Slashdot Mirror
Elcomsoft Case Proceeds; U.S. Claims Jurisdiction
An anonymous reader sent in this Reuters article noting that the Elcomsoft case will go forward. Elcomsoft had asserted that the United States didn't have jurisdiction. This is not really ground-breaking news; Elcomsoft did sell its software to people in the United States and it's not surprising that a U.S. court would claim jurisdiction over this. Elcomsoft is also claiming that enforcement of the DMCA violates the Constitutional right to free speech, and that the part of the DMCA which prohibits distributing devices which circumvent protection measures is so vague that enforcement of it violates the Constitutional right to due process under the Fifth Amendment. (See EFF's archive for more.) One or both of these claims may have a greater chance of success than the jurisdiction claim.
When you college dimwits quit slashdot and get jobs in this evil "proprietary" world, you are gonna piss your pants when you discover that its nothing more than shit like the RIAA.
If anyone here is a politically minded and educated college student, they would have realized this already. Take one look at Enron, the Bush family, and the fraudulent, conspiratorial allegations against ex-President Clinton (the Paula Jones incident never happened, it was a perjury trap), it's hard to remain 'comfortable' in this slimy money oriented black market for power. So rather than be cynical and say 'get used to it', let's be novel and try to evolve ideas and fix the problems!
I guess I'm just too much of an idealist.
Cold War Prognosticators thirty years ago would never have predicted or even dreamed that a Russian software company would be defending the rights of Americans and going to court in a bid to uphold the American Constitution.
They probably also wouldn't have guessed that domestic corporations would be more dangerous to American citizens than a nuclear power.