Lawmakers Caught Again By File-Sharing Software

An anonymous reader writes "A document, apparently a 'confidential House ethics committee report,' was recently leaked through file-sharing software to the Washington Post. According to the article, 'The committee's review of investigations became available on file-sharing networks because of a junior staff member's use of the software while working from home.' Of course, P2P software is entirely at fault for this incident. If you begin seeing more interest in DRM from Congress, you now know why." Reader GranTuring points out that the RIAA took the opportunity to make a ridiculous statement of their own. They said, "the disclosure was evidence of a need for controls on peer-to-peer software to block the improper or illegal exchange of music."

Comments

So...

[XPeter]

Don't blame the person who actually leaked it, blame the damned software!

Ahh...I love politics.

Re:So...

[TheRealMike]

I wouldn't blame the pill bottle for that. Instead, I'd ask "where were the parents when this happened?"

The question is: Why/How could the kid get access to the pill bottle? Substitute pill bottle with knife/weapon/dangerous stuff/ and use the result when needed. Is the safety bottle unbreakable? If not i don't care how hard it is to open it. If the kid get's it hands on it bad things can happen. Mike

Re:So...

[cbiltcliffe]

"I crashed my car because I was texting while driving. #*%?@! car...! "

Most accident reports I've ever read are worded more like:

"The driver was injured when his car left the road and hit a tree."

So, yes, it usually is worded in such a way as to mean "#*%?@! car...!". :-\

Connections

[Wowsers]

So long as two computers can communicate with each other, so you will have P2P.

Luckily, we have politicians who's only education is in English, law, history, politics, art. So it's easy to push any techno-babble on them because they are dangerously uneducated fools.

Re:Connections

[rxmd]

Luckily, we have politicians who's only education is in English...

By corollary, given that they do seem to have an advantage in that area, a solid grasp of English seems like a good idea if you want to convince them of anything.

Re:Connections

[causality]

So long as two computers can communicate with each other, so you will have P2P.

Luckily, we have politicians who's only education is in English, law, history, politics, art. So it's easy to push any techno-babble on them because they are dangerously uneducated fools.

They're dangerous because they are unaware of what they don't know, so they feel qualified (authorized) to make decisions about what they do not really understand.

When the Oracle at Delphi pronounced Socrates the wisest man in all of Greece, Socrates gave a response beyond reproach. He said, "If I am the wisest man, it is because I alone know that I know nothing."

Re:Connections

[nomadic]

They're dangerous because they are unaware of what they don't know, so they feel qualified (authorized) to make decisions about what they do not really understand.

In my experience, politicans are a lot more likely to seek out expert advice in an area outside their realm than techie are.

Re:Connections

[Indefinite, Ephemera]

Are they more likely to take it when they get it...?

Re:Connections

[TheRaven64]

The problem is more subtle than that. They will talk to someone that they perceive as being an expert. Lobbyists working for the relevant industries are probably the only people who they know who are close to being experts (or able to put them in touch with experts). Political think tanks are another source of expert opinions. The end result is that the politicians get a very skewed view of what experts actually believe. There is no good mechanism in place for politicians to get impartial expert opinions. This ought to be the job of the civil service, but they haven't done it well for a good few decades.

Re:Connections

[causality]

That's all too true.

and that's why journalists backed by newspapers gets freedom of the press, while individual bloggers gets court orders and/or sentences...

... by people who have no idea what "the press" was when the 1st Amendment was written. Much of it was not large and institutional. It was often as simple as a concerned citizen distributing pamphlets or starting his own local editorial. The individual bloggers are true to this spirit in a way that the media conglomerates could never hope to be.

More importantly, it was better understood that when you read such materials, you were reading the perspective of the author. It was not taken as the "final word" the way professional news is too-often regarded.

Re:Connections

[commodore64_love]

Earlier this week, he professor used a lecture at King's College, London, to say that smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness and it was actually less harmful than nicotine or alcohol. But on Friday he was forced to quit after receiving a letter from Home Secretary Alan Johnson who said his comments had undermined the scientific independence of the council.

The professor told the BBC..... "Gordon Brown comes into office and soon after that he starts saying absurd things like cannabis is lethal... it has to be a Class B drug. He has made his mind up. We went back, we looked at the evidence, we said, 'No, no, there is no extra evidence of harm, it's still a Class C drug.' He said, 'Tough, it's going to be Class B.'" Prof Nutt said drug laws should not be influenced "petty party politics" and compared them to interest rates, which are set by the Bank of England not the government.

Sounds like a perfectly good example to me. It's not about science and what the evidence shows (marijuana is not particularly dangerous), but about what one man named the prime minister BELIEVES and his power to force his belief on others (make marijuana a class B restricted substance). It's not different than a monarchy in that respect.

Personally this is why I don't think a central government should be making decisions about what citizens can or can not ingest. If I want to smoke marijuana or drink alcohol until I kill myself, and someone finds my rotting body in my home, so be it. That's freedom. It includes not just the right to life, but also the right to end your life, if that's what you choose to do.

Without that right, you're not liberated. You're a serf..... under somebody else's control.

The sadest part of this is..

[rjgill]

Why should our government even have ethics documents that are confidential?

Re:The sadest part of this is..

[nomadic]

Why should our government even have ethics documents that are confidential?

Guess they figure it's unfair to publicly announce someone's being investigated if there are no merits to the claim. Want to run for congress? Get someone to accuse your opponent of something bad, then publicize the resulting investigation.

Re:The sadest part of this is..

[Compholio]

Why should our government even have ethics documents that are confidential?

Guess they figure it's unfair to publicly announce someone's being investigated if there are no merits to the claim. ...

Then why does congress get this kind of protection when private citizens suspected of a crime do not?

Re:The sadest part of this is..

[danlip]

Then why does congress get this kind of protection when private citizens suspected of a crime do not?

Juveniles usually get this protection as well. And since congress usually behaves like a bunch of spoiled children, I guess this makes sense.

Re:The sadest part of this is..

[Entropius]

Except if my boss is investigating me, *his* boss gets to know about it.

In this case, Congress' boss is the citizenry.

Re:No.

[TheUni]

Maybe change your sig to: Error 451: Sarcasm not detected...

Re:Lawmakers?

[patiodragon]

Or do they all just mindlessly parrot one another
Or do they all just mindlessly parrot one another
Or do they all just mindlessly parrot one another