Slashdot Mirror
Trusted Computing/DMCA vs. Diebold Pentagon Paper
The Importance of writes "Diebold's ill-fated e-voting machines have gotten a lot of coverage recently. Of particular interest is the fact that some of the most damning documents are legal memos leaked from Diebold's law firm, Jones Day. The memos were leaked to the Oakland Tribune. Now Diebold's lawyers are trying to suppress their publication. The judge has ordered the documents returned, except for those already published on the internet. Hopefully, the First Amendment will protect the newspaper's rights to hold onto the documents. However, EFF's Jason Schultz points out a very real and very scary scenario in which trusted computing combined with the DMCA makes such leaks illegal, regardless of the First Amendment."
Umm...it's not Clinton's fault for the DMCA, the bill passed Congress unanimously, even if he did veto it, it would have been overturned, and it wasn't just the Democrats, it was bi-partisan legislation.
Now the government is going to allow suppression of freedom of speach, this is not good.
Oh c'mon, the U.S. government? That'll never happen.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
But don't believe for a second that the liberal end of the court will be more protective of your rights. One need only read Kyllo v. United States to recognize that Scalia and Thomas are two of the strongest defenders of liberty on the court. The same can be said for free speech.
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
Well, according to opensecrets.org, for the 2002 and 2000 election cycles, it doesn't look like too much went to the Democratic party. Diebold could have been donating heavily to the democratic party and I still would be pissed because they are biased (not to mention secretive) and in control of the voting process in many places.
Anyways...
Where did you see records of them donating to the democratic party?
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
A. They did release the photos.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Not of their own initiative, and against their internal policies.
B. The photos were not of Iraqi war dead. They were of the Columbia space shuttle astronauts.
*Some of* the photos were, apparently a lot of them. But not all. (According to your source, anyway.)
And the photo that got a woman fired from her job as a military contractor in Kuwait was definitely of Iraqi war dead.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
The decision you referred to is a somewhat faulty analogy: recieving information you know to have been obtained by breach of confidence or you know is being given to you in breach of confidence is different from picking up a report on display in a room which essentially anyone can access. In any event, the statute forbidding the publication of sexual assault victims' identity under any circumstances was shot down because it was far too broad, and couldn't cover situations where the newspaper came by information lawfully (access to the report containing the victim's name was not restricted in any way). The court cannot simply rewrite an offending provision according to whatever feels right to the judicial gut, it can only uphold it or declare it void. There are occasions where reading down or severance of one part of a law is allowed, but (IIRC) in the case of reading down the non-offending interpretation must be acceptable in the light of the intention conveyed by the words of the statute, and in the case of severance (again IIRC) the part of the law to be struck out must be clearly separable from the part to be upheld.
Do a google for "bob novak" and "valerie plame" if you want some examples of a journalist receiving information that was provided to him illegally. The provider of the information broke the law (much like the leak at Jones Day). But Mr. Novak did not break the law in receiving the information... he merely listened. The press has no obligation to shut its eyes or hang up the phone merely because it knows that the person communicating with it has broken the law.
The fact that the informant broke the law does not follow the information in order to somehow make the newspaper guilty.
Maybe the parents do. Let's ask Sue Niederer, mother of slain soldier Seth Dvorin (emphasis orthogonal's):
From "The image turning America against Bush" by Andrew Buncombe, for The Independent (UK)
By the way, if you think news shows showing coffins is "using" the fallen soldiers, what do you think of Bush campaign ads showing the remains of a fallen firefighter being removed from Ground Zero? Surely you'll agree that an advertisement showing mangled remains is worse than a news program showing a casket with an ironed and neatly folded American flag over it? Right? Right?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Having at one point had the dubious distinction of guiding a company that I worked for through the ISO 9001 certification process, then acting as the "quality manager", perhaps I can shed a bit of light. First of all, for all its reputation, ISO 9001 basically certifies that you follow your own processes, if they are bad processes and you can show that you follow them, then you are in compliance with the standard. Even if you are getting customer complaints, if you have and follow procedures to deal with them, then you are in compliance with the standard. If your regular internal and periodic external audits find "discrepancies", you have a period of time to address them, usually at least 6 months and then be re-audited. The whole process of re-auditing, probation and theoretical revocation takes quite a bit of time - and to be honest, the certification companies do not want to take the drastic step because they get paid to do these audits. Re-audits make them money. Revocation looses them a customer. Expect Diebold to remain ISO 9001 certified for some time.
I've finally got around to changing my sig