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."

Comments

Re:DMCA

[The Analog Kid]

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.

Re:This is just not good

[Eccles]

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.

Re:I think Diebold needs special treatment

[speedfreak_5]

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?

Re:This is just not good

[Ironica]

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.

Re:This is just not good

[spiritraveller]

It's a perfectly appropriate and applicable case. The newspaper in this case DID receive the information lawfully.

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.

Re:Remember the bill of rights?

[orthogonal]

Maybe parent's don't want their children's dead bodies paraded on CNN to be USED by the opposition as a political device?

Maybe the parents do. Let's ask Sue Niederer, mother of slain soldier Seth Dvorin (emphasis orthogonal's):

But many relatives of soldiers who died in Iraq believe the White House is trying to cover up what is happening there. Sue Niederer said she was refused permission to see the return of her son Seth Dvorin's body as it was flown into the Dover base. Lieutenant Dvorin, 24, from the 101st Airborne Division, was killed in February while trying to disarm a roadside bomb, a task for which he was not trained.

Speaking from her home in New Jersey, Mrs Niederer said: "They killed my son and they did not permit me to be there to see the coffin. They said it was for health reasons, and ... they did not want the public to see it and they did not want the newspapers there." She added: "They don't want any of this being shown because it's reality. A coffin strikes home. If you don't see the coffin you just say: 'Oh, there's another one who has died.' But when you show the coffin, you show families, you show people and emotions. This is what they are doing this is what they do not want you to see."

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?