Slashdot Mirror
McOwen Case Settled
ewilts writes: "Back in July, you ran a story about David McOwen, a computer adminstrator at DeKalb Technical College in Georgia, who was being charged for installing SETI software on school computers. This case has now been settled. See also the EFF press release
on McOwen's web site." Update: 01/18 16:11 GMT by M : It was software from distributed.net, not SETI.
Being a native Georgian (southwest Georgian for that matter...Albany - a REAL backwater), and a comparatively savvy technogeek, I am filled with horror. These idiot lawyers are going to do everything they can to make a name for themselves in whatever context they consider important, intelligence be damned. Of course, if in doing so, they drag the name of Georgia back into the yeehaw days (Gawrsh, Goober, that there computey-thang shor is makin' them nekkid wimmens look purty an' all. Gimme a chaw.), they don't care.
Georgia is full of intelligent, growing technologists - startups, academics, and all-around geeks. These barristers' motives are pure old-fashioned power plays, making a name for themselves and wielding power over those who don't respect them. Please don't consider all of us Georgians hicks; we geeks live in a meritocracy separate from these backwater jackasses we elect or appoint to office.
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
Also note that in nearly every jurisdiction there are tons of other laws that could apply, and thus the rapist would get a similarly large number of counts.
California for example says that sodomy (defined as anal penetration) with someone unwilling or underage (2 counts if they are both unwilling *and* underage) is a seperate crime. There are other, similar, laws that make various differentiations between very similar acts, so usually a rapist can still end up with 10+ counts and probably well over 30 years