DoJ Supports Dismissal of Felten v. RIAA Case

phalse phace writes: "The EFF is reporting that the Department of Justice has filed a motion to dismiss the pending Felten v. RIAA case because it's "not ripe" and it fails to address serious First Amendment problems. (Yeah, like threatening to sue someone for presenting their research on digital music access-control technologies isn't a serious First Amendment problem.) The preliminary statement of the DoJ's memorandum states: "Plaintiffs have not been prosecuted under the DMCA, nor have they been threatened with such prosecution...""

Comments

Is anyone really surprised?

[Rinikusu]

No, really, I'm serious. ARE YOU REALLY SURPRISED?

The government has been shown to come down on the side of "big business" time and time and time again. Even in it's (in)action against Microsoft, it still benefits not you, not me, not Joe consumer, but Oracle, Sun, and Apple. It's getting to the point where *no one* cares. We've become desensitized to the idea of the government belonging to he who has the cash... You read the paper "Government sides yet again with major corporations" and just shrug it off. "What, a politician has been bought? NOOOO!!" Sarcasm will kill us all.

Yes, the government passed the wiretapping bills the other day. Privacy and freedom are disappearing in the name of "defending democracy and freedom". The Onion's story had it right.

It's mightily convenient. Look at Seattle and the Riots of 1999. There's a groundswell of people who are becoming fed up with what's going on. They don't know why, they can't agree on what to replace what we have with. It's akin to the Revolutions of 1838 (?) in Europe. Protestors without a clear and concise goal, they just know we're pissed off.

The new laws will affect the people who are fighting, in vain, to bring awareness to us all. They will now have to be more careful when planning "political action" (marches, protests, etc), else be labeled "terrorists." The corporations we despise now control the means to watch us. The corporations have gotten military sponsership. Adbusters will be equated to El Quaida. LINUX users will be labeled as "potential internet terrorists". You just watch and see. Ever notice how all these little script kiddies being busted are shown to have had "linux" machines? Linux is being equated to badness. They never mention Windows or Macs in that context, do they? Think.

Yes, the DOJ supporting throwing this out comes as no surprise to me.

I hope they throw out the case. If that doesn't wake you, the so-called last bastions of intellect and free market thinking, nothing will. Yes, you whom Jon Katz has labeled as "The world's future", this is your fight and you're about to lose. You're about to find out that you mean nothing to those with money. How does it feel? Maybe the hippies are on to something. Maybe those left-winger idiots are right. Maybe there is something rotten in this country and it's not the free-market. There is no free-market.

The faster they throw out this case, the closer we'll be to the end. Of what, I don't know. It's time for a change.

Jesus, I need to get off the decaf.

A letter from the UN HC Human Rights

[Sara Chan]

The following letter appears in this week's edition of The Economist (it's online, but at a charge):

SIR - You correctly identify one of the key challenges for governments in dealing with the threat of terrorism--how to respond to the terrible crime against humanity committed on September 11th without undermining the very freedoms and liberties that the terrorists sought to destroy ("Liberty v security", September 29th). The attack was against more than just buildings and people. It was an attack against fundamental values that now, more than ever, need to be protected and reinforced.

However, in asserting that civil libertarians need to accept a balance between security and liberty, you underestimate the true balance already built into the human-rights system. The drafters of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and similar provisions in other documents such as the European Convention on Human Rights, may not have anticipated the horrific events of September 11th but they did provide for them. Existing human-rights law addresses the issue of competing values and allows some limitation of certain rights to respond to pressing public or social needs, but not so as to jeopardise the essence of the rights concerned.

In the past, the need to oppose terrorism has sometimes been used to justify unacceptable actions by states. I endorse Colin Powell's reported comments to the effect that global action against terrorism does not constitute a licence to violate human rights. Not only can the eradication of terrorism and the defence of our most cherished values be pursued simultaneously, indeed they must.

--Mary Robinson, UN high commissioner for human rights, Geneva

I'm glad to see some support like this.