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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."
Perhaps you haven't heard... Diebold is a huge supporter of the Republican party, and I'm sure they have more than enough friends in office right now (including Dubya, to whom Diebold's CEO has promised to deliver the state of Ohio). I'd be surprised if anything actually comes of this in anywhere besides California (if anything even happens there).
The Republicans are SET on making sure that our votes are "counted" by going to electronic voting, and it's something that they want to tightly control. Hell, they walked out - WALKED OUT - of a federal hearing on voting machines.
Answer is simple. Corporations are not people. The rights of people should always trump the rights of corporations, end of story. Unfortunately, with the republicans in office, the exact opposite is true. For instance, think about all the router manufacturers (and others) who are illegally distributing GPLed software. Under the current (anti music sharing) laws, that comes to 1/4 million dollars and 5 years in prison per offense, multiply that by a million or so, and we're talking a trillion dollars give or take, and at least 50 years per employee.....
Now, why have none of these cases ever gone to court? Oh, that's right, because corporations aren't subject to the laws of the land like mere pople are. Sorry, my bad.....
People who don't understand the issues shouldn't vote on them.
Yes, but aging Bible-thumpers *are* voting. The question is whether they can be counteracted or not.
May we never see th