tool only works for people who have purchased the book, and it allows them to remove certain restrictions, e.g., reading their book on a different computer.

Perhaps what this movement needs is a blind person who uses the tool to enable the read-aloud function of adobe reader to work...

Skylarov being used

[tbo]

Skylarov has become an unwilling pawn in a political game. In two earlier posts, I talked about why Skylarov shouldn't be made into a posterboy for the anti-DMCA lobby. A bunch of people replied, saying that no such thing was happening, and that the protestors were just trying to get him free.

Then I see this post, moderated up to 5, Insightful, saying that we shouldn't free Skylarov early, because he's more valuable as a weapon against the DMCA if he's in jail. Don't you just love all these people are willing to sacrifice an individual in the name of "individual rights"? What a bunch of fucking hypocrites.

DMCA isn't (or shouldn't be) Skylarov's problem. He's Russian, not American, and he didn't vote for the politicians who passed DMCA. Sacrificing him to fight it is just plain wrong. Maybe, if he was American, we could justify such a sacrifice as "his duty to the country" or some such other nonsense, but this is just sickening.

To all those fighting to free Skylarov, keep up the good work. To the rest of you, maybe it's time you gave things a good long thinking over.

Re:Damn Straight

[mikethegeek]

"Unfortunately, the warrant for his arrest came out before he even gave the talk. The warrant was for importation and distribution of (blah blah blah). It seems the company he worked for sold and distributed the product to Americans through an American company."

Doesn't matter, the only reason why there ever was a warrant in the first place was the talk. It was giving the talk that got the fascist bastards Adobe worked up enough to have him arrested under the DMCA. The fact that Dimitry Sklyarov was the target, and not the CEO (who was there at the conference) and other officers at the company is proof positive of that.

Sklyarov was only A programmer who worked on the software, in Russia, under Russian law. He never broke a single American law in American jurisdiction.

The fact that the charges are about anything BUT the talk he gave is proof of what they really are about, and proof of just how vulnerable the DMCA really is to challenge.

BTW, I'm not one who is willing to forgive Adobe just because they now say they won't support the prosecution. They are still SOLELY to blame for this travesty, and the soul of whomever is responsible WILL bear this. It's important to boycott Adobe (I converted every PDF I use to another format and uninstalled every PDF reader on my PC's). I'm not willing to ever buy or recommend buying or USING ANY Adobe product for any reason until they publically apologize, AND start spending $millions on lawyers to defend Sklyarov. Until then they've done NOTHING to make good on what they did, that is even if they DO realize what they did was wrong.

We sysadmins, techs, engineers all are those trusted within our companies for advice on products. We ALL need to actively recommend agaist Adobe. Even a MS solution is preferable, as even they haven't stooped to the level of having someone imprisoned.

Re:Damn Straight

[aozilla]

Doesn't matter, the only reason why there ever was a warrant in the first place was the talk.

Technically true, because without the talk they wouldn't have been able to arrest him. There's no way Russia would have cooperated to extradite.

Sklyarov was only A programmer who worked on the software, in Russia, under Russian law. He never broke a single American law in American jurisdiction.

And for this reason he will probably be found not guilty. But there is some evidence that he was involved in a conspiracy to sell the product, to US citizens living in the US, using a US company. Probably not enough evidence to convict, and probably not even enough to surivive a preliminary motion to drop the charges, if he has a good lawyer. But the fact of the matter is he probably was involved in a conspiracy to import the product into the US. Again, the charges have nothing to do with the talk, and if the government is smart they won't even bring up the talk in the trial, if there is one, and they can completely eliminate one source of possible appeal.

The fact that the charges are about anything BUT the talk he gave is proof of what they really are about, and proof of just how vulnerable the DMCA really is to challenge.

The fact of the matter is that the FBI was involved for a long time before the talk was even planned. They tried to shut the company down, and they failed. Then idiot boy decided he was going to come to the US and shove it in their faces. That's why idiot boy is now in jail. I'm not sure how this constitutes a challenge to the DMCA. Reality and legality are two seperate issues.

Re:Contacting your lawmakers

[Jazz Fiddler]

There is nothing idealistic about the reverie. This is very practical. Just because some of the folks ignore you doesn't mean they all will.

I used to think that writting your congressman was useless until I talked to several congress men and women from both the state and national level. They do listen. It is their choice to pay attention. One of them made comment that if they don't hear from us as to what is important to us, then they are making their decisions in a vacum. If we give them input and they ignore it, then we find a better candidate to vote for the next election. One retired member of the US House told me that he and his staff assumed that for each piece of information that a person sent to them, no matter what the form, there had to be at least a 100 people that felt the same way in the same area that person was from. It's simple math, nothing realy idealistic about it.

If I thought this was the only thing to do, I would be deluding myself. If I was in the area around where the hearing was taking place, I would be there. That not being the case, I will do what I can.

As an editorial comment that is not meant to offend, if you are a US citizen and are old enough to vote but are not registered to vote or don't vote, please register to vote and vote. End of editorial comment.