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Feds Enter Blackberry Fray
Rick Zeman writes "Blackberry addicted US Feds have entered into the patent dispute between Canadian company Research in Motion and US patent-holders NTP. From the article: 'The Justice Department has filed a legal brief in a patent dispute, asking a federal court to delay any immediate shutdown of the popular wireless e-mail system to ensure that state and federal workers can continue to use their devices.' Apparently 10% of US Blackberry users are government users."
This is getting ridiculous. The only ones who are really suffering from these patent battles are end users, who in this case will find their email inaccessible if the injunction goes through. I hope the government tells 'em the patent's invalid.
that the governments broken patent system has come back to bite them. probably better they get the least desirable outcome in this case which may highlight the need for patent reform better when it's hurting them.
sometimes it seems no one gives a crap about patent reform but us nerds, but now that some patent cases are hurting the government, maybe they will begin to listen?
-- lol pwned
It was my understanding that the last time I checked into the RIM v NTP dispute, the injunction exempted government Crackberry users from being shutdown. I work as a sysadmin at a large state university and all our campus and departmental PHBs have been warping their thumbs non-stop throughout the legal battle. They and I were under the impression that state and federal employees were not threatened by the suit/injunction/etc.
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Am I wrong? Fill me in
RIM has gone over the judge's head before, appealing to congress to stop the judgement in the name of "national defense". Looks like they've gotten their wish.
The point is in the title: the US government is dependent on a foreign corporation for an essential infrastructure. That fact isn't "xenophobic", in the perjorative sense, just in the real sense of identifying the risk and threat from foreigners, which is completely established by millennia of history.
Canada is our ally, and a reasonable partner - usually more reasonable than we are. But a national security that's dependent on a foreign power is insecure. Exceptions can't be made on any basis, even including a hypothetical exclusive source for a useful technology. And Blackberry isn't the exclusive source for pushed mobile email - just the most popular, and maybe the easiest. This dimension to the conflict shows the security requirements of ensuring American tech is at the forefront. Even if just by ensuring an American company, entirely governed by the American government, has a license from the foreign supplier, and the means to produce independently if suddenly cut off. Of course, it also shows how the Feds mismanage national security, prioritizing fear and $BILLIONS in expenses, without identifying actual risks.
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make install -not war
There is a fairly long history of US dependence on Canada in national security matters. The DEW line springs to mind. Also, Northern Telecom supplied a fairly large number of military telephone switches and even some crypto gear. A fair amount of equipment used in our space program is of Canadian design. It seems to me government employees using a COTS communication device supplied by them is a much smaller risk. If the government isn't going to use things of foreign manufacture, it is likely to be much worse off considering the large amount of technological equipment that is only manufactured overseas.
Beyond that, Canada is probably the lowest risk non US supplier one can imagine. They are independent, and there are occasional squabbles, usually over arcane trade issues, but they are so like us and so tied to us economically and culturally it is hard to imagine a major meltdown that would be a serious impediment to US national security. On the other hand, the last time we did get into a shooting war with them, they came down and burned the White House.