Man Tracked Down and Arrested Via WoW

kabome writes with this excerpt from a story about an alleged drug dealer who was located by law enforcement thanks to World of Warcraft: "Roberson’s subpoena was nothing more than a politely worded request, considering the limits of his law enforcement jurisdiction and the ambiguity of the online world. 'They don’t have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn’t,' said Roberson. ... Blizzard did more than cooperate. It gave Roberson everything he needed to track down Hightower, including his IP address, his account information and history, his billing address, and even his online screen name and preferred server. From there it was a simple matter to zero in on the suspect's location."

Comments

conundrum

[Sporkinum]

Not sure what is worse, the dealer, or Blizzard. I'd hazard a guess that Blizzard has ruined more lives than this dealer has. Though the cops will word a request to sound like a subpoena to the uninitiated.

Re:conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this even a question? Blizzard is the greater evil for bowing down to law enforcement unnecessarily. This guy isn't a robber or murderer. I suppose that defending a drug dealer's privacy wouldn't be good PR but I don't think there is much question that the "War on Drugs" has ruined far more lives than Blizzard and the drug dealer combined.

Re:conundrum

[wizardforce]

If the drug use/video game playing is voluntary then I'd say it was the user who was ruining their own life. The law should have only got involved if there was fraud or general violence involved.

Re:conundrum

[jkells]

RTFA, he did get a subpoena. Due the jurisdiction and ambiguity of the online world they didn't have to respond to the subpoena, the subpoena was more of a polite request because they didn't have to co-operate with it.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Giving information to law enforcement is not "bowing down." The police are working for us, they are our employees. I know this is a hard concept for some people to grasp, since from the time you are a kid the 'authorities,' who at that time are your parents, are always preventing you from doing what you want, but the fact is police are agents of society, they are not our enemies, they do the job we give them. You of course know that police would stop arresting people for doing drugs as soon as we make selling drugs legal. It's our choice. Cooperating with the police to do a job we give them is not evil. Cooperating when they step outside their bounds is evil, and giving them an evil job to do is evil, but evil is very often no more than an opinion.

The fact is, the majority of the population favors keeping drugs illegal. If you want to change the law, all you have to do is convince people that drugs should be legalized. Few politicians are willing to bring up the topic of legalization because they know they will be voted out of office if they do.

Re:conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

A man with a gun who is paid to try to lock me in cage for smoking taboo plants is *not* on my side or working for me in any capacity, turd-chomper. Now go kill yourself.

Re:conundrum

[RobVB]

It's not a subpoena if you don't have to co-operate with it.

A subpoena is a writ issued by a court that commands the presence of a witness to testify, under a penalty for failure.

Re:conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

I dislike the way that you talk about good and evil, as if you have some absolute ethical system to base this on. I think it would be easier to understand if you tried to argue whether or not the actions of Blizzard and the police were moral acts or not. I would also include in your argument whether or not Blizzard or the police lost anything of moral value with their actions.

Your argument on the morality of the police's actions (and cooperating with them) is flawed because you base that morality on the morality of the general public and their laws as if they are infallible. Additionally, you need to evaluate each act of cooperation individually. If Blizzard volunteered information that lead a peaceful Chinese dissident to be arrested, most people would think that would be immoral. On the other hand, if Blizzard volunteered information that lead a child pornographer to be arrested, most people would think that would be moral. Still others would view both as immoral because Blizzard should have an inherent duty to protect information and our system already provides a mechanism (a warrant) to get that information when it is needed.

My view is the later, and I also view our laws on drugs as immoral. Cooperating with police with observations is one thing, mining your data is another. I think it is immoral to release protected information about someone without a warrant.

Re:conundrum

[negRo_slim]

yeah doing the job we give them includes tazering the fuck out anyone from the kids to the feeble

we give them orders but positions of authority pervert thinking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Re:conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

You raise good points but you discount the fact that police forces are only a necessary evil of a modern society. Police are in theory there to "protect citizens" - but often times in practice the goal of protecting citizens puts them at odds against citizen's rights.

In a perfect "police" world the police would know everything about you and be able to monitor everything that you do. Then they could perfectly catch criminal acts. Is this an idyllic situation? No - because we do not live in a perfect world and because police are not perfect (especially considering that the police actively discriminate against intelligence).

There is a reason why the constitution outlines a good deal of protections against the police. Police left unfettered will continue to grow in influence and power and intrude further into citizen's lives. It is a fine balance between accounting for the marginal increase in personal liberties as a result of police stopping the intrusion of liberties of an individual committing a crime and the marginal loss of personal liberties from the police having the tools to stop the aforementioned crime.

In regards to the "majority of people" wanting drugs to be illegal - when you create a positive feedback loop of turning drug users into criminals it makes it relatively difficult to break the cycle. The majority of people in this country are against gay marriage as well: does this mean that gay marriage should be illegal? There is a reason that the United States is a Republic and not a pure democracy. In the words of Alexander Hamilton - the masses are asses. Irrational fears often overcome rational deduction. All you have to do is look at segregation, Japanese internment camps, and the Salem Witch Trials to realize that majority rule is not always the right way to go about deciding things in emotionally charged and sensitive matters.

Re:conundrum

[scapermoya]

this has little to do with the alleged crimes. if anything, they indicate to me that the guy wasn't really that bad. have you seen the kinds of things on those low schedules?

regardless, this has to do with a company handing over personal information without the laws that govern that company saying they had to. ergo, bowing down.

Re:conundrum

[mwvdlee]

It's "Power corrupts" as usual, and it's true for any amount of power.

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[SanityInAnarchy]

Guh. Is there a "-1 Spam" mod, or should I be emailing the admins?

Re:conundrum

[Etcetera]

The majority of people in this country are against gay marriage as well: does this mean that gay marriage should be illegal^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H not be legalized.

There... fixed that for ya.

Re:conundrum

[timmarhy]

bottom line is that this data is blizzards to hand over, and they made the choice to do so. law enforcement are perfectly within their rights to ASK for co operation, there's no law against it. if you refuse they have the option of asking for a court order to force you.

how the fuck are the police going to harrass blizzard anyway? bliz is a billion dollar company they would unleash a +100 epic lawyer spell on the police if they tried to.

you ranting reeks of the typical daddy didn't love me enough now i'm going to rebel against everything crap so common these days.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

OK, these are some interesting ideas:

The majority of people in this country are against gay marriage as well: does this mean that gay marriage should be illegal?

I don't personally care if it is legal or not. I'll vote to let them get married, because I have no reason to stop them, but I don't care if they can't. But this is the thing about democracy: if the gays want to change the law, they have to convince the rest of the country (enough of them) that it is a good idea. If they can't, they won't be able to change the law. It really is that simple.

All you have to do is look at segregation, Japanese internment camps, and the Salem Witch Trials to realize that majority rule is not always the right way

People like to bring up the example of segregation, but by the time segregation was overturned, the majority of the country was actually opposed to it. I am not going to say that bad things don't happen in democracy, but they happen in every other type of government too, usually worse. We are living in a society with a bunch of other people, and living with other people is never easy.

In the words of Alexander Hamilton - the masses are asses. Irrational fears often overcome rational deduction.

Of course he felt that way: the masses disagreed with him. It is the old logical fallacy of, "those who disagree with me are wrong." That doesn't mean a minority can rule any more competently than the majority: for an example of this look at Iran right now.

There is a reason that the United States is a Republic and not a pure democracy.

It is, but that does little more than slow down the speed of the implementation of the public's will. If the public feels strongly about an issue, and their representatives go against their will, the representative will be gone quickly. The best example of that recently is perhaps Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Re:conundrum

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

bottom line is that this data is blizzards to hand over

And the top line is that we have the right to criticize the fuck out of them for doing it.

you ranting reeks of the typical daddy didn't love me enough now i'm going to rebel against everything crap so common these days.

And your ranting reeks of the typical subordinate-male personality that requires a rigid societal hierarchy in order to feel good about themselves. And that mentality goes back to the apes.

Re:conundrum

[glitch23]

In regards to the "majority of people" wanting drugs to be illegal - when you create a positive feedback loop of turning drug users into criminals it makes it relatively difficult to break the cycle. The majority of people in this country are against gay marriage as well: does this mean that gay marriage should be illegal?

Many laws are the result of societal standards and morals imposed hundreds of years ago (and reflect the religious underpinnings of the United States). In many states adultery is still on the books as being illegal but as societal standards and morals are lowered and because there are bigger criminals to go after the police just don't pay attention to adulterers anymore. The vast majority of the population is against murder (should it be legalized despite majority rule?). Not killing someone is also one of the Ten Commandments; so is not stealing. The point being that some laws are a result of the standards and morals that the U.S. society possesses and imposes on themselves based on the Christian faith. So, going back to your original question, for the very reasons I laid out above, yes, gay marriage should be illegal. The majority of people have already voted in many states to not legalize gay marriage. Most of those who voted against legalizing it did so based on their beliefs and faith. Homosexuals complain heterosexuals are not tolerant but homosexuals believe they should get their way and do not want to tolerate the decisions and beliefs of heterosexuals.

There is a reason that the United States is a Republic and not a pure democracy. In the words of Alexander Hamilton - the masses are asses. Irrational fears often overcome rational deduction. All you have to do is look at segregation, Japanese internment camps, and the Salem Witch Trials to realize that majority rule is not always the right way to go about deciding things in emotionally charged and sensitive matters.

Majority rule is not always the right way to go however in most cases it is. Maybe you should do homework to find out all the different situations in which majority rule *was* the right way to go instead of choosing only 3 examples of when majority rule did not make sense. More often than not the majority knows what is best. People believe in the power of numbers and having others who share your beliefs provides a support mechanism. That is just one method in which the citizens of the United States can unite despite certain minority groups wanting to tear them apart to satisfy their own agendas.

Re:conundrum

[SanityInAnarchy]

So let's see...

The police are working for us, they are our employees.

Not really relevant.

they are not our enemies,

Ok, let me put it this way: Both the district attourney and the public defender are agents of the state. So, even looking only at those employed directly by the State, we find people who are set up to be adversaries.

Not literally enemies, no. If they're professional, they recognize that at the end of the day, they have the same goals, and they don't generally try to actually ruin each other's personal and professional lives out of spite and a desire to win.

But when they hit that courtroom, they are not friends.

So, similarly, police are not your friends. Their job may be "to serve and protect", but it is ultimately by arresting suspects and punishing people. Their incentive is not to help you, personally, but to help society in general by arresting you, and they are good at it.

And that applies whether or not you have anything to hide. Watch this if you don't believe me.

Cooperating with the police to do a job we give them is not evil. Cooperating when they step outside their bounds is evil, and giving them an evil job to do is evil, but evil is very often no more than an opinion.

Well, first, you're using very loaded language for something that's "no more than an opinion". But let's consider: Giving them an evil job to do is evil.

Well, how about drug use? Can you give me a rational argument for why any substance, taken willingly, should be banned? And whatever argument you come up with, can it possibly justify the bloodbath that was Prohibition in the US, and is drug wars in Mexico?

If your point is that we should cooperate even though the "job" (specifically, the law) is evil, well, not to Godwin this or anything...

The fact is, the majority of the population favors keeping drugs illegal. If you want to change the law, all you have to do is convince people that drugs should be legalized.

Working on it. However, education of a population is a long, slow process, and politicians are the last to go. And again, Nazis.

It seems like you've got more or less an ad-populum fallacy -- even assuming the majority of the public agrees with what the government is doing, that doesn't mean the majority is right.

But even assuming drugs should be illegal, note that this was an alleged drug dealer. Key word: Alleged. TFA claims there was enough evidence for a subpoena, but instead, a "politely worded request" was sent. There's a reason we have a legal process for things like subpoenas -- so that when people are searched by law enforcement, it's legal, or at least with consent.

So Blizzard was entirely within their rights, perhaps -- better check that privacy policy -- but it was in no way the right approach. Remember, it's the job of the police to catch you, fine you, get information out of you, get a confession out of you, etc. It's not your job to make life easier on them, any more than it's the job of the public defender to make the district attourney's job easier.

Finally, read your own sig.

Re:conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

You really are clueless aren't you?

People who oppose Tasers do so not because of the safety risk (which they bring up only because Taser International, which claims Tasers are 100% safe, invented their own disease to explain it--"excited delirium"). They do so because of the civil rights issues and the fact that police use them when force isn't needed. Children, individuals sleeping on park benches, and individuals not resisting have been Tasered. And sometimes the police Taser individuals repeatedly when that is not needed. The civil rights violations with this device are well known, and your strawman argument doesn't fly.

Re:conundrum

[houghi]

I would like criminals to be arrested as well. I do however favor my privacy and that of others more. That does not mean you should bnever give any information you have to the police. It means that if the police wants data from a company like an ISP or even a grocery to see who was on camera or a credit card company to see where a card was use, you use a process that is solid and can hold up in court.

So use a court order. With the court order go to the company. And I mean a court order upfront, not something you can ok afterwards.

The result should be the following.
1) The privacy of not-related people is guaranteed.
2) There should be a paper trail for those whose privacy was violated
3) The company is covered as it is something official and no privacy is broken and they can keep saying that privacy is important to them, even if they are just following the law.
4) The law get the data and as it was done in an official way can hold up in court
5) The criminal gets caught

And in that order. But apparently getting points for putting as much people behind bars is more important to the American public then their privacy. And the "Guilty untill proven innocent" is only good if talking about yourself, but not when talking about others.

Re:conundrum

[BrookHarty]

Oh bullshit. The police work for the majority, not the minority. This is the reason our constitution tries to protect our rights. We have had to fight the majority over slavery, domestic violence, interracial marriages, minority rights, gay rights, prohibition, etc.

So again, If I'm in a minority group, the police work against me.
That means, the police are my enemy, and yes, that can even mean, a real physical threat to me.

The police work a horrible job, and their view becomes skewed over time, and if you get caught in a police interaction, it can mean your life.

Its amazing, that so many people think the world is all roses, until the day you are at a peaceful protest, and get mace in the face and billy club to the head. That is a quick realization that something is wrong.

BTW, this topic has so many aspects. If it was easy, we wouldn't be having this argument. Yes, we have people who do physical harm and real economical harm to society, but that makes up only a portion of the police interaction. The rest are moral/political/religious/etc viewpoints that need to be abolished or changed. But we are so far away from a Utopian society, don't fucking stick your neck out by helping the police.

Re:conundrum

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Maybe you should do homework to find out all the different situations in which majority rule *was* the right way to go instead of choosing only 3 examples of when majority rule did not make sense.

You want him to do your homework? And we are supposed to take you seriously after that?

Re:conundrum

[PitaBred]

I'm not scared of tasers because I might die. I'm scared because they're used in place of personal interaction and they hold the officer to very little responsibility. Tasers are WAY overused, simply because they don't leave marks like batons do.

Re:conundrum

[MillionthMonkey]

The police are working for us, they are our employees.

That's why we expect them to perform their duties in accordance with the rules we set for them as a society. It hasn't been resolved yet whether or not we're willing to be subject to police surveillance when we sit down to play video games.

Re:conundrum

[SwedishPenguin]

Most of those who voted against legalizing it did so based on their beliefs and faith. Homosexuals complain heterosexuals are not tolerant but homosexuals believe they should get their way and do not want to tolerate the decisions and beliefs of heterosexuals.

But isn't the state supposed to be separate from the church? How can there be any non-religious argument against gay marriage?
And why should homosexual bow down to the prejudice of heterosexual majority any more than black people should bow down to the prejudices of the white majority?

And regarding your sig.. What is so bad about universal healthcare exactly? That it's socialist? Do you really have that much of an irrational fear of socialism that you reject anything associated with it? And who should pay for it if not the upper class? That's the entire point of universal healthcare, or any other government service, those who can afford it contribute more, those who can't contribute less.
If everyone contributed equal amounts, that amount would have to be what the poorest person can reasonably afford and still survive. This would not leave much in the way of government services.

Re:conundrum

[timmarhy]

"And the top line is that we have the right to criticize the fuck out of them for doing it."

criticize all you want, but your suggesting the police strong armed blizzard into it which is just plain wrong as there's no kind of proof or suggestion of that at all. stick to criticizing blizzard and the police for stuff they do, not shit you make up.

"And your ranting reeks of the typical subordinate-male personality that requires a rigid societal hierarchy in order to feel good about themselves. And that mentality goes back to the apes."

i'm astounded, you read all that out of my short post? if your right then you have an insight into human psychology so deep that your a true genius. OR your wrong, and your just unable to refute anything i've said or come up with a decent rebuttal of your own, so your going on the attack (much like a frustrate ape would, ironically)

i'm betting your wrong....

Re:conundrum

[misnohmer]

Absolutely correct. I think Winston Churchill said it best "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with an average voter". A conversation with quantumfive may qualify. ;-) That is why we have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights - to protect our freedoms. After all, democracy is nothing but a system which forces majority will on all minorities (and somehow we don't call that discrimination). If we had world wide democracy we'd all be following muslim law (largest religion by population) - makes you think, doesn't it? Democracy does work, but on small scale, say city scale, so like minded individuals can live close together and vote together.

Full disclosure: I've never done drugs, don't plan on it, but strongly believe they should not be illegal. Same goes for prostitution. Regulating both would serve the society much better than making them illegal and continue fighting senseless and expensive wars on both which cannot be won (otherwise we would have won at least one of them already).

Re:conundrum

[CountBrass]

Except that he hasn't been convicted so your argument falls apart straight away. In addition, the police have a history of being, let's be generous and say, cavalier. Other ways of describing their behaviour might include untrustworthy and corrupt so i would be pretty upset at them handing over my personal data without a court order or similar. Fortunately in the EU we actually have data privacy laws and whilst Blizzard EU could still hand over my data I could at least sue them for it and have the authorities investigate them with the possibility of them being banned from holding any personal data at all: i.e. the end of WoW in Europe.

Re:conundrum

[Yfrwlf]

I'd have to agree on your points. If a Republic is supposed to help by making smarter and more informed individuals be in control, it has a few individuals are much easier to corrupt. While I'm afraid of the dumb/ignorant/misinformed many, I'd rather have them be in control instead of the corrupted few. Plus, that would put more emphasis on education and communication to inform the masses, and with the Internet's reach that is a lot easier now. The Internet has removed many from their ignorant shelters.

I think a full-blown Democracy would be much *better* than the current system in the U.S., as it would serve to remove a lot of power from private interests. As far as protecting against totally insane laws from being passed, you can help do that by doing what is already done now: making more extreme laws require a larger percentage vote in order to be passed. You thus can start off with a good base, i.e. a constitution, and go from there, while requiring changes to it to require very high percentage votes.

Re:conundrum

[adisakp]

Is this even a question? Blizzard is the greater evil for bowing down to law enforcement unnecessarily. This guy isn't a robber or murderer. I suppose that defending a drug dealer's privacy wouldn't be good PR but I don't think there is much question that the "War on Drugs" has ruined far more lives than Blizzard and the drug dealer combined.

Ummm, I'm pretty sure Blizzard was acting in their own self-interest. All it would take is a couple press releases saying Blizzard is sheltering drug dealers on WoW to have a ton of parents pulling their kids accounts.

Re:conundrum

[ildon]

Your post would have made sense if he hadn't appended "but evil is very often no more than an opinion." to his first paragraph. The poster was purposefully defining evil in his own way, and extending it beyond what one might normally consider worthy of the label of "evil", because that's exactly what the post he was replying to did.

A simple reading of Blizzard's own privacy policy, which you agree to by using their service, is all that is necessary to know if they overstepped their bounds or not.

I haven't read it because I don't care and it's irrelevant to my point. Blizzard has no inherent responsibility to ensure their users' privacy beyond their stated intentions. Nor does any other company. At least some of the onus is on the users to control their own private data. If a company says "if the law comes calling, we will cooperate" and you still agree to give them your information (and as long as this policy is publicly posted before agreeing to share said information), that's on you, not the company.

Re:conundrum

[getuid()]

Sorry, but you fail to explain one point: where to draw the line between legitimate "police helping" and "show me the warrant"-attitude?

Being asked for help by the police as in in "sir, you're the man next door, have you seen anything suspicious yesterday at the time of shooting", or being a company holding private (as opposed to *public*) information on civil persons and happily handing it out to law enforcement beas a huge difference.

To put it more clearly: would you like your telecommunications company "help out" the police by politely providing any information they might want on *you*? Like persons you talked to, invoices, message transcripstions? No? Thought so. As a matter of facts, there are laws against that (or used to be, at least).

Police, if supposed to be able to access information about you from 3rd-party, has specific devices to do so (i.e. subpoenas etc). For exactly this reason you, as a company holding sensitive information about a person, should not "help" the police unless they have the device to legally force you to!

This is in no way different in the case of a supposedly drug dealer... you don't know the man, you haven't heard his lawyers and his side of the story, and you are by no means a judge. You are a random company, and he is a random customer, and unless law enforcement has specific reasons to gather informations about him (and "specific reasons" are documented by warrants, subpoenas etc), you have no business divulging them private information.

Re:conundrum

[ildon]

You weaken your argument by referencing the Salem witch trials, which occurred in what was essentially a patriarchy/monarchy. Not a "democracy" at all.

Re:conundrum

[darthdavid]

But would they have still happened if the community hadn't wanted them to happen? Like most witch trials they rapidly became an excuse for the majority of the community to persecute those that they didn't like. If the majority of the witnesses said they'd seen nothing to indicate witchcraft, if the majority of town acted to protect the accused do you think things would have happened the way they did?

No, they may not have occurred under a democracy but they are a good example of mob justice and the flaws inherent in expecting a straight up democratic solution to protect the rights and interests of minorities.

Re:conundrum

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

criticize all you want, but your suggesting the police strong armed blizzard

Where the hell did you get that from?
I am suggesting that Blizzard doesn't give a damn about their responsibilities to their customers.

i'm betting your wrong....

So far, in just this one topic you have made so many obviously incorrect posts - like the taser one - and even your most recent post, see above paragraph, that your track record of bets is a total losing streak.

unable to refute or come up with a decent rebuttal of your own, so your going on the attack (much like a frustrate ape would, ironically)

Lolz. You mean like this: "you ranting reeks of the typical daddy didn't love me enough now i'm going to rebel against everything crap so common these days."
Oops, yet another really bad bet you made. You have so little self-awareness it's ridiculous.

Re:conundrum

[AnotherUsername]

And you give them the job of murdering tens of thousands of innocent people whos only crime was living in the same apartment complex as as drug user or dealer. source

Did you even read this article? It says, right in it:

since the early 1980s, 40 bystanders have been killed, according to the Cato Institute in Washington, DC.

40. 40 people since the early 1980s. That is nowhere near the 'tens of thousands' you say. I assume that the 50,000 is the number you glanced at. That is the number of no-knock raids that occurred in 2005.

Regarding the wheelchair incident:
The guy wasn't asking for help, he had been arrested on a traffic violation. I can't say whether or not it was proper for them to dump him out of his wheelchair, as there was no sound, and the actual article was incredibly short. I watched the little snippet, but I need more information to be able to form a complete opinion. On the surface, it appears that it wasn't needed. But I have seen many things that on the surface appear innocent, until you actually get down and get the whole story.

As far as the article on the boy:

However, Ozark police say the wounded boy was a threat.

"He refused to comply with the officers and so the officers had to deploy their Tasers in order to subdue him," Capt. Thomas Rousset said. "He is making incoherent statements; he's also making statements such as, 'Shoot cops, kill cops,' things like that. So there was cause for concern to the officers."

Authorities say their use of a Taser weapon should not be questioned, because they were trying to help Hutchinson to safety.

"It's a big concern for the officers to keep this guy out of traffic, to keep him from getting hurt," Rousset said.

There are two sides to every story, and unless you were there, you are in no position to say which is right. Neither am I, for that matter.

You brought two stories of questionable acts. I have no links, because when cops do their jobs, nothing is reported. It is considered 'normal'. It is the oddball 'bad cop' that makes the news, because bad cops are NOT NORMAL in society. In cities and towns all over the country, cops do their jobs responsibly each and every day, with not a single positive word from the media. Yet, you want to give me two questionable stories in order to 'prove' your point that cops are bad?

You, sir, are a horrible person, and represent a major problem in our country.

Re:conundrum

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Your argument on the morality of the police's actions (and cooperating with them) is flawed because you base that morality on the morality of the general public and their laws as if they are infallible. Additionally, you need to evaluate each act of cooperation individually. If Blizzard volunteered information that lead a peaceful Chinese dissident to be arrested, most people would think that would be immoral. On the other hand, if Blizzard volunteered information that lead a child pornographer to be arrested, most people would think that would be moral. Still others would view both as immoral because Blizzard should have an inherent duty to protect information and our system already provides a mechanism (a warrant) to get that information when it is needed.

Your argument only makes sense if you assume that your own morality beats out the morality of our laws, and consistently does so. If that were true, surely you could provide examples of this. How you in your daily life violate the law, go to jail for it, and still have better morality than everyone else. Surely you can provide a few examples of YOU doing this if this is true ... You demand perfect moral behavior from the police, so surely you'll understand that as you try to do some law-enforcement of your own, I demand the same perfect moral standard from you. Needless to say, you fail (as we all do).

I don't understand how people can seriously demand this perfect morality from so many organisations. From the police, to congress, the army, (the UN has consistently failed to uphold every moral standard in existence, so people stopped expecting them to, it seems. UN soldiers get to rape, or kill Israelis through stupidity or outright malice, without reprecussions in New York)

Furthermore even if you were a martyr-knight-saint, justification for your opinion would not just require that you're such a saint, but that sufficiently large numbers of people (ie. nearly all) have such saintly better-than-our-laws behavior. Sufficiently large numbers meaning so large that most criminals would be caught, most crimes prevented, not by the law, but by normal citizens.

Obviously this is not happening. That makes, imho, the moral thing to do becomes cooperation with the authorities, in all cases, even when you're not sure about the morality of their actions.

To be a good moral guardian, the law/police/... does not need to be perfect. It needs to be better than average. It needs to catch more criminals that John Q. Public does. It needs to prevent more crimes than an average very, very non-special American does.

And quite frankly, I have little illusions about the morality of the police force. But I am absolutely convinced they do better than you.

Re:conundrum

[Confused]

Who is more evil? Blizzard, for its blatant disrespect for their customers.

If the police had a reasonable suspicion, that this guy can be located via his WoW account, what did they stop to have the proper paperwork filled first? If Blizzards want to cooperate with the police, it even would be ok to tell them, that filling out the paperwork won't be a waste of time. That way, Blizzard would honour the trust its customers put into them by trusting them with their data and the dealer would be in the slammer too. That's how things should work.

But no, Blizzard seems to be playing it loose with their customer's privacy and handing it over as fast as they can.

As to the dealer, he's just and idiot deserving to get caught.

Re:conundrum

[drinkypoo]

It is the oddball 'bad cop' that makes the news, because bad cops are NOT NORMAL in society.

That's not what I hear from a cop I trust as much as I trust any cop. He says that bad cops are the status quo, because they can be. The cops are just a gang, as a result of inadequate civilian oversight. They drive around bullying people to maintain their power over "civilians" (they seem to have failed to notice that they are paramilitary, not military — but the significant percentage of ex-military may have something to do with that) and much of what they do has little to nothing to do with making society safer, and actually has to do with revenue generation; writing tickets for people rolling stop signs where the only other car for miles around is a parked cop car behind some weeds, waiting behind a speed limit sign which is partially obscured by a tree in order to write tickets against those who will not come back to your town to fight them, as happened to me in Texas' Johnson City, and so on. I discovered the California Highway Patrol was purely a revenue-generating entity when they passed a law here making riding in the passing lane a ticketable offense; I've lost count of the number of cops I've seen pass someone on the right without comment, but people hanging out in the passing lane make the highway genuinely more dangerous than anyone going 5 over the limit... two of which were in my driving school. Both had tinted windows, and were pulled over simply because the cops considered the tint to be a challenge to their authority.

The average cop is either corrupt, or on his way to becoming corrupt.

Re:conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't read it because I don't care and it's irrelevant to my point. Blizzard has no inherent responsibility to ensure their users' privacy beyond their stated intentions. Nor does any other company. At least some of the onus is on the users to control their own private data. If a company says "if the law comes calling, we will cooperate" and you still agree to give them your information (and as long as this policy is publicly posted before agreeing to share said information), that's on you, not the company.

Isn't there something called privacy laws? Or does a privacy agreement/policy go above the law in the United States? I believe here in the Netherlands, you cannot 'give away' certain rights. Like, if the privacy agreement would state that "I, the reader, recognize that I am no longer obliged to any legal rights concerning my privacy.", this would be ignored by the judge because the law has certain defined rights that cannot be given away. How is that arranged in the United States?

In any case, if the police had a warrant, I don't believe Blizzard has done wrong here. If they didn't, I would say they had; after all, we're talking about an alleged drug dealer, who just like all of us is innocent until proven guilty.

Re:conundrum

[pyster]

Blizzard should have taken no action without a court order. It's called due process. Fuck blizzard.

Re:conundrum

[xch13fx]

from wow EULA

C. Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others.

D. BLIZZARD MAY MONITOR, RECORD, REVIEW, MODIFY AND/OR DISCLOSE YOUR CHAT SESSIONS, WHETHER VOICE OR TEXT, WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU, AND YOU HEREBY CONSENT TO SUCH MONITORING, RECORDING, REVIEW, MODIFICATION AND/OR DISCLOSURE. Additionally, you acknowledge that Blizzard is under no obligation to monitor Chat, and you engage in Chat at your own risk.

Re:conundrum

[realityimpaired]

You know full well that the police would stop arresting people for possession of drugs if it were no longer illegal. And while I agree with you that some illegal drugs should certainly be decriminalized (and that going international to execute a warrant for selling marijuana is excessive), you should RTFA... he wasn't *just* dealing pot. Allegedly, he's also been dealing in Schedule IV and Schedule III narcotics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Schedule_III_drugs_(US)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Schedule_IV_drugs_(US)

Now, it's possible that he was just selling speed and anabolic steroids, but it's also possible that he was selling opium, morpheine, psilocybin, and crystal meth. From experience, I can say that those drugs should most emphatically still be illegal. The only reason Marijuana is a gateway drug is because the law enforcement and anti-drug campaign say that it's just as bad as Heroine... so when you get to middle school and somebody hands you your first joint at a party, you realize it's not so bad, and try something stronger. It's not because you want to try something stronger, it's because you think that they're overblowing how badly these drugs will screw you up by lumping them all together in one category.

Re:conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with Frank Herbert on this one.

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

--Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)

Re:conundrum

[tepples]

Still others would view both as immoral because Blizzard should have an inherent duty to protect information and our system already provides a mechanism (a warrant) to get that information when it is needed.

And guess what: The article is about using just such a mechanism (a subpoena).

Re:conundrum

[xch13fx]

you can sift through this in regards to US privacy laws

http://www.usa.gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf/Laws.shtml

I don't want to lol

Re:conundrum

[CrazyIvanovich]

The point of police isn't to protect citizens; it's to maintain civil order so that the everyday transactions that define and guide our lives can happen. It's about the flow of goods and services. Sometimes they need to protect citizens to do this. Sometimes they need to protect only one citizen. Sometimes they need to remove a citizen. Sometimes it's not about people at all.

What's always in question is whether or not the people trust the moral authority and responsibility of police.

Re:conundrum

[selven]

Because he might have a curable or even temporary mental instability?

Re:conundrum

[realityimpaired]

Sure it is... it's simply a subpoena outside of territorial jurisdiction. The supreme court of Mexico could issue a subpoena asking me to appear before them to testify on something, and I don't have to comply with it because I live in a different jurisdiction. If, however, I ever entered their jurisdiction, then I would be compelled to comply with the subpoena (or to face the consequences for having not complied). They could also petition the authorities in my own district to enforce their subpoena by issuing their own. Even though I don't have to comply with their request, it's in my best interests to play along with them unless I've committed some kind of crime I'm worried about their discovering.

It's basically the same as a warrant, in that respect. You can't enforce a warrant outside of your jurisdictional lines, but you can ask the locals to do it for you.

Re:conundrum

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as an isolated morality. I.e., there is no personal morality. We might believe that our personal sense of right and wrong exists apart from society, but this is false.

UN soldiers get to rape, or kill Israelis through stupidity or outright malice, without reprecussions in New York

And Israeli soldiers get to kill Palestinians in the West Bank without any repercussions. Same with Blackwater guards and Iraqi civilians in Iraq. Same with US soldiers in Okinawa. With the Japanese soldiers and Chinese women. Angola. Ghana. Brazil.

The thing in common? They all *abused* their power over the helpless. Whether it's a single male raping a single woman or mass rape and murder in the list above, it was all about the strong victimizing the weak. So no, the morality of the police/military force is worse than any individuals.

Re:conundrum

[nedlohs]

We give a number of jobs to police, the one relevant to this situation is to find people who society deems to have done wrong in order to deprive them of their freedom.

While that is beneficial to society, as an individual when police are doing that role they are your enemy. Since they are possibly trying to deprive you of your freedom. Cooperating with them isn't evil, it's just stupid.

In Blizard's case I they responded to a request that wasn't a subpoena, it was something constructed entirely by the police with no approval from the courts. Which means for all Blizzard knew it could be a cop exploiting his authority trying to find his ex-girlfriend in order to go and beat on her some more.

Re:conundrum

[taoye]

It's that old problem of letting three wolves and a sheep vote on what to eat for dinner. Majority rules, minority rights.

Re:conundrum

[TheCarp]

Actually the criminal justice system ruins lives far worst than drugs do. Dealers don't ruin lives. They sell to customers what the customer wants.

More so than that, they sell a product that they believe in, often to support their own habit. In the end its a persons own habit and own choices.

On the other hand, the police come in, arrest people (which is just a polite euphemism for kidnapping), jail them (treat them like animals), and put them in databases of bad guys that make it hard to find jobs. All done, without the persons consent. Against his will.

All to do what? Because people like yourself feel you have some sort of moral high ground to decide what type of life has value and what lifestyle is degenerate or acceptable and are willing to pay thugs to go out and enforce your beliefs?

Its ok to make the life of a person who uses drugs shittier than it is (afterall, you already decided it was shitty, right?, no chance that it wasn't right?) and hurt their entire family. Afterall, they decided to do something that you don't like.

Re:conundrum

[TheCarp]

When the police go after a drug dealer, they are not working for ME.

I am disgusted that my tax dollars are used to track down people and treat them like animals for no other reason than to enact social policy.

I no more want them doing this than arresting people who choose to wear head-scarfs or sell bibles.

If people are violent, go after them. If they scam and fraud, hunt them down like the dogs they are. If all they do is consensually act with other adults in as a fair and decent a manner as they can, then I say leave them alone.

The really sad part is that the law being what it is is a boon for the real bad guys. The users and other dealers have pretty much no recorse and nobody to help them when there is a real bad guy. Dealers who get ripped off by scumbags can't call the police, they don't get protection under the law... because the law treats them like scumbags too, even though they only ever set out to start a small business and supply their friends.

Thats what most dealers do you know. They buy in quantity, and dole it out to people. Of course that means sitting on product, so to make it worth tieing up their money, they need to mark it up... just like any other middle man. The vast majority of the time, its an honest, straight up buisness.

Except when it isn't, and then all the honest people get screwed because they have nowhere to turn against the dishonest.

If you think I am happy to be paying my good tax dollars to help perpetuate that situation, you are sorely mistaken.

Re:conundrum

[Timex]

Phantomfive said it right: officers of the law are not our enemies. I just hope that Blizzard's response wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to a request that "looked" official... I hope they took some time to verify the request before sending that sort of information out. I would hate to think that ANYONE could get that kind of detail just by writing up a "polite request".

Re:conundrum

[merreborn]

Giving information to law enforcement is not "bowing down." The police are working for us, they are our employees... Cooperating with the police to do a job we give them is not evil.

...Unless the police have been tasked with an evil job. Like, I don't know... rounding up all the Jews so they can be systematically exterminated?

I hate to play the Godwin card, but it happened. And it's an obvious, concrete example of how unconditional cooperation with whoever happens to be in power can be unquestionably morally wrong.

Morality and legality may frequently overlap, (e.g. killing and stealing are generally both illegal and morally wrong), but they are nonetheless distinct, and there are many areas in which they don't overlap -- illegal actions that are moral, immoral actions that are legal, etc.

Re:conundrum

[TheCarp]

How is believing the current situation is appropriate (it is illegal) different from believing that it shouldn't be changed (not legalized)? They seem like the same thing to me.

Though, the same could be said of inter-racial marriage. Most people were against legalizing it, but the courts did it anyway.

Now gee, what sort of invectives would we sling at a person who came out saying that we should make it illegal for black's and white's to marry today?

Re:conundrum

[Sporkinum]

Read again. They "requested", not legally subpoenaed.

Re:conundrum

[LazeLaze]

homosexuals believe they should get their way and do not want to tolerate the decisions and beliefs of heterosexuals

I'm really tired of hearing this misguided argument. Your individual rights are generally only supported up until the point that they begin infringing on the rights of others (e.g. you have the freedom of expression to post what you want on the internet, but once child porn/stolen credit card information/military secrets become involved you have crossed into illegality.

You are using this infringement argument WRONGLY. You are claiming that homosexuals infringe on the rights of heterosexuals by wanting to get married. I challenge you to present a personal (legal) right of yours that would be under attack from homosexual marriage (and no, freedom of expression/religion do not count because you can still practice your faith just fine whether or not gays are getting married).

Your problem is that you consider "tolerance" of the Christian faith to be synonymous with "absolute obedience to it", i.e. don't do anything yourself that a devout literal-biblical Christian would not do. THAT IS NOT TOLERANCE, that is subservience! And your argument that homosexuals are being "intolerant" by wanting to get married is both ironic and moronic for this reason.

*

As to the original poster and the argument of majority vs minority, I personally think that most drug dealers are not threats to society, but some are (and the ones who are can do a lot of damage), so the police should have ample authority to act against them. The bigger problem is fixing the issues that cause demand for the drugs, though.

And Blizzard did nothing wrong. If the guy wanted to protect his online information, he shouldn't have played an online game for which he needs to (in a manner) disseminate his information. The EULA allows Blizzard to distribute this information, and he should have known that.

Re:conundrum

[Faux_Pseudo]

This guy isn't a robber or murderer.
We dont know that. Funny thing about drugs is that they do kill a lot of people. Not in the "if you smoke crack one time you will die" time frame but in the each little hit brings you closer to death and in the "6 police killed in a Mexico drug sting" kind of ways.

Re:conundrum

[Hatta]

The fact is, the majority of the population favors keeping drugs illegal.

The majority of the population once favored keeping blacks as property. That didn't make it right. Injustice is unjust no matter how many people favor it.

Re:conundrum

[Hatta]

To be a good moral guardian, the law/police/... does not need to be perfect. It needs to be better than average. It needs to catch more criminals that John Q. Public does. It needs to prevent more crimes than an average very, very non-special American does.

Let's put it this way. The police in America arrest more people for possession than all violent crimes combined. It's pretty clear then that the police victimize more people than they help. It's not hard for the average person to do better than that.

Re:conundrum

[Cwix]

As a veteran I take offense at that statement. By far and large the members of the military dont have mass rape and murder. There are almost 1.5 million people in the Unites States military. That is the current amount, and it doesnt include all of us veterans who are degenerated by your comment. By saying that the morality of the military or the police (Ive met a few in my day, and only one or two I would call bad cops) is worse then the normal citizen would be like saying that Maine (population 1.3 mil) are all morally worse than everyone else. You cannot sterotype 1.5 million people for a very vast amount of backgrounds.

*sigh* I just realised I was talking to an AC so its pointless.

Re:conundrum

[Cwix]

You sir are a bad horrible person, and represent a major problem in our country.

Um, thanks. Seriously, police tasering is not a major problem in our country. You're more likely to die from a terrorist attack than from a taser. Really.

So cause it probably wont kill me its ok for the cops to taser meas many times as they want? SRSLY?

Re:conundrum

[Snaller]

"Your argument only makes sense"

No, thats just some strawman rubbish you made up.

His argument makes perfect sense without any of the stuff you had to dredge up.

"UN soldiers get to rape"

Note the manipulative way of phrasing that. You don't work for Fox news by chance?

Re:conundrum

[Snaller]

"Of course he felt that way: the masses disagreed with him. "

Not because of that, because the masses are uneducated level 1 cognitives, who are not very intelligent. They are closer to animals and let them selves be ruled by emotion. "Global warming? Well I don't feel like believing it that so i wont!"

Religion is probably a big part in keeping populations in states of idiocy. ("It is ok to believe!" - no, its not)

Re:conundrum

[DurendalMac]

The police sent them a subpoena, you idiot. Complying with the law is not "bowing down" to law enforcement. It's complying with the law. Not cooperating could have been costly for Blizzard. Why is that such a difficult concept for so many in this thread to grasp?

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

You literally called every politician a Nazi, and then you try to accuse me of a logical fallacy (of ad populum, more on that later). Come on now, you can do better than this, you had two references to Nazis in your post. Show some rationality.

But even assuming drugs should be illegal, note that this was an alleged drug dealer. Key word: Alleged. TFA claims there was enough evidence for a subpoena, but instead, a "politely worded request" was sent. There's a reason we have a legal process for things like subpoenas -- so that when people are searched by law enforcement, it's legal, or at least with consent.

If I am arrested for a crime, for sure I am not going to talk, whether I am guilty or not. That's just common sense, to try to maximize the quality of your own life. On the other hand, if I am witness to a crime, I am going to help the police. It is hugely inconvenient, but otherwise the criminals will go free. It doesn't matter that I don't NEED to be a witness (since in most cases I could just slip away before the police come and no one would know I saw it), in cases where I don't need to help the police, I help them when I feel like it is a good idea. In this case, Blizzard felt like it was a good idea to help the police. They have no need to join your crusade to make life as difficult as possible for the police to do their job.

Well, how about drug use? Can you give me a rational argument for why any substance, taken willingly, should be banned? And whatever argument you come up with, can it possibly justify the bloodbath that was Prohibition in the US, and is drug wars in Mexico?

This seems to be your real problem. You don't like what the police do (arrest people for selling drugs), and so you want to make it as difficult as possible for the police. That's backwards: there is a reason we have police, and making it as difficult as possible for them to do their job is counterproductive and kills morale.

Since the thing you care about is drugs, let's talk about that for a second. Basically, drugs destroy lives, that's why they're illegal. How many drug dropouts did you know in High School? Most people know or have known someone whose life was destroyed by drugs, so we agree that not allowing drugs to be taken is a good idea, even if it means a few potheads will be inconvenienced.

Now it is true that the current way drugs policy is enforced is causing problems, but that doesn't necessarily imply that drugs should be legalized, there are other options (mainly focusing more on cutting demand and less on destroying the supply chains).

About ad populum: I didn't say the public is always right, I implied that if they public feels strongly about something, they tend to get their way, especially in a democracy. It follows naturally that if you want to get something, you should convince the public to feel strongly about it.

But while we are at it, how can you say that anyone is right? "Drugs should be legalized" is as much a moral position as any other, there is no way to tell if it is right or not, we can only tell if it is what we want or not.

Re:conundrum

[Snaller]

"The majority of people have already voted in many states to not legalize gay marriage. Most of those who voted against legalizing it did so based on their beliefs and faith."

Ie, their primitive superstition. It is not intelligent to have primitives decide what goes or not.

"More often than not the majority knows what is best."

Hah, show proof of that. Obviously the majority of primitives chose something they can agree on, but that doesn't mean its right, only that the primitives around the campfire will like it.

"That is just one method in which the citizens of the United States can unite despite certain minority groups wanting to tear them apart to satisfy their own agendas."

Ah, that would be those gays again, who only wish to have a peaceful life with their kind of love? Yeah, why don't you have them killed. Then there is a 100% majority each time.

Re:conundrum

[DurendalMac]

Did you even read the damned article? The police subpoenaed Blizzard for the info. Also, read the posts with Blizzard's privacy policy. The process was solid and will hold up in court. Take you kneejerk somewhere else.

Re:conundrum

[DurendalMac]

Read Blizzard's privacy policy. Then read the article. Blizzard was subpoenaed for the info. They didn't necessarily have to comply, but it was in their own best interest that they do so.

Re:conundrum

[Snaller]

People who do drugs are losers (not because they do it, they do it because they are) - you want to stop the use of drugs - do something for the losers and it will go away.

Re:conundrum

[DurendalMac]

Read Blizzard's privacy policy. Then read the article. They were subpoenaed. Fuck you, you kneejerking bozo.

Re:conundrum

[rbb]

The fact is, the majority of the population favors keeping drugs illegal. If you want to change the law, all you have to do is convince people that drugs should be legalized. Few politicians are willing to bring up the topic of legalization because they know they will be voted out of office if they do.

That would indeed be the correct course of action, were it not for the fact that the government has a rather spotted history of providing the public with good research on the dangers of drugs. The perception of the public that drugs are dangerous is based, for a large part, on government funded research, and the government seems to be rather keen on finding something wrong with the drugs they're actively trying to ban.

As public policy expert Mark Kleiman once said: "There is a very, very heavy cost to the process of devaluing information that comes from the government. Lincoln was right. Government trust is a precious resource and there's a question about how much of it we want to squander in telling kids not to use drugs."

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Its amazing, that so many people think the world is all roses, until the day you are at a peaceful protest, and get mace in the face and billy club to the head. That is a quick realization that something is wrong.

Protesting is such a waste of time. It rarely gets anything done, and even when it does get things done it's because it was done in conjunction with other activities, like during the civil rights movement. If you want to change public opinion there are significantly more effective ways to do it than protesting.

Yes, we have people who do physical harm and real economical harm to society, but that makes up only a portion of the police interaction. The rest are moral/political/religious/etc viewpoints that need to be abolished or changed.

I'm going to go even farther here and say that whether something causes economic harm or benefit to society is no rule for whether it should be legal or not. Some things provide no economic benefit and should be illegal, and others provide economic benefit and should be illegal.

Also, it is easy to say that a law is based on a moral viewpoint, but the fact is every law is based on a moral viewpoint. "We shouldn't murder" is a moral viewpoint. "We shouldn't steal" is a moral viewpoint. It's a matter of deciding what morals we, as a society, want to have and enforce. If you want to change the laws, you need to convince enough people in society that it is a good idea to change those laws. As an example, the gay community failed to do that in California, which is why proposition 8 passed.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Heh....you're afraid of pain.

Seriously though, if you have any basic people skills at all it's not hard to avoid a situation where you might get tased.

Re:conundrum

[Snaller]

"And regarding your sig.. What is so bad about universal healthcare exactly? That it's socialist?"

Like most americans he is an uneducated selfish idiot.

Re:conundrum

[Oligonicella]

"our system already provides a mechanism (a warrant) to get that information"

Our system has two mechanisms. A request which can be followed by a warrant.

"protected information about someone"

Are you sure this data was legally protected against the kind of release that happened?

Re:conundrum

[Nazlfrag]

If only there was some way to find out how the whole operation was conducted, like a fucking link in the summary that explains how none of your fantasy is in any way true and you have wasted your time, mine, and whoever else reads this crap before it's modded into oblivion you imbecile.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Sorry, but you fail to explain one point: where to draw the line between legitimate "police helping" and "show me the warrant"-attitude?

It's a difficult line and could take years to fully delineate, as with any complex legal issue.

Basically, for me, unless I have a reason to not help the police, I will help them. In this case the police actually had a subpoena, it just wasn't valid in that jurisdiction. I am not the judge, jury, or a lawyer, but in that case I would have no problem helping the police find him so he CAN face a judge and jury. You seem to disagree, I guess, and that is ok.

Re:conundrum

[Oligonicella]

Apparently, it has been too hard for the average person in America to organize vote changing rationale so that certain possession laws get struck down. That is the fulcrum.

Re:conundrum

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

To be a good moral guardian, the law/police/... does not need to be perfect. It needs to be better than average. It needs to catch more criminals that John Q. Public does. It needs to prevent more crimes than an average very, very non-special American does.

Wow, its like you are channeling Vic Mackey. That is nearly his character's exact rationalization for all the shit he pulled - as long as things balance out better than if he was not there at all then all the shit he pulled was just fine. As the wikipedia article quotes, the actor who played the character of Mackey thought of him as a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Dirty Harry.

In case it's not clear, simply being better than average is far too low a bar.

And quite frankly, I have little illusions about the morality of the police force. But I am absolutely convinced they do better than you.

Which is an entirely bogus requirement. As the saying goes - one does not need to be a baker in order to know that the bread is stale.

UN soldiers get to rape, or kill Israelis through stupidity or outright malice, without reprecussions in New York

Where in the world did you get that from? Nobody gets to rape or kill anyone in New York without repercussions. I don't think UN soldiers have even been deployed to New York, much less gone out raping and killing. Making claims like that just signal to everybody that you are totally off your rocker.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Laws are not simple reflections of the feelings of the public majority. Drugs are not illegal because people want them to be, and changing the law is not as simple as getting majority public support.

Getting public support is 95% of the battle: politicians who go against the public will tend not to be in office very long.

Most people are against drug legalization, especially hard drugs. Here is a historical look at public opinion on marijuana, notice that among liberals, more people actually are in favor of marijuana legalization than oppose it. Thus if you mainly hang out with liberals, you might get the impression that most people favor legalization, which would be an example of a sampling bias.

As you can see from the graph, as time passes more and more people favor legalizing MJ, and there is some evidence that the majority now feels that way. If so, and if the trend continues, MJ may be legalized soon, although with such a small majority it can still take a long time for things to change. Based on past experience I would say if the trend continues we can look at MJ legalization within the next decade.

Re:conundrum

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

slaves and "dhimmis" in islam, slaves and non-buddhists in buddhism, dalits in hinduism, ..

AAAAH! Now I remember you! You ARE completely off your rocker. You are one of those dhimmi-wannabes - believing only the worst possible interpretation despite all evidence to the contrary so as to feel justified in your hatred. Just another freaking extremist nutjob. Impressive that you were able to get a couple of posts out before revealing your own personal insanity.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

You are getting confused......when I say they are serving society, I mean they are doing the will of society. There is no guarantee that the will of society is not self-destructive. Police will do what we ask them to.

Also, your post sounds highly emotional and doesn't use paragraphs, which (I'll be honest here) makes you come across like a nutcase. I don't think you are one, but you might want to try adjusting your writing style.

Re:conundrum

[kdemetter]

Try to see it from another point of view.

How would you feel about drug dealers when your child gets addicted to hard drugs because of them ? And eventually your child gets in more trouble and ends up dead ? Are you going to be so forgiving to the drugdealers then ?

I don't care if you grow your own pot , and smoke some every now and then , and i think the police doesn't care that much it either.
But if you make money from selling drugs to minors , then you belong in jail , and if were Blizzard , i would do the same thing and help the police in any way i can.

Re:conundrum

[Oligonicella]

Self-idolatry is a religion too.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Which means for all Blizzard knew it could be a cop exploiting his authority trying to find his ex-girlfriend in order to go and beat on her some more.

Yeah, or maybe it was a terrorist trying to get the address of a place to blow up. We can all make up sensational scenarios, and sometimes they do happen, but that doesn't mean cooperating with the police is stupid.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

When the police go after a drug dealer, they are not working for ME.

Blizzard apparently feels differently than you.

Actually I do feel bad for you, because I know it sucks when the government uses your money to do something you don't want. The difficult part of living in society is we have to cooperate with other people, and sometimes they do things you don't want, which sucks.

Furthermore, I do agree with you that the war on drugs is horrible. What I probably don't agree with you on is that drugs should just be legalized. However, I am definitely open to alternative methods for discouraging drug use, and if you can think of a system that allows people who can handle drugs to do them, while people who can't handle drugs are prevented from doing them, I will be in favor of that, too.

Re:conundrum

[hjrnunes]

Bit of off topic but I'd never heard about UN soldiers killing or raping Israelis... I've heard something like that, but in Africa, particularly through the Katanga secession crisis.

But I went and googled for it and, well, found nothing. I mean, I found the usual - Israelis killing U.N. workers, attacking U.N. installations, etc. - Also saw the Fox News website: Fox News, fair & balanced ah, ah.

Anyway, can you provide some references? Like when was it or where?

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

The majority of the population once favored keeping blacks as property. That didn't make it right. Injustice is unjust no matter how many people favor it.

That's a morality judgement.

Re:conundrum

[DaTroof]

Read again. It was a subpoena. They compared it to a "politely worded request" because jurisdiction made its enforceability questionable, not because it wasn't a real subpoena.

Re:conundrum

[Draek]

In a nutshell, "what he did was illegal so anything the police and Blizzard did to catch him is fair deal". The problems with that ideology are obvious.

It is perfectly consistent to believe that drugs should be illegal, yet Blizzard should've kept his information private until a judge forced them otherwise.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Probably not ok, but I'm willing to let them write a special exception for you. "When police arrest Cwix, they are free to tase him as many times as he wants. Unless he utters the phrase, 'don't tase me bro' at which point they will be limited to only three times." I could probably be ok with that exception.

Re:conundrum

[Draek]

There's no such thing as an isolated morality. I.e., there is no personal morality. We might believe that our personal sense of right and wrong exists apart from society, but this is false.

Wrong. All morality is personal, there's no such thing as group morality, most certainly not of a whole society.

When the fuck are people gonna stop posting about topics they know nothing about? go take a couple classes on Ethics then come back.

Re:conundrum

[number11]

Seriously, police tasering is not a major problem in our country. You're more likely to die from a terrorist attack than from a taser. Really.

Cite?

In my community (a decent sized US metro) we have NEVER had a terrorist attack to my knowledge. Though I suppose it all depends on exactly how you define "terrorist" (Can it include government employees? When the government is the one who decides whether each particular case is "terrorist" or "not" it's going to skew the numbers pretty badly.). But about a year ago the cops tased a guy to death, the coroner ruled the death a "homicide". None of the killers were ever brought to justice, though.

Re:conundrum

[pyster]

I stand corrected.

Re:conundrum

[Hatta]

You're damned right it is. Anyone who advocates or participates in violence (that's what arrest is) against people merely trying to live their life without hurting anyone else is immoral and contemptible.

Re:conundrum

[L4t3r4lu5]

EULA < Law.

Without a court order or warrant the information held by Blizzard is held by data protection legislation (however your country applies it) and should not be divulged. This dealer should hire a competant lawyer to run over the EULA and see if it the data provided to law enforcement was provided legally, and if not get the case dropped.

I'm not so much of an idiot to suggest that he attempt to sue Blizzard.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Uh huh.....would you advocate violence against those people?

Re:conundrum

[Jace of Fuse!]

If you think the police don't care that much then you must not know how they can take everything you own over simply having an immature plant in your home. Dealing or not dealing, if you're manufacturing they will probably own you and all of your possessions.

What's worse is they will also take your WoW account, shard all of your purples, and sell all of your gold for money to fund their War on Weedcraft.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

You really are a bootlicker.

And I could call you a moronic, braindead wannabe tool, but that doesn't make it true.

Are you still convinced of your interpretation of Blizzard's privacy policy? If you take them to court, I guarantee that their lawyers left enough wiggle room in that thing to let them out of this. Personally, if you ask me, there are other things in the privacy policy that are way worse. Like Blizzard giving your personal information to other companies.

If you really have problems with the way the police operate, you need to convince other people to agree with you, so things can change. Right now you're really not doing a good job. Calling people names really doesn't help.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

It is perfectly consistent to believe that drugs should be illegal, yet Blizzard should've kept his information private until a judge forced them otherwise.

Sure. And if you are ever in Blizzard's situation, you can do something differently. But it was Blizzard's choice, and there is nothing wrong with what they did.

Re:conundrum

[Cwix]

If I say "please, dont tase me bro" will you keep it down to two?

Re:conundrum

[SanityInAnarchy]

You literally called every politician a Nazi,

Actually, no, I didn't. I made a point that authority can be wrong, sometimes very wrong.

Is it worth reading the rest of your comment if you're going to strawman me that badly in your very first sentence?

you had two references to Nazis in your post.

One after the other, on the very same point. So, no, that counts as one reference.

If I am arrested for a crime, for sure I am not going to talk, whether I am guilty or not.... On the other hand, if I am witness to a crime, I am going to help the police.

So, you very obviously didn't watch the video I linked to. It's not just whether you're arrested, it's in general a bad idea to talk to an on-duty police officer.

otherwise the criminals will go free.

False dichotomy. Just because you refuse to help doesn't mean they're completely out of options. They'll still do their job.

They have no need to...

Yes, I made it explicitly clear that it's not required of them. Nor is it required that you exercise your right to remain silent when arrested. It's just a good idea.

This seems to be your real problem. You don't like what the police do (arrest people for selling drugs), and so you want to make it as difficult as possible for the police. That's backwards...

No, that's actually probably the easiest form of civil disobedience, since it's not even illegal.

Since the thing you care about is drugs, let's talk about that for a second. Basically, drugs destroy lives, that's why they're illegal.

Then why isn't alcohol illegal? It sure as hell destroys a lot more lives than drugs.

There are two answers to that question, but I'll let you discover them on your own. I'll give you a hint, though: Prohibition, and essential liberties.

...even if it means a few potheads will be inconvenienced.

It's not even halfway through your post, and you drop to name-calling.

For the record: I don't even drink (and yes, I'm legal). The hardest drug I take is caffeine.

However, the mere use of a drug doesn't automatically transform you into a worthless reject. Ever hear of Carl Sagan? Google "Sagan Cannabis".

In addition to this loaded language ("pothead"), you're using language loaded the opposite way -- you're calling it an "inconvenience". Again, think of someone like Carl Sagan, an actual, productive member of society. Now imagine him in jail because the government decided cannabis was "ruining his life". Isn't it clear that a jail sentence would do far more to ruin his life than the drug ever could?

Now it is true that the current way drugs policy is enforced is causing problems, but that doesn't necessarily imply that drugs should be legalized, there are other options (mainly focusing more on cutting demand and less on destroying the supply chains).

And how, exactly, do you propose "cutting demand" short of imprisoning people doing something which, at worst, harms no one but themselves?

Now, yes, drug dealers are generally an unsavory, territorial bunch. Yes, there's generally going to be violence, prostitution, and other things... much of this more or less directly a result of the stuff being illegal. The profession of a drug dealer would pretty much evaporate if you could buy joints at a 7/11.

I didn't say the public is always right, I implied that if they public feels strongly about something, they tend to get their way, especially in a democracy. It follows naturally that if you want to get something, you should convince the public to feel strongly about it.

However, you are repeatedly saying that one should cooperate with the police, even if we don't agree with the law in question. And this is why N

Re:conundrum

[CodeBuster]

If a company says "if the law comes calling, we will cooperate" and you still agree to give them your information (and as long as this policy is publicly posted before agreeing to share said information), that's on you, not the company.

This is why, when dealing with a third party corporation, one should never tell the truth when a lie will do just as well. It is not difficult to setup and maintain a selection of aliases, complete with mail drops, corporate credit, and bank accounts as necessary. Indeed, the average citizen is compelled by necessity to learn these sorts of skills, which were once the exclusive purview of intelligence operatives and corporate spies, due to the atrocious privacy situation in the US these days.

Re:conundrum

[NormalVisual]

How would you feel about drug dealers when your child gets addicted to hard drugs because of them ? And eventually your child gets in more trouble and ends up dead ?

Replace "drug dealers" with "liquor stores" and "hard drugs" with "alcohol", and tell us what the difference is, aside from the fact that it's generally easier for kids to get hold of alcohol than pot.

Re:conundrum

[Totenglocke]

The police are working for us, they are our employees.

Try telling the police that they're your employee sometime. You'll probably be going home missing a few teeth. The police are working for the government not the people. They don't give a crap about right and wrong, they only care about what politicians tell them to do. They are the Stormtroopers of society and politicians are the Empire.

Cooperating with the police to do a job we give them is not evil.

Did you choose to make going over the speed limit while still having your car perfectly under control a crime? I didn't. Did you choose to waste billions of tax dollars a year on imprisoning people and ruining lives because they chose to do some drugs that only hurt them? I didn't. Politicians chose those things without asking us.

It doesn't matter if Blizzard handed over a guy who didn't pay his rent, a drug dealer, a murderer, or Osama bin Laden. They are paid to provide a service (gaming), not to track down criminals. This is setting a bad precedent where the government could offer companies incentives (handouts, tax credits, winning a lawsuit, etc) in order for companies to act as the Gestapo for the politicians.

Re:conundrum

[Xeno man]

What case? You mean all the ones of the preexisting warrant? The information was used to locate the guy, not as evidence of his crimes.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

OK, good enough.

Re:conundrum

[Draek]

Says who? it could be argued that there was nothing *illegal* in what they did (though to state that as certain would require a judge and a court), but there are plenty of good reasons to argue that what they did was, in fact, wrong.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

but there are plenty of good reasons to argue that what they did was, in fact, wrong.

That's a moral judgement.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Try telling the police that they're your employee sometime. You'll probably be going home missing a few teeth.

If that has happened to you, it's because you don't know how to tell it to police the right way.

Your entire post is full of logical fallacies and shows such a lack of connection to reality that it's hard to take your opinion seriously. For example this sentence:

This is setting a bad precedent where the government could offer companies incentives (handouts, tax credits, winning a lawsuit, etc) in order for companies to act as the Gestapo for the politicians.

Besides being a slippery slope fallacy (I can make a similar fallacious argument against porn), you fail to face the reality that companies already act as agents of the state in many cases, from being tax collectors to helping catch money launderers. Furthermore you made unwarranted comparisons to the Gestapo and Godwined the thread. Good job.

Re:conundrum

[orsty3001]

I've often questioned from a business standpoint is it better to not say anything at all. It's like a computer repair shop. What if the repair tech reports child porn on someone's computer? Wouldn't that just hurt them in future business because of the amount of people that would say "hey they turn people in I'm not taking me stuff there"? I think it hurts more than it helps when a company gives law enforcement people's private information.

Re:conundrum

[Totenglocke]

If that has happened to you, it's because you don't know how to tell it to police the right way.

You've obviously never dealt with the police. Even the cops that aren't corrupt have enough of an ego thinking that they're the supreme power and we only exist to serve them that they'll go ballistic. Try telling the same thing to the military too. Or a college professor. Despite the fact that all of these people are employed by our money, they do not see themselves as working for us. They see us as working for them.

Besides being a slippery slope fallacy (I can make a similar fallacious argument against porn), you fail to face the reality that companies already act as agents of the state in many cases, from being tax collectors to helping catch money launderers. Furthermore you made unwarranted comparisons to the Gestapo and Godwined the thread.

No, a slippery slope is if I said "it WILL lead to..." - I said it COULD lead to it, which is perfectly logical to believe. If it worked for the government once, you better believe they'll try it again. Or have you been living under a rock and don't realize how corrupt the government of every country is?

When a company collects sales tax from you, there is no reason at all to expect that your name or information will be attached to it in any way. There is no reason for a person to think that by going on to facebook, aim, WoW, or even slashdot that the people running that site / service will go running to the police to tell them where you are. It's one thing (though again, highly immoral) if the government gets a warrant to force the company to do it. However, that's not the case here, Blizzard did it perfectly willingly.

As for your Godwin bullshit, that's just an excuse for people like you to avoid when people criticize fascist behavior. Instead of putting up an actual argument for police having such extreme power, you simply cry "Godwin!" and run away without ever disputing the actual point made. Why? Because you don't have a counterpoint. You have no justification for why you support the police having ultimate power, but you want it and get upset if anyone tries to point out the flaws in that theory. Good job on making a post that has nothing to do with the issue at hand!

Re:conundrum

[Hatta]

I don't have any problem with people using force in self defense, remember in this case it's the government who is the violent aggressor. However, that's probably not the best way to achieve change.

Re:conundrum

[Cwix]

"In United States v. Keenan, the accused (Keenan) was found guilty of murder after he obeyed in order to shoot and kill an elderly Vietnamese citizen. The Court of Military Appeals held that "the justification for acts done pursuant to orders does not exist if the order was of such a nature that a man of ordinary sense and understanding would know it to be illegal."

http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/militarylaw1/a/obeyingorders.htm

An order to commit a crime is illegal. Yes it is sometimes perilous to refuse on such grounds, but if it is obviously against the law (purposely killing unarmed women or children, rape, etc are obviously illegal.) then you must refuse the order or be held just if not more accountable for the crime then the ordering official. Ohh and I was just stating the fact Im a veteran cause it gives me insight into the military thats all.

Note: You cannot disobey orders beacuse of danger or other such things, those are still lawful. You can ask for clarification, and many officers are willing to listen to everyones input to a certain extent. I never met a officer, or senior NCO that did not support an open door policy. Althou there is a time and a place, under fire isnt one.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

However, that's probably not the best way to achieve change.

No, it really isn't. A better way to achieve change, for gay marriage, for example, is to convince the majority of your fellow (voting) citizens that gay marriage isn't that bad. The best way to achieve drug legalization is to convince them that drug legalization is a good idea, and to address their concerns with it. Legislation will follow when the people have a strong opinion.

Re:conundrum

[BoberFett]

The police stopped working for the people long ago. Now they work for politicians, and as we all know they are clearly NOT people in any sense of the word.

Re:conundrum

[LordLimecat]

Your argument only makes sense if you assume that your own morality beats out the morality of our laws,

That doesnt look like what he was saying at all, and YOU seem to be assuming that everyone shares the idea that morality is derived from law. There are a great many people who do NOT share that belief, but its good to know that your beliefs on morality and its source are infallible.

Re:conundrum

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

And I could call you a moronic, braindead wannabe tool, but that doesn't make it true.

I've just been putting a name to your actions. If you tried to apply the label of 'tool' to me that would be demonstrably false. There is a clearcut definition of tool - apologist for a corporation or other organization - surprising how that's kind of a synonym for bootlicker, useful idiot seems appropriate too. The only one of us that has demonstrated an affinity for that behavior here has been yourself.

Are you still convinced of your interpretation of Blizzard's privacy policy?

Are you still convinced of your interpretation? You've done nothing but preen in your ignorance of the actual wording.

If you take them to court, I guarantee that their lawyers left enough wiggle room in that thing to let them out of this.

Of course they have "wiggle room," the freaking privacy policy is non-binding and they reserved the right to change their ToS at the drop of a hat anyway. You went from claiming they were "upfront" to now believing that the legalistic phrasing somewhere in the document has given them "wiggle room." Congratulations on a perfect demonstration of what it means to be a tool.

If you really have problems with the way the police operate, you need to convince other people to agree with you, so things can change.

Broken record, record, record. How many times have I told you that your baloney about changing society is a total red herring now?
But ... you ... keep ... on ... bringing ... it ... up.
Its like you can't even connect the dots in your own posts - you go on and on about Blizzard's privacy policy giving them a free pass and then you hop right on over to defending the police against an argument no one has made.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

True. I don't care if Blizzard gives someone's personal information to the police. Sorry it bothers you, that must be really annoying to you.

Re:conundrum

[izomiac]

So no, the morality of the police/military force is worse than any individuals.

Seriously? Surely this statement can be disproven by finding a particularly immoral individual.

It was always my opinion that such organizations were dominated by the selfless type rather than the bully type, although I try to be optimistic. In any case, the rapists mentioned are obviously outliers which would have little effect on the overall morality of the groups. Doubly so since I would assume such immoral individuals act far more moral around their non-complicit peers.

Re:conundrum

[daveime]

And how would you know that ? Before or after he kills the first innocent victim ?

Hindsight is always 20/20, but in the heat of the moment, surely the innocent should get priority over the crazy ?

Re:conundrum

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

True. I don't care if Blizzard gives someone's personal information to the police. Sorry it bothers you, that must be really annoying to you.

What bothers me is that your bogus rationalizations get traction.
You spew stupidity you deserve to get rebutted.

In all of your posts in this topic you've only been intellectually honest just once - the time you said you want life to be easy for the cops. Everything else you've said has just been cover for that one very unamerican belief. If you had started out with that honest statement you never would have had to squirm around defending bad logic, I would have told you to move to China or North Korea where they share your beliefs and be done with it.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Oh, if you think those arguments were some kind of insincere cover, you have completely misunderstood me. I try to never say anything I don't mean.

Re:conundrum

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

So why don't you answer a very simple question. Since you don't care about the other religions, let's just focus on islam :

1) whose actions are the definition of morality in islam
2) did that person (yes or no) rape a minor girl (less than or exactly 9 years old)
3) did 2) take place with or without consent of the girl ?
4) did that person rape someone he abducted and then "owned" ? (yes or no)
5) did said person trade in people ? yes or no
6) did said person force "traded" people to prostitute themselves for his own profit ? yes or no
7) do present-day moderate muslims, yes-or-no, accept the blatant immorality of these acts and how they reflect on the character of this person ?

I wonder, truly, if you have the courage to answer these questions ...

Re:conundrum

[selven]

Statistically, I think a person bent on suicide would still kill much less than 1 person before dying/going to jail/being cured.

Re:conundrum

[jthill]

Seriously, rape is not a major problem in our country. You're more likely to die from a terrorist attack than from being raped. Really.

Seriously, cargo-cult mockeries of reason like that are not a major problem in our country. You're more likely to die from a terrorist attack than you are from such bestial so-called "conservatism". Really.

Re:conundrum

[jthill]

That is just one method in which the citizens of the United States can unite despite certain minority groups wanting to tear them apart to satisfy their own agendas.

No doubt methods like that work very well where you can punish people for visibly regarding them as idiotic. Please, though, do try curb the bestiality out here, in public? It sets a bad example for the children.

Re:conundrum

[MokuMokuRyoushi]

Well, I dislike the way you blur the lines between "right" and "wrong". You may feel that what Blizzard did is bad, but their privacy policy and US law clearly state that they have legal permission to disclose any user's information. Whatever happens after, whatever happened before, doesn't matter. They were perfectly within law boundaries. -Ryoushi

Re:conundrum

[ildon]

I can't remember if WoW requires a credit card initially to register, but, assuming it doesn't, you could probably just give all fake info and then use game cards to pay for it if you were really paranoid about it.

Re:conundrum

[Draek]

So is the entirety of this thread, in case you hadn't noticed.

Re:conundrum

[Killjoy_NL]

Mail the admin/mod offtopic, should be enough either way.

Re:conundrum

[Killjoy_NL]

Not if the cop in question is some powerhungry megalomaniac such as the cop in question here in this video:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/06/raw-video-cop-tasers-72-year-old-granny/

Re:conundrum

[Killjoy_NL]

Now now, not most, just an annoying big number.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

Yeah, basically if you do the opposite of what a policeman tells you to do, you have a good chance of getting tased. Don't do that.

Re:conundrum

[misnohmer]

What a judgmental and at the same time meaningless statement! How do you define a term "loser" - someone who's done less than you for society, someone who makes less money than you? You tell me. There are many people who have used drugs who benefited the society more than you and make more money than you. So if you don't consider yourself a loser, you say doing drugs doesn't make one a loser, what reason do you have to call for example Andre Agassi a loser (he did drugs, but you per your own argument that doesn't make him a looser, him being a looser made him do drugs, so you should have a good reason to call him a looser). If you don't know who the guy is by the way, google him and his philanthropic activities - he's just the first example which popped into my head, not the only or the best one.

It's judgmental people like you who are responsible for all these unnecessary laws which cost us all an arm and a leg and give us nothing but more crime in return. Again, personally I've never done drugs and don't plan on it, but as far as judging other people based on what they do to their own bodies, who am I to judge?

Re:conundrum

[TheCarp]

I don't claim to have all the answers.

Discouraging drug use is still getting into the idea that society needs to be our nanny. The best person to decide whats best in my body is me.

Reducing social stigma actually would go a long way towards mitigating the negative effects of most drugs, as would lowering cost. If heroin were cheap enough, or other quality opiates, there would be less need to shoot the drug to maximize value. Nobody buys pure THC and shoots it.

The company I work for has an assistance program for the employees that goes beyond what insurance provides and can help with drug addiction. Programs like that and anything that can get a person with real issues the treatment they need... its the same recipe as you would use for alcohol. It doesn't matter what drug it is... its the overuse and abuse that are the issues.

Even then, for someone who is actually letting their drug use interfere with other things in their life, they often have other issues that are more important. Depression, ADHD, or a combination.

In the end, its just something that I see done better by social support networks. If they want to use tax dollars to help start up non-profit clinics, or do more education in schools. I am all good with that... but its a medical issue and a family issue.

Medical and family issues seldom lend themselves to the blunt instrument of law enforcement.

Lets also not forget, for all the talk of drug epidemics, all of the "hard drug" users combined don't equal half the pot heads.

Also, legalization takes the single most lucrative funding source away from criminal gangs all over the world. All of their other activities are much riskier in terms of getting caught. Burglaries, extortion rackets, etc... all much harder to get away with for as long.

Add prostitution to that list, and realize that up and up businessmen tend to avoid any connection to illegal activities that can jeopardize their business (like underage girls, trafficed girls etc), and you are really putting the squeeze on several levels of organized crime networks.

Even El Padrino would have had a hard time in an open market with Glaxco-Smith-Kline.

Re:conundrum

[PitaBred]

Or if you happen to be a person he doesn't like, or if you're black after dark in the wrong neighborhood, or... police are people, too. And the position attracts those who lust for authority. I'm not saying that there aren't good cops. The vast majority of them are. But it doesn't take many to fuck it up for everyone else, and when there's less accountability because of things like tasers, well...

Re:conundrum

[nedlohs]

I didn't say Blizzard was stupid. I said individuals cooperating with the police are stupid.

Blizzard was just enabling corrupt conduct, which I guess makes them evil. If they get a subpoena, warrant, etc then yes they should give up the information. If they don't they shouldn't.

Note, I'm not saying they've done anything illegal or unexpected.

Re:conundrum

[Shivantrill]

The only thing that makes them our "employees" is that they get paid by our tax money. Many things that are illegal in this country was not decided upon by the general public. The majority doesn't even vote. A good example of this is Tylenol with Codeine (300/30) commonly known as 3s, these are 300 mg of tylenol (acetaminophen) to 30 mg of codeine. Now Codiene is classified as an opiate though unlike true opiates, it does not pass the blood/brain barrier. it is metabolized in the body. In the small dosage of 30mg, the buzz you may get is similar to that of Nyquil or a shot of alcohol, both perfectly legal. In the United States this so-called drug is classified as a Schedule III narcotic and heavily regulated. My doctor is not allowed to set it to have refills, I have to get approval from her each time to have it refilled. But I can go to Canada or Mexico and this same drug is sold over the counter. Australia and New Zealand too. In the UK it is also available over the counter. Here in the United States they now regulate the active ingredient in Sudafed since it has been used to cut methamphetamine with. I have to ask for it from the pharmacist and show my driver's license. It is then recorded in a book that I have purchased it. I would prefer to not have to feel like some kind of drug addict because I have a stuffy nose and sudafed is all that works. Or because I have menstrual cramps and codeine is the only thing that will bring me relief.

Re:conundrum

[Killjoy_NL]

This was an elderly woman, there are many ways he could have restrained her.
The taser could have give her a heart attack at that age.

Re:conundrum

[NormalVisual]

if the law changes to legalize it, the police won't fight back, they're actually quite agnostic towards it.

I disagree - in the U.S. anyway, the War On Drugs(tm) has been a license for the executive branch (including local law enforcement) to expand its power to a degree unprecedented in American history, often by ignoring the law or creatively interpreting it to its own advantage. I somehow doubt they're just going to roll over and give that power (and the money that comes with it) up.

Re:conundrum

[glitch23]

But isn't the state supposed to be separate from the church? How can there be any non-religious argument against gay marriage?

Well I don't believe "separation of church and state" implies that the citizens are not allowed to have a religion be visible in the government. The government is not allowed to force a citizen to become a member of any particular religion or rule based on a religion. If you want *that* you can go to Iran or if you had a time machine you can go to 18th century England, which is exactly the situation that the Founding Fathers did not want to duplicate. Anything short of that that someone complains about with respect to the government doing something that "violates" that "separation" is just simply a knee jerk reaction in an effort to exercise their prejudice toward anything religious.

By the way, gays can have civil unions, which by definition have no religious foundation to them. But marriage is a religious institution (not even specific to Christianity) and all religions are against homosexuality. You want the government to separate church and state with respect to gay marriage? We already have that: civil unions.

And why should homosexual bow down to the prejudice of heterosexual majority any more than black people should bow down to the prejudices of the white majority?

Um, heterosexuals are free to believe whatever they want. Why do homosexuals believe they must be accepted by everyone? Do you see murderers, rapists, and robbers trying to make their life goal to be accepted by everyone in society? They are going to find bias against them as they go back into the work force. Does that mean they are going to rise up in numbers and start picketing to get society to accept them as humans again? I have yet to see that. They don't have an agenda. They just want their life back (for those who are not repeat offenders). So why do homosexuals have an agenda to ensure they get accepted? Why should I change my belief system to accept homosexuals? I don't hate them mind you. I just don't agree with their lifestyle. I don't impose mine onto them so they shouldn't try to force me to accept their lifestyle. If you believe they have a choice in the lifestyle they choose then you also believe that they should reap the benefits and accept the consequences of that lifestyle. If you believe they are born that way then that is another whole issue altogether. Blacks are born black. There is nothing wrong with that and obviously they can't help their heritage; nor should they feel they have to. Therefore they *should* be equal to all other people. I think it is offensive to any race to compare homosexuals to them and their "fight" for acceptance because I feel homosexuals choose to be the way they are just as bisexuals choose to pick and choose on a whim whether they are going to date a male or female any given month.

Put another way, some people do have prejudice against non-white races because they are non-white. That is just plain prejudice in my opinion. The "prejudice" against gays that you speak of is faith-based. Does that mean we should make religion illegal? No. Again, the "prejudice" is that people of faith do not accept homosexuality and believe it is immoral. They feel the same way about murderers but you don't see murderers up in arms about it. Again I ask, why do the homosexuals fight so hard for acceptance? Why can't they accept that not everyone is going to agree with their lifestyle? Under the premise that they should live with the consequences of their decisions, they shouldn't demand that they get special treatment nor should they feel they are being treated less fairly than heterosexuals. Again, marriage is a religious institution and all religions are against homosexuality. So why should entire religious foundations have to be modified in order to make homosexuals happy due to their own personal decisions?

And regarding your sig.. What is so bad about universal healthcare exactl

Re:conundrum

[glitch23]

You are using this infringement argument WRONGLY. You are claiming that homosexuals infringe on the rights of heterosexuals by wanting to get married. I challenge you to present a personal (legal) right of yours that would be under attack from homosexual marriage (and no, freedom of expression/religion do not count because you can still practice your faith just fine whether or not gays are getting married).

Um, no I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that when people go to vote on legalizing gay marriage and it doesn't pass then the gays demand recounts and attempt to get the motion in front of the voters again and again until they get their way. Or what is worse is that the courts try to overturn what the people *already* voted on. The courts go beyond their power when they do that. Since your premise is wrong I have no need to respond to the remainder of the paragraph.

Your problem is that you consider "tolerance" of the Christian faith to be synonymous with "absolute obedience to it", i.e. don't do anything yourself that a devout literal-biblical Christian would not do. THAT IS NOT TOLERANCE, that is subservience! And your argument that homosexuals are being "intolerant" by wanting to get married is both ironic and moronic for this reason.

Are you saying that my religion, beliefs and faith don't matter if it means a homosexual can't get married? I *am* tolerant of homosexuals insofar as they can do whatever they want, *until* they start demanding laws and other people have to accept their way of life. No other group of people that I can think of off hand do that due to a personal choice they have made. People have to accept the consequences of their choices. (The premise here obviously being that homosexuality is a choice.) I don't hate homosexuals but I find them intolerant of people who they view as blocking their agenda of pushing homosexuality onto society by forcing society to make laws that cater to them. It is hypocritical on their part. Their agenda is blocked because most people don't want laws catering to the homosexuals, which is how the laws that try to get passed are viewed, rather than being viewed as a way to make homosexuals equal to heterosexuals.

At a fundamental level, both groups of people are human and the U.S. treats people, by law, equally at the fundamental level as set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Barring things like Affirmative Action, people of one race are no longer treated better than people of another race and the same goes for gender and religion. That is because we are now viewed as human beings fundamentally. Obviously there will always be local bias but the U.S. treats all humans the same. Sexual preferences should not get special treatment. If they should get special treatment, why limit those preferences to homosexuals? Heterosexuals are people to and so are bisexuals and transgenders. Liberals want everyone to be all inclusive, remember!

Many religions, maybe even all of them, consider homosexuality to be immoral. And I'm sure some people have voted against gay marriage and didn't do so based on religious beliefs. You obviously have issues with religion in general so you won't even consider any argument that has religious underpinnings. Thanks for *your* tolerance and open-mindedness. Homosexuals aren't being intolerant by wanting to get married. They are being intolerant by pushing judges and the courts to overturn the results of voters going to the ballot boxes. And marriage *is* is a religious institution. Religious foundations shouldn't be modified so that homosexuals can get what they want on a whim because of personal decisions. There is civil unions to accommodate them. Changing religion for the sake of a minority is allowing religion to be subservient to people and that isn't how things work.

Re:conundrum

[causality]

That's the entire point of universal healthcare, or any other government service, those who can afford it contribute more, those who can't contribute less.

Communism or Marxism: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Now, if you think a partial or "light" implementation of Communism won't suffer from the same failings as the full-blown Communism attempted in Russia and other places, you're probably right. Full-blown Communism always has the fatal flaw that it requires absolute or near-absolute power to implement, and once such power is obtained the people who have it don't want to give it up. By contrast, partial Communism can be implemented by a constitutional republic style of government that does not have such power, though it still represents an expansion of the size and power of the State.

What is so bad about universal healthcare exactly? That it's socialist? Do you really have that much of an irrational fear of socialism that you reject anything associated with it?

I wish we'd call things what they are. This Socialism of which you speak is partial or "light" Communism. "Socialism" is one of those feel-good euphemisms designed to escape the bad name that Communism has soundly earned while differing from it only in degree. The fear may or may not be irrational; instead of telling you whether it is or isn't, I'd rather ask you to consider a couple of things. The first is that in the specific case of the USA, our Federal government has failed to earn our trust. When government fails to earn your trust by being honest, efficient, effective, and honorable, it makes no sense to reward it with more power. This objection exists whether or not Socialism is a good thing or a bad thing, for a good thing won't be correctly implemented by corrupt people.

The second idea I ask you to consider is the very rebranding of the label "Socialism." Left-leaning individuals could argue that the ideas of Communism and the ideas of Capitalism need to strike a balance. They could say that unmitigated Capitalism leads to exploitation and wage slavery like we experienced during the Industrial Revolution with laissez-faire Capitalism, while unmitigated Communism leads to totalitarian regimes which cause much suffering and death. They could reason and debate thusly, and ask those who refuse to debate whether they really have that much of an irrational fear of Communism. But they don't. Instead, they re-brand the same old ideas and call them "Socialism", like a corporation that changes its name and re-brands its products after earning a bad reputation. Is this the work of intellectually honest people? Is it so hard to understand that this alone makes many people suspicious about the motives of this movement?

That's the entire point of universal healthcare, or any other government service, those who can afford it contribute more, those who can't contribute less. If everyone contributed equal amounts, that amount would have to be what the poorest person can reasonably afford and still survive. This would not leave much in the way of government services.

Tell you what. Let's drop the War on (some) Drugs, let's stop fighting aggressive foreign wars that are based on flimsy excuses, let's repeal the Patriot Act, dissolve the DHS, eliminate all warrentless intrusions into the lives of American citizens, eliminate the income tax and replace it with the Fair Tax -- a national sales tax, eliminate the Federal Reserve and fiat currency and replace it with a representative currency, and remove or eliminate any and all functions of government that are not obvious conclusions of a literal reading of the US Constitution. Then let's see if what poor people can afford to contribute is not enough.

Government is supposed to represent all of the citizens equally. To be consistent with this, they should all pay the same taxes with no "progressive" tax rat

Re:conundrum

[LazeLaze]

Homosexuals aren't asking you to change your religion, they're asking you to change your laws. Separate in this country, remember? (or supposed to be, at least) And a law that allows homosexuals to get married is not "catering" to them, it's providing the equality that you claim is already present for "all people at the fundamental level as set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights".

Are you saying that my religion, beliefs and faith don't matter if it means a homosexual can't get married? I *am* tolerant of homosexuals insofar as they can do whatever they want, *until* they start demanding laws and other people have to accept their way of life.

Yes, I'm saying that your religion/beliefs/faith shouldn't have an effect on someone else's basic rights. If your beliefs force you to deprive others of rights that all people are supposed to have, then your beliefs are illegal. If you believe that you should be able to get married, which is a LEGAL not RELIGIOUS right, then so can anyone else regardless of their sexuality. Ex. If my religion, hypothetically, believes that people with AIDS are evil and should be segregated, that doesn't allow me to segregate them because that would infringe their rights. So yes, in this case your beliefs don't matter for shit, deal with it, that's what tolerance means. It means that you practice your religion/beliefs in your own life and allow others to practice their different religions/beliefs in their lives.

Homosexuals aren't being intolerant by wanting to get married. They are being intolerant by pushing judges and the courts to overturn the results of voters going to the ballot boxes. And marriage *is* is a religious institution. Religious foundations shouldn't be modified so that homosexuals can get what they want on a whim because of personal decisions.

Wrong. Marriage was created originally as a religious institution. Through the laws passed by our country, it has come to have social, financial, and economic values that transcend the original religious underpinnings. It doesn't belong exclusively to Christianity or any other religion, not anymore. Just look at tax and marital law; are all of those laws based on religion?

Your religious foundations aren't getting changed. You can still get married in all the same ways with all the same rights, whether or not gays do. Again you are trying to redefine tolerance as total obedience.

Re:conundrum

[kdemetter]

Well , for one thing , liquor stores are regulated by the law. For example , they are not allowed to sell alcohol to minors.

Other than that, there is little difference : it can do just as much damage.

However , a liqour store owner who does give alchohol to minors, or worse, when they go for beer gives them free samples of wodka ( so they would buy wodka next time ) , isn't going to own that store for long.

Re:conundrum

[kdemetter]

Well ,as stated above :

Well , for one thing , liquor stores are regulated by the law. For example , they are not allowed to sell alcohol to minors.

Other than that, there is little difference : it can do just as much damage.

However , a liqour store owner who does give alchohol to minors, or worse, when they go for beer gives them free samples of wodka ( so they would buy wodka next time ) , isn't going to own that store for long.

Re:conundrum

[MobyDisk]

Ultimately, the decision to reveal the information should be in the hands of a judge. Blizzard should wait for the warrant. How does Blizzard know the request was legitimate? How do they know that it wasn't a corrupt officer who was angry at this individual for personal reasons? This is why we have a checks and balances.

If corporations decide to cooperate with police too much, then they give the police a way to get around their constitutional limitations.

Re:conundrum

[Thuktun]

Replace "drug dealers" with "liquor stores" and "hard drugs" with "alcohol", and tell us what the difference is, aside from the fact that it's generally easier for kids to get hold of alcohol than pot.

...and supplementary to this, note that we already did a War on Alcohol and lost. We're arguably better off without it, given the criminal enterprises that thrived under it.

Why we decided to start another, longer-lived one of these in the 1980s is beyond me. Doomed to repeat it, and all that.

Re:conundrum

[phantomfive]

"You literally called every politician a Nazi" Actually, no, I didn't.

OK. When you said this: "politicians are the last to go. And again, Nazis" it sounded to me like you were calling politicians Nazis. If not, that's fine. But bringing up Nazis at all is usually counterproductive, so lets ignore them altogether. As for the rest of your post, I'll try to respond to the parts seem to reflect your thoughts most accurately:

False dichotomy. Just because you refuse to help doesn't mean they're completely out of options. They'll still do their job.

They will try, but the fact is, it's hard to get someone convicted for, say, murder, without witnesses. Sometimes it happens, but it's a lot harder. Society requires some cooperation, which is why we all are required to serve jury duty.

And if it were, we would have seatbelt laws for adults, just as we currently have seatbelt laws for children.

Here's the thing, we already do have seatbelt laws for adults in most states. So if we want to make legislation to minimize harm, it has been done before.

So going on your harm idea: the major harm of having drugs made illegal is the violence perpetrated by drug dealers, especially in places like Colombia and now Mexico. The major problem is in the US we have high demand, and the potential reward is so high that dealers are willing to take the risk.

Following that, we want to do things to reduce demand, and reduce the potential reward. There are a number of ways to do this, but decriminalization is absolutely the worst possible thing to do, since it it will increase demand, without reducing the reward. It would be far better to decriminalize possession and increase penalties for using drugs than to decriminalize its use.

There are lots of possibilities to help things other than making drugs legal. One plan I read about recently would be to make it easier for drugs to pass into the US through the Caribbean, drawing the traffic away from Mexico, since the high payoff comes because the risk is so high to traffickers, reducing the risk would make the potential reward a lot smaller.

Another idea would be what the Swiss have done, which is very promising, and that is giving free heroin injections in clinics. It has completely devastated the market for heroin (who would pay for it when it's free?), created a stigma around the drug (since all those heroin junkies go to the clinic all the time), and given those who are actually in the heroin trap a chance to escape. So there are lots of things we can do, that aren't legalization.

But if you really wish to try to claim that we can't say anyone is right or wrong, that suggests that everyone's opinion on right or wrong is equally valid -- which suggests that if Blizzard disagrees with this law, they absolutely should fight it by not cooperating.

Agreed. Or maybe their legal department decided it would just be easier to cooperate, I don't know. Sometimes you have to pick and choose your fights.

Re:conundrum

[RivenAleem]

Not sure what is worse, the dealer, or Blizzard.

One sells a highly addictive product used by millions across the globe, tends to only give you enough that you want for more and the product is usually flawed and dangerous to your health.

The other is a drug dealer.

Re:conundrum

[Mauzl]

Well, you are talking about Maine...

Impropriety

[Raindance]

One has to wonder, if Blizzard goes that far above and beyond requests of law enforcement and gives mountains of data in response to polite requests-- not even subpoenas-- how seriously do they take the privacy of *your* personal information?

I'm glad the bad guy got caught, etc, but handing over the keys to the kingdom to law enforcement without a subpoena implies, in my mind, that respect for users' privacy is simply not something Blizzard considers when they go about their business. Or rather, that such information is their property, not yours.

Re:Impropriety

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I'm glad the bad guy got caught,

Alleged bad guy. Even you, with your demonstrated skepticism, have been suckered in by the "if the cops want him, he must be guilty" mindset.

Re:Impropriety

[scapermoya]

you'd think they'd want a subpoena to cover their own butts in the event that the cops got it wrong and the guy sues them.

Re:Impropriety

[phantomfive]

They were upfront about it: it's in the privacy policy. In general it says they won't give out your information to third parties without informing you, but they do make an exception for law enforcement:

We reserve the right to disclose your personal information as required by law or in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against you if you are violating the Terms of Service or Use Agreements for a Blizzard site or product, or may be causing injury to or interference (intentionally or unintentionally) with Blizzard's rights or property, other users of a Blizzard site or product, or anyone else who could be harmed by your activities.

They basically say if the police come, they'll have no problem giving up your information. I guess that is a problem for some people, but so far it doesn't bother me enough to make me stop playing.

Re:Impropriety

[MichaelSmith]

(wakes up, looks around)

Is it 2010 now?

Re:Impropriety

[MichaelSmith]

On a different note a guy who was fairly senior in a large ISP here told me that one of their subscribers send whattlooked like a suicide note over IRC. The person who spotted it got onto the ISP, who gave the billing address to the local police in that jurisdiction. They got there just in time.

Re:Impropriety

[pete6677]

Anyone who has a problem with this should simply not use their services. There is certainly no law that states a company cannot cooperate with police without a search warrant. Especially when they disclose this in their terms of service.

Re:Impropriety

[shentino]

Especially when how they probably do things in China makes the american blizzard division look like a saint.

Re:Impropriety

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Since when is killing oneself illegal?

Surely you are joking? Almost every country in the world has laws against suicide. In the US it was only a decade or so ago that the last states took felony suicide and attempted suicide laws off the books.

Re:Impropriety

[eqisow]

For awhile?

Re:Impropriety

[phantomfive]

That almost sounds like a reasonable analysis of the privacy agreement except you completely ignored parts of it. Let's have intellectual honesty, shall we? It doesn't say it has to be illegal, it says "as required by law or in special cases;" clearly this was a special case.

If the law is bad, we should change the law. Otherwise it is silly to get upset with the group who is often called by the name law enforcement for doing what their name implies. You can't get mad at the police for doing what we as a society asked them to do, and you can't really get mad at Blizzard for helping them to do what we asked them to do.

Re:Impropriety

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I want the cops to have as easy a job as possible.

And there we have it. You are fundamentally incompatible with basic American values.
A free society does not exist for the convenience of the police.

Its also funny that you've demonstrated once again that you just throw out rationalizations and hope they will stick.
After all, I just shot down your entire rationalization of "well their privacy policy said they would do it" so you switched arguments.
Instead of being ticked off that Blizzard really did violate the terms of their privacy policy you just rationalized it with yet another authoritarian argument about saving tax dollars.

Re:Impropriety

[dissy]

So this warrant was issued two years ago, he fled the country, started a new life, and there is (as far as I can tell) no evidence of him dealing drugs after that.

This is America, where you aren't allowed to start over and have a new life after realizing a mistake such as helping other people.

In the eyes of our police force, just because he stopped selling doesn't mean he isn't a horrible person that deserves prison time, but he's also never allowed to make a life for himself after supposedly 'paying his dues'.
It is only acceptable to never let these people work or live in society again.

While granted the entire basis of our legal system is stated as rehabilitation, their actions over the last 300 years show the exact opposite is true in reality.

And if our police force has shown us anything, it is that a murderer is not worth going after because it will be too hard, yet someone selling $50 worth of pot is totally worth the tens of thousands (or more in this case) of dollars to track them down and ruin their life.

Re:Impropriety

[houghi]

In Belgium that could mean that the data was obtained illegally and the case could be thrown out. You need a court order to get privacy data, even if you are a cop and walk into the building. Well, especially if you are a cop, as you should know what the procedure was.

Not only would it be possible to get the case thrown out, it would also be possible to sue the company for giving out personal information. There is a reason for this and even now it happens that in individual cases police abuse the knowledge they have for personal gain.

The positive part is that it should be clear to everybody involved what you can give out when and when you can't. "If you can't produce the correct papers, I can't give you anything. Now go away and leave the building." and yes, I have seen policemen escorted out of the building because they did not have the correct papers with them and if they would have stayed, we would have filed for trespassing and breaking and entering and what not.

They came back two hours later with the correct papers and got all the cooperation they needed. From that day on they came with a court order each time and each time got what they asked for in the warrent (nothing more and nothing less).

Re:Impropriety

[phantomfive]

After all, I just shot down your entire rationalization of "well their privacy policy said they would do it" so you switched arguments.

Are you serious? Wow, you must have not actually read it. Here is the quote: W"e reserve the right to disclose your personal information as required by law or in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against you"

It doesn't say they have to wait until they are obligated by law, you are reading it wrong if you believe that. It says in special cases they may give your information out so legal action can be brought against you (or so you can be identified or contacted. Under that clause it doesn't even have to be the police making the request).

Re:Impropriety

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Here is the quote: W"e reserve the right to disclose your personal information as required by law or in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against you"

Are you serious? Still trying to do the selective quote thing when I ALREADY quoted the relevant part that shoots your argument down in flames?

Is it possible that you don't understand the meaning of the word "when?"

Re:Impropriety

[16K Ram Pack]

I want the cops to have as easy a job as possible. It saves me money in taxes if we don't have to hire as many

Here's another idea... if we didn't have the ludicrous War On Drugs, you'd pay even less in taxes, or have your taxes better spent.

I will co-operate with the police on the War On Drugs to the absolute bare minimum required by the law. If I can print the data and provide it in a hard-to-read font, I will.

It's a pity that Blizzard have shown which side of the war they are on.

Re:Impropriety

[MichaelSmith]

The ISP in this case passed information to the police because they believed it was in the best interest of the person concerned. Not because suicide might be illegal. I suppose my point is that passing information to the police can sometimes be the right thing to do, if not the legally correct thing to do.

Re:Impropriety

[koiransuklaa]

uh, what? She was convicted of three counts of reckless homicide. Are you saying in your mind she is guilty of an additional crime and should have been charged with something else as well?

How do you see your anti-suicide law working? Do you think Jeanette might have thought "hmm, on second thought maybe I won't kill myself because I might get jail time for it"?

Re:Impropriety

[Hurricane78]

Let’s find out. I’m assuming your Slashdot user name is also your WoW name, right? ^^

Re:Impropriety

[Hurricane78]

Exactly. I was once dragged out of a club by two giant bouncers, fully patted down and insulted by seven cops, because some new idiot bouncer who was a colleague of a bouncer friend of mine saw us exchange little pieces of paper (drink coupons) which he thought were drugs!

One cop even, after he told be to turn my back pockets inside-out (not possible with jeans), himself grabbed in there, and came out with a small bag of drugs! The pockets were empty when I had the hands inside, about 5 seconds earlier!! So he must have had it in his hand when doing this!!

If it weren’t for all the bouncers being embarrassed because of their colleague fucking up, them being my friends, and them getting very angry because of this obvious dick move of that cop, basically chasing them out of the venue, I would perhaps now sit in jail for dealing drugs and/or have my life ruined!

Needless to say, the bouncers were not very friendly to that new guy afterwards. ;)

We later got a official, written excuse from the police headquarter. It was the Cologne police by the way. (Yeah Google, index this!) Cops here basically behave like criminals with a badge (except from some lone exceptions). I would not be surprised, if their reason for the theater was, that they smelled a competition to them controlling the drug market...

Re:Impropriety

[dontmakemethink]

When you give your information away for the purposes of online gaming, no court in the world will consider it ANYONE'S property. It is effectively ABANDONED.

See, any information of value cannot be offered in trust to anyone that isn't trustworthy, i.e. licensed by a relevant authority. If you submit your information to an unlicensed entity of any kind, you have submitted it to public domain. The "company privacy policy" only offers means for you to sue them if you catch them breaking the policy, which you won't.

My favorite example - the Canadian "do not call" phone number list found its way onto the open market shortly after its inception. Penalties? Zero.

But the good news is your information isn't so important. You don't need to live in a bubble to stay out of the rain.

Re:Impropriety

[Hurricane78]

Yes, but that is incredibly fucked up. Because there is no reason at all for this. And nobody has the right to tell another human to do with his body what he wants. But nobody of the retards ever even questions this? You know why?

Because there actually is a reason: The egocentric assholes who are so extremely dickish, that they won’t even let another human die, because that would prevent them from profiting from him anymore! And that’s the only real reason it’s illegal! Insurance companies, “family” (read “parasites), tax authorities, etc. They all want to continue bleeding you dry, and would go as far as trying to override the most basic of all human rights ever on this whole planet:
The right to do with your own body what you want.

Oh, and it’s a totally pointless law anyway. Because what do you wanna do when someone did it? Punish him? LOL. By death? LOL. Ridiculous.

And if it’s one of those cries for help, where one does not intent to really kill oneself, then what is needed is that HELP. Not some lawsuit/punishment that will make him try it again. This time properly, and without telling anyone!

Dumb, dumb, dumb. And one of the dickishest dick rules ever.

Re:Impropriety

[freedumb2000]

Cologne (Köln), Germany?

Re:Impropriety

[thsths]

> There is certainly no law that states a company cannot cooperate with police without a search warrant.

Maybe not in American, but here there certainly is :-).

Re:Impropriety

[dontmakemethink]

Besides, killing real people doesn't leave a data trail, and is far more realistic. Why pay for the fake stuff that gets you busted!

Re:Impropriety

[ildon]

I'll make it easy for you: "as required by law OR ... is necessary to identify, contact, or BRING LEGAL ACTION AGAINST YOU."

The "as required by law" and "bring legal action against you" sections are separated by an "OR". This means one is not required of the other in their stated policy.

Got it yet? Blizzard followed their policy to the letter. You don't agree to it? Don't give them your information. End of story.

Re:Impropriety

[lordmetroid]

No, the police is armed and trigger happy. I've seen similar suicide attempts incidents reported in the news and when the police has been informed about an ongoing suicide. The police has been the one that killed or maimed the poor person in despair. Better to call the neighbours, family, friends or go over there oneself.

Re:Impropriety

[MichaelSmith]

Depends on where you are. Here in Australia the police can be relied on more often than not to behave like human beings. And I know that in this case the place they needed to send help to was in a remote part of a different state, so there weren't many options available.

Re:Impropriety

[Hurricane78]

Yes. Or does the USA have at least 3 Colognes too again? ^^

Re:Impropriety

[furball]

Usually if someone is found to be suicidal, believably so, the court sticks them in a mental health institution, not jail. It is in the mental health institutions that they can find help.

I am not aware of any jurisdiction that puts a suicidal person into criminal incarceration instead of a mental health facility.

Re:Impropriety

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

WOW's TOS is incredibly clear and up front about this; if law enforcement 'requests', they give.

Good find. The problem is that the ToS is modified by their Privacy Policy which phantomfive has already posted - the privacy policy explicitly limits when they will cooperate with law enforcement so that it is not just any old request by law enforcement that will make them bend over, it is a request under certain specific circumstances and none of those circumstances apply in this situation.

Re:Impropriety

[ildon]

I was really just trying to point out your complete lack of reading comprehension. The anonymous coward seems to have handled it pretty thoroughly, though.

Re:Impropriety

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I was really just trying to point out your complete lack of reading comprehension. The anonymous coward seems to have handled it pretty thoroughly, though.

No, not really. Because (A) your argument is completely different from the AC's. You said it was all about the first "or" and that it stopped at the period you invented. He seems to think that one of the clauses AFTER your period applies to this case. And (B) since you are now trying to ride the AC's coattails in order to hide your fuckup, apparently missed my original post where I had already discredited the argument that AC tried to make.

So it seems like the only one with a "complete lack of reading comprehension" here is yourself, the AC at least gets points for reading the whole quote, but no points for failure of critical analysis.

Re:Impropriety

[Jedi Alec]

Which is why so many Australians (and, most likely, Europeans) find the healthcare debate in the US so incomprehensible: just go ahead and hand over your freedom; it's for your own good. This sounds perfectly reasonable to non American ears, not so much in the US.

Actually, as a European, the reason I find the debate so incomprehensible is the amount of disinformation/bullshit flying around. Based on footage of the various rallies, town hall meetings and sessions in congress I can only come to the following conclusions:

- There's a lot of people in the US that I can only classify as being so incredibly ignorant it's not even funny anymore. Either that, or they're simple batshit insane.
- Having seen some of the folks in Congress speak, there are apparently entire states where being a total moron is a qualification for being elected.
- It is simply impossible to have a rational debate on an issue like this in the US of A. Any and all rational voices are outscreamed by an army of pundits, lobbyists and politicans screaming about death camps (srsly, wtf?)

I mean, sure, we have television stations over here especially geared for the idiots that'll gobble up whatever pundit confirms their beliefs, no matter how irrational, but they're a minority.

Re:Impropriety

[BodhiCat]

The agreement says that Blizzard may give information to the police "if you are violating the Terms of Service or Use Agreements for a Blizzard site or product, or may be causing injury to or interference (intentionally or unintentionally) with Blizzard's rights or property, other users of a Blizzard site or product, or anyone else who could be harmed by your activities."

Although dealing drugs is illegal in the country, I don't think it violates the Terms of Service of Blizzard.

Re:Impropriety

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

- It is simply impossible to have a rational debate on an issue like this in the US of A. Any and all rational voices are outscreamed by an army of pundits, lobbyists and politicans screaming about death camps (srsly, wtf?)

Mostly this. But I can shed light on the "death camp" - actually "death panel" - thing.

It's an exaggeration of the realization that we don't have infinite resources. Somebody, somewhere is going to have to say "no" when some terminally ill person wants some exceptionally high-priced treatment that has some limited chance of sucess. Hence the people deciding to say "no" have been stylized as a "death panel."

What's rabidly stupid about that attitude is that under the current system of private health insurance these "death panels" rule against people all the time. We have them today, and given what little choice most people have when it comes to private health insurance (you basically take what your employer offers or you go without) it is hard to see the situation getting any worse under some nationalized system. Not that I expect it to get better either, I think that aspect will probably be a wash, but that's just my personal opinion.

To make things more confusing, the part of the legislation the death panel hypsters cite doesn't even have anything to do with refusing care. It's some language about "end of life counseling" - getting a shrink in there to help the terminally ill die with dignity and grace and maybe a cpa or somebody to help insure their affairs are in order. And, get this, the exact same language is in the legislation that defines the current medicare system, been there for years, maybe even decades. They just cut-n-pasted into the new legislation because they were basing it in large part on the medicare model. (medicare is the name of a big program in the USA that is kinda sorta like socialized healthcare for the old and kids who are poor).

And, for what little it's worth nowadays, my opinion is that socialized healthcare is the exact wrong direction to be taking. We need to get back to a situation where each patient is directly affected by/responsible for the cost of treatment. I believe that the reason costs have spiraled out of control is the fundamental disconnect between the cost of treatment and the benefit to the person receiving it. Except for emergency care we ought to be shopping on value, but we don't. Instead we try to get as much treatment as possible for the premiums and copays - like gorging on food at an all-you-can-eat buffet. The doctors don't mind over-testing, it helps prevent them from getting sued if they can show that they tested for everything under the sun (aka defensive medicine). I can see socializing catastrophic insurance and maybe even a voucher-like system for the desperately poor to cover routine medicine. But the routine and non-emergency stuff needs to come back under the direct fiscal control of the people receiving the treatments. Socializing it will just further the disconnect between the costs and the benefits resulting in the prices just going up even faster.

Re:Impropriety

[selven]

I don't have a problem with putting people who need help into mental institutions, but giving a suicidal person an actual criminal punishment is, in my mind, a big no-no. I can imagine someone about to jump off a building, a policeman shouting "Don't do it! Pay the $5000 fine instead!" and the guy jumping off even faster.

Re:Impropriety

[Cronock]

Dumb, dumb, dumb. And one of the dickishest dick rules ever.

Suicide is illegal mainly for show, but it also gives authorities the ability to take certain measures to attempt to prevent it. If your friend said she was about to kill herself and you called the police for them to get there, they would be unable to help if the activity was perfectly legal.

Re:Impropriety

[Hatta]

He's only alleged to be selling drugs, he's not a bad guy whether he did it or not.

Re:Impropriety

[RobVB]

Sure I ignored parts of it, it's way too long to read thoroughly. However,

It doesn't say it has to be illegal, it says "as required by law or in special cases;" clearly this was a special case.

A special case of what? They specify in which special cases they reserve the right to disclose personal information. And none of those applied here. There are probably other parts of the privacy agreement that Blizzard can fall back on here, but the part you quoted doesn't cut it for me.

Re:Impropriety

[DurendalMac]

Did you (or any other idiot commenting here) read the damned article at all? THEY DID SEND A SUBPOENA! Blizzard could have probably ignored it, but they risked opening up a huge can of worms as a result. And you gave "your" personal information to them when you signed up and every time you logged on. If they have that info, it isn't just "yours" anymore, and if you read their TOS, you'll find that they have no problem giving that up to law enforcement.

Re:Impropriety

[Snaller]

"They basically say if the police come, they'll have no problem giving up your information. I guess that is a problem for some people, but so far it doesn't bother me enough to make me stop playing."

It will the day they come for you. You didn't do it, but someone made a mistake in the paper trail, and nobody believes you - because after all - the police (and Blizzard) never make mistakes.

Re:Impropriety

[phantomfive]

Read it again holmes: it says, "or in special cases." That 'or' makes a big difference.

Re:Impropriety

[phantomfive]

Yeah, but "anyone else who could be harmed by your activities" is a pretty broad category that could include anything from jumping on a trampoline to baking a potato. I think Blizzard covered themselves pretty well.

Re:Impropriety

[witherstaff]

Suicide deprives the country of another tax payer. Of course it's illegal!

Re:Impropriety

[phantomfive]

Sure I ignored parts of it, it's way too long to read thoroughly.

This really isn't an endorsement of your reading comprehension.

One of the special cases is "or may be causing injury to or interference [to] anyone else who could be harmed by your activities." You may argue that even though the police are trying to find you, that is no indication that you might cause injury or interference to them, but that argument is not likely to hold up in court.

Re:Impropriety

[phantomfive]

It will the day they come for you. You didn't do it, but someone made a mistake in the paper trail, and nobody believes you - because after all - the police (and Blizzard) never make mistakes.

Yeah, we should set up a system to deal with this, maybe have a place where all evidence can be presented. We can call this place a 'court.' And then we can have a group of people, they should be peers, who decide who is right and who is wrong. We call these people a 'jury.' I mean, maybe you don't think the court has enough checks and balances, but that just means you should adjust the court system, it doesn't mean that helping the police is automatically a bad thing.

Re:Impropriety

[VanGarrett]

Attempted Suicide is illegal. Suicide would be illegal, if such a law could be enforced.

Penalties for the crime varies, but generally focuses on treatment for depression.

Re:Impropriety

[Totenglocke]

First off, suicide is only illegal in order to make sure that the slaves keep paying taxes and giving the politicians people to order around. Politicians are aware that each person who dies means less tax money going into their pockets and less people for them to lord power over.

Secondly, on what grounds does wanting to die qualify as a mental health problem? Whether or not life is worth living is a question that can only be answered by each person because they known their own circumstances and values. Politicians would say that as long as you have money and power, life is worth living. Others would say that it's family that makes life worth living. Others sex, racing, gambling, gaming, learning, whatever. If you take away the things a person finds necessary for it to be worth putting up with all the bullshit in life, then how does that make them insane to not want to put up with it anymore?

Re:Impropriety

[Raindance]

Yes, well, sometimes people who are accused of dealing drugs actually are dealing drugs. Insofar as your comment does not deal with the issue of having to get a legal subpoena in order to procure this information, I feel it clouds the issue.

Just legalize drugs!

[A12m0v]

No need for invading our privacy.
It's my body, I decide what to do with it!

Plus, you'll get rid of the middleman, legalize drugs and there will be no need for dealers or drug gangs. The government WILL be the sole dealer of drugs, and due to economies of scales, they'll be able to sell them for far less than any dealer while making a good sum of money thanks to all the taxes.

obligatory

[phantomfive]

Penny Arcade did their thing about it.

It kind of sucks for that guy, but basically if you don't like laws, you'll usually be better off trying to change them than run away. There's generally nothing unethical about helping the police find someone who's accused of committing a crime.

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

There's generally nothing unethical about helping the police find someone who's accused of committing a crime.

But this isn't the general case.

This is a case where a company has violated the presumptive right to privacy of its customers in order to do so. That completely changes the situation.

Re:obligatory

[phantomfive]

They followed their privacy policy. The guy should have read it. This seems to be a surprise to you, so maybe you should have read it to, and if it bothers you, stop playing.

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. The fact that you went off on a complete tangent instead of addressing the point that this is not the general case as you portrayed it just indicates that you are a bootlicker. You have no consistent idealogy other than kowtow to authoritae and when pressed on your rationalizations you can't support them and just make up new rationalizations to justify your bootlicking.

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If the police wants you for X, for any value of X, do you really expect privacy?

I expect due process and that everybody get their ducks in a row - in this case that should have been a subpoena.
Its not like anyone was in any immediate danger from the suspect - there was no rush. If the guy was a legitimate suspect the cops should have no problem running it past the appropriate oversight (i.e. the judge who issues the subpoena).

Re:obligatory

[jabbathewocket]

hrrm.. given that the wow TOS/EULA basically say they will respond to requests from all forms of law enforcement ... dont think thats an issue here.. in addition if they guy REALLy wanted to hide, he likely would not be using his name, and would be using a gamecard rather than credit card to pay.. That said, given that his childhood friend gave them the info that he A) played wow B) used X screen name even then he would have been screwed.. Just cant trust those damn childhood friends can yah?

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Oh, wait a second. First you said it was a general case, now you are arguing that it is a special case?

That's a laugh. Coupled with your half-quote of the policy, seems like you know exactly why that "special case" clause doesn't apply.
Hint - the list of special cases is what you left out and this situation didn't fall under any of them.

Re:obligatory

[johncadengo]

Funny. I found out about it on penny arcade way before slashdot posted it.

And on another note, there are plenty of unethical instances of helping the police find someone accused of a crime. Just ask Anne Frank.

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Who cares? If the police ask me for help, I'll as likely as not help them.

Who cares? Gee, what did I say in my original response to you?
The people who care are those who have implicitly trusted their privacy to Blizzard.

And quit your bullshit with trying to paint me as having some weird fears. Blizzard's customers have an expectation of privacy, your selective quoting of the privacy agreement notwithstanding. We as a society have a process in place that enables the police to get the information they need and companies like blizzard to protect the privacy of their clients - its called a subpoena. There is no need for your red herring about "changing society."

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

given that the wow TOS/EULA basically say they will respond to requests from all forms of law enforcement

It does not say that. It isn't like you need to be a lawyer to understand it, all you have to do is keep your attention focused until the end of one lengthy sentence to figure out that this situation does not fit any of cases they list.

Re:obligatory

[Stormwatch]

It kind of sucks for that guy, but basically if you don't like laws, you'll usually be better off trying to change them than run away.

Sounds great... until you realize how some incredibly unjust laws are the result of a racist billionaire's self-serving propaganda campaign , and even the president laughs off the wishes of the people!

How can one win such a battle? The game is loaded so that freedom is not allowed to win.

I'm not religious, but I have to quote Saint Augustine here: "An unjust law is no law at all."

Re:obligatory

[timmarhy]

"in this case that should have been a subpoena"

why? subpoena is only required when you refuse the polices request, there's no law against willingly handing over data or information to the police.

you problem is you don't understand that blizzard owns the data not the player in question. the player is shit out of luck if blizzard wants to snitch on him.

Re:obligatory

[houghi]

To me giving out privacy related data is worse then whatever a person did. You know with all the 'innocent until proven guilty' stuff. Get a court order and I will happily give out any data that is written in the court order. If not, you are out of luck with me. And yes, I have been in positions where I had data that could lead to the arrest of a possible criminal. Get back with a court order! Oh, the court does not want to give that order? Then you don't need the data.

To me the police is also not the same as the law and the fact that they can give it out to anybody they like is even illegal where I live (Belgium). Privacy should trump everything and should only be overruled by court order.

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

why? subpoena is only required when you refuse the polices request, there's no law against willingly handing over data or information to the police.

Has anyone anywhere in this thread said that what Blizzard did was illegal?
NO.
So drop that lame-ass red herring already, OK?

It isn't about following the law, its about respecting your customers.

Re:obligatory

[gnasher719]

To me giving out privacy related data is worse then whatever a person did.

1. Your name and address are not "privacy related data".
2. Giving out any really private data about a drug dealer is not worse than dealing drugs.

Re:obligatory

[timmarhy]

umm, yes, please show me where i said you said it was illegal?!

why should the police have to get a subpoena first, wasting court time and tax payers money? i'd much rather they try just writing a polite letter first which costs 45c.

and why are you attacking the police if your beef is with blizzard? it sounds like you don't know how the world works dude...

Re:obligatory

[timmarhy]

blizzrd have never said they will protect your privacy, you've just assumed it. in their terms and condidtions they have a clause stating they will co operate with law enforcement.

section 17c. "C. Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others. "

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html

BAM, thanks for playing.

Re:obligatory

[Hurricane78]

Damnit! And I had planned such a nice mass-murdering spree... ;)))

Re:obligatory

[ildon]

"Bring legal action against you" *is* the "special case".

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

blizzrd have never said they will protect your privacy, you've just assumed it.

Gee, here we are in a thread discussing Blizzard's privacy policy, the one where they give a list of special cases where they are allowed to disclose your information and giving it up on a general request by law enforcement was not on the list. Seems like a pretty straightforward promise to me.

in their terms and condidtions they have a clause stating they will co operate with law enforcement.

Ah, so now we have a case where the privacy policy contradicts the terms of use. That's interesting.

Even more interesting is that the "Last Updated" date on the Privacy Policy is newer than the Terms of Service (January 14, 2009 versus July 29, 2008).
Seems to me that the most current document is the controlling one since Blizzard says they can change the terms of the ToS at anytime.

So I guess that means you are "BAM" out of the game, doesn't it?

Re:obligatory

[timmarhy]

did you even read the privacy policy?!

under "With whom may your personal information be shared?" they clearly state.

"We reserve the right to disclose your personal information as required by law or in special cases"

basiclly your goose is cooked if they want to hand over your info, they can just call it a "special case". and how exactly is the privacy policy contradicting the terms of use? you make the statement but don't back it up with anything. not only that but i can't see the privacy policy ever trumping ToS, since ToS is viewed as a contract where as you said yourself, a privacy policy is merely a "promise".

Re:obligatory

[drinkypoo]

why should the police have to get a subpoena first, wasting court time and tax payers money?

Because the terms and conditions including the privacy policy which say that they will assist the police as required by law provide an implicit declaration that they will not assist if they are not required — i.e., by a warrant. Thus Blizzard has broken their own policies, and is in breach of contract with the customer. There was nothing wrong with law enforcement making an informal request, mind you; there is everything wrong with granting their request.

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

did you even read the privacy policy?!

You mean the one I have specifically referenced multiple times in this and other threads to which you have been responding?

"We reserve the right to disclose your personal information as required by law or in special cases"

Holy shit you are a total moron. Did you even bother to read the rest of that sentence?
You know, the part where they limit the special cases in which they will make that disclosure?
The list that does not include this situation?

Man you SUCK at betting. This should have been a sure thing - after all you can read can't you? But you made yet another losing bet...

Re:obligatory

[KingMotley]

Here is the terms of service agreement, that you must click "I agree" before you are even allowed to play:

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html

C. Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others.

Note: "in response to a request by law enforcement". Pretty clear.

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Note: "in response to a request by law enforcement". Pretty clear.

Echo... Echo... Echo...

Re:obligatory

[realityimpaired]

why? subpoena is only required when you refuse the polices request, there's no law against willingly handing over data or information to the police.

Actually, in Canada there is.

Re:obligatory

[Snaller]

What bothers us are retards like you, level 1s, who are unable to think beyond your next dinner.

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

umm, yes, please show me where i said you said it was illegal?!

When you wrote "there is no law" implying that I had claimed somebody broke the law; or are you going to be a twat now and say "but, but, but I didn't use the word 'illegal'?"

why should the police have to get a subpoena first, wasting court time and tax payers money? i'd much rather they try just writing a polite letter first which costs 45c.

Holy shit, there you got AGAIN arguing some point that nobody gives a shit about.
What part of, "it's about respecting your customers," suggests that I am attacking the police?

Re:obligatory

[jabbathewocket]

I think it is in fact you who are mistaken, this is the pertinent section of the World Of Warcraft Terms Of Use.

C. Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others.

Note the fact that it says request, not court order, nothing more than REQUEST.. which is exactly what this was..
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html

While I am not a lawyer, nor do I claim to be one.. I am quite good at reading that very short paragraph, and picking out that they specifically mention "request" separately from "court order"

Re:obligatory

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I think it is in fact you who are mistaken, this is the pertinent section of the World Of Warcraft Terms Of Use.

Sorry. You jumped into the middle of a thread about the Privacy Policy - I assumed you were talking about the Privacy Policy, not the ToS.

I suggest you go read the Privacy Policy, it has been liberally quoted and linked through out this discussion. You will find that my statement about reading that one lengthy sentence applies to the privacy policy. You will also find that the privacy policy limits the scope of the what requests Blizzard will respond to. As the privacy policy is more recent than the ToS, it should be clear that the Privacy Policy is the controlling document.

strange

[scapermoya]

“I did a search off the IPaddress to locate him,” said Roberson. “I got a longitude and latitude. Then I went to Google Earth. It works wonders. It uses longitude and latitude. Boom! I had an address. I was not able to go streetside at the location, but I had him.”

this doesn't seem accurate. ip address -> long/lat -> address? no chance. i can believe that they used his ip to find him, but probably through his ISP. In my experience, those geographic traces are only very rough estimates. sounds like this cop thinks he lives in CSI or something. i wonder if any of it is true?

Re:strange

[X-Power]

...including his IP address, his account information and history, his billing address...

The real question is, if they had the billing address, why was the rest even necessary to give out?

Re:strange

[bmo]

Some IP geolocation websites have the correct town I live in, but none had the correct street, and others, well, they put me on the opposite coast in San Diego.

One in particular had a way to "correct" it. I submitted 383212N 684648E.

Tajikistan.

--
BM0

Re:strange

[Anonymous Coward]

He probably used this.

http://bobsworthindustries.com/csi/enhance.html?image1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.maptown.com%2Fimages%2Fntscanadafull.jpg&image2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.delawareonline.com%2Fblogs%2Fstrange-brew.jpg&x=48&y=80
  miles away from my current location.

Yeah, an ip address search only gives you the location of the nearest "box". Mine puts me 27 miles away in a pretty affluent part of town, while I live in the shitty part. The way they find people through an ip address is to look up billing info at the isp. But that's boring man! that won't sell newspapers!

I'm pretty sure it's just the reporter trying to spice the story up for the type of 'tards that actually do watch CSI.

Re:strange

[gnasher719]

The real question is, if they had the billing address, why was the rest even necessary to give out?

Maybe the billing address was an old address from which he moved away long time ago.

Re:strange

[realityimpaired]

Because your Billing Address could be a PO box under a pseudonym with a false address, paid for with cash.

Re:strange

[Rakeris]

This only really works with some ISPs, my public IP address is given by a co-location that my data is routed from. So it's not uncommon for my IP address to show I am somewhere hundreds of miles away, just depends where the data is going/coming from at the time.

Re:strange

[canajin56]

If it has no info, it uses the registered address of your ISP. Otherwise, it's all data-mining. They have agreements with data-miners, who themselves have agreements with thousands upon thousands of websites. Go to Best Buy's websites, enter a zip/postal code to find the closest store to you? There, bam, the geo-locators have a zip code tied to an IP address. If you're not on an ISP that cycles frequently, they have you. I don't know how accurate USA zip codes are, but Canadian postal codes, they will get you a block, more or less. And if you enter an actual, real address anywhere ever, they have your real address tied to your IP address, too. But like I say, it doesn't just depend on your stupidity in giving out your address, it also depends on your ISP. My parents were on Shaw@Home internet. Our IP address never changed, ever. Not unless the modem lost power for more than 5 minutes. Now I'm on Sympatico DSL. Its IP address changes whenever its unplugged for even a second, and it also changes about once or twice a month, sometimes more. Even if I was dumb in giving out my address, it probably wouldn't be accurate for Sympatico customers, because they shuffle around a LOT, and the geo-location websites are never fully up to date, data-mining is time consuming! Also, some ISPs subnet a lot, so even if your IP address shuffles, it probably didn't stray very far from your real address, so they still would have at least your city, if not your neighborhood. Some ISPs don't subnet at all, so your IP address comes from a pool assigned to their entire service area. That's why some people will go in, and see that some websites report them in NYC, and some in San Fransisco. Because their ISP assigns its IP addresses wherever they fall, and if they're a national ISP, that could mean anywhere.

But anyways, yeah, if you're on an ISP that doesn't cycle its IP addresses around, and you're dumb enough to give your real address to websites at any point, it really could be CSI level magic. But the thing is, the IP Address to lat-long step, would really be IP Address to Address to Lat-Long, he must have just used a geo-locator site that does that conversion for you, and either doesn't give the base address it used for that computation, or the cop just didn't notice it.

Re:strange

[DiEx-15]

The way I read it though was:

Blizzard did more than cooperate. It gave Roberson everything he needed to track down Hightower, including his IP address, his account information and history, his billing address, and even his online screen name and preferred server.

So I must as two questions:

1) If Blizzard gave him all that information, why would this cop need to run an IP search on him? Especially if Blizzard gave the cop his BILLING ADDRESS..

2) Why are people surprised that the law enforcement can track down criminals via the tubes?

From what I have read on anotther site, this criminal was a Level 80 Shaman. Not an easy feat to pull in a short time. But since this criminal dropped a footnuke and continued to play after going on the lamb, I am not totally surprised of this outcome.

Hope his Shaman can help him defeat the 300 Pound Bubba in the Prison showers!

Re:strange

[RivenAleem]

Law enforcement agencies often tell stories like this to make people think that it is very easy to get caught. What they don't want is for people to realise that if they pin you down to one location on teh interwebs (Your blizzard account) then they get your IP, the ISP tells the police every single website you've ever gone to (online banking, buying flights online, ebay, facebook etc) which will give them access to all the other companies that you've been in contact with, making it simple for them to locate every billing and shipping address you've ever used.

This is like them telling you that you can be traced when on a mobile phone call, and you have to figure out yourself that you can be traced when not on a call, or even in some cases when the phone is turned off (turns out, the only safe way to hide is removal of battery)

Police groups will never tell you the full extent of the information they use to capture crooks, as that will only enable you to try to subvert their efforts.

So...

[Donkey_Hotey]

Just one drug dealer ratting out another. Move along, nothing to see here...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Your answer is right there in the Terms of Use

[PCM2]

One has to wonder, if Blizzard goes that far above and beyond requests of law enforcement and gives mountains of data in response to polite requests-- not even subpoenas-- how seriously do they take the privacy of *your* personal information?

Well, though people do tend to gloss over the fine details in things like EULAs and Terms of Service, it's not as if Blizzard is hiding anything from its users. From the WoW Terms of Use:

C. Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others.

Blizzard gets a request from law enforcement, Blizzard hands over the info, simple as that. (And actually, if it were my company I'd probably have a similar policy. A "polite request" is just about the only contact I'd ever want to have with law enforcement, and the sooner they disappear from my life the better.)

Re:Your answer is right there in the Terms of Use

[PCM2]

What precedent do you think is needed? You're using a service provided by Blizzard. Your use of the service means you accept Blizzard's terms of use, which are fully disclosed. If you don't like the terms, you have the option to not use the service.

If you ran a laundromat and some guy who was a suspected criminal came into the laundromat all the time, the cops would not need a warrant to come in and ask you where that guy lived, if they thought you might know. It's up to you whether you want to tell them or not -- but that's an ethical question, not a legal one.

Re:Your answer is right there in the Terms of Use

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Well, though people do tend to gloss over the fine details in things like EULAs and Terms of Service, it's not as if Blizzard is hiding anything from its users. From the WoW Terms of Use:

Except that Blizzard also has a published privacy policy, referenced multiple times in this topic already, that reduces the scope of the requests of when they will hand that information over to a very limited set of cases and this situation - that of a 2 year old crime of the sale of drugs like steroids - is not in that list of cases.

Re:Your answer is right there in the Terms of Use

[PCM2]

Hmm. Well I'm curious what country you live in -- your laws do seem to differ somewhat from those of the U.S.

Over here, I run a number of services for the largest free email providers and online second hand card dealers. I always request a subpoena if any cop asks for private data

In the U.S., subpoenas are issued by the courts to compel witnesses to testify. Note though, that's the courts, not law enforcement. A district attorney will typically obtain a subpoena during the process of bringing a case to trial. Here, if I received a "subpoena" from a police officer with no district attorney's phone number on it, I'd suspect it was just a meaningless piece of paper. When talking to the police, you always have the right -- but not the obligation -- to remain silent.

Police offers can ask the courts to grant search warrants, but that's to search (and/or seize) property from a physical location. In other words, they could come to your colo and seize all your servers to look at the logs themselves -- but it would be a lot cheaper just to ask you. For them and for you.

As a matter of fact, it's legally questionable to even log the IP addresses.

Now you have me skeptical. I can't think of many online services that don't log IP addresses at all. How do you even analyze traffic patterns if you can't tell one request from the next? You don't have to associate IP addresses with mailing addresses, but requiring online services to not log them at all sounds like extreme overkill.

Re:Your answer is right there in the Terms of Use

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

In the U.S., subpoenas are issued by the courts to compel witnesses to testify. Note though, that's the courts, not law enforcement. A district attorney will typically obtain a subpoena during the process of bringing a case to trial. Here, if I received a "subpoena" from a police officer with no district attorney's phone number on it, I'd suspect it was just a meaningless piece of paper.

Note that in this very case the cop did get a legitimate subpoena - he was just in the wrong country so it had no force on Blizzard (hence the cop's own description of it as a nicely worded request).

Heh.

[headkase]

What's Blizzard going to do when someone posing as law enforcement gets some information and then goes and murders that person... Hmm?

Re:Heh.

[timmarhy]

umm, nothing. what the fuck do you think they would do, cry a river? seriously lets also ask why cows are purple and how wet water is.

Re:Heh.

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't even have to be that "bad". What if it's a bad cop trying to find someone that ran off before they can blow the whistle. Or is this even worse?

Re:Heh.

[headkase]

Whats Blizzard going to do with the resulting civil suit. Should have pointed everything out...

Did you read & understand the article?

[Chmcginn]

Did you understand the article? The subpoena had no force of law, as it was being served out of their jurisdiction. Done correctly, it would have had to have been served via the court in the jurisdiction the entity providing the information resided in - a California court, not an Indiana one. Because of time/funding/whatever issues, the sheriff didn't bother going that route, but instead sent what was in essence a request, not a subpoena.

Re:Did you read & understand the article?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you understand the article? The subpoena had no force of law,

I know what a subpoena is, and and the difference between a subpoena a court order.

The comment said there wasn't a subpoena, when there clearly was. Whether the subpoena is valid & enforceable is a different question entirely.

Re:Did you read & understand the article?

[L4t3r4lu5]

As I said above, this guy needs to hire a competant lawyer to skim the EULA, check for breaches of data protection legislation, and get the case dropped.

If he has any sense, he won't try and sue Blizzard, though. He could, however, write to the guys who prosecute crime (In the UK we call them the Crown Prosecution Service) to take it up. GLWT, though.

Re:Did you read & understand the article?

[luther349]

there was not a subpoena but a request even the police said they did not have to respond. article b of the tos says they can disclose your info on a request if they believe its for your own safety or others. a drug dealer i guess would fall into others.

Re:Did you read & understand the article?

[snowgirl]

As I said above, this guy needs to hire a competant lawyer to skim the EULA, check for breaches of data protection legislation, and get the case dropped.

If he has any sense, he won't try and sue Blizzard, though. He could, however, write to the guys who prosecute crime (In the UK we call them the Crown Prosecution Service) to take it up. GLWT, though.

As noted above, the EULA says exactly that they may pass out any and all information that they have on you to legal authorities for, as loosely as it is worded, pretty much any reason.

Not to mention that the prosecutors, or attorneys for Blizzard could note that Blizzard does business in the state of Indiana, and in particular, in the specific jurisdiction that they are in, and thus is bound by the subpoena. (Feasibly, the court could produce an order stating that Blizzard would be unable to provide their gaming service within their jurisdiction for failure to respond to a valid subpoena.)

Any lawyer should probably try what you're suggesting, but it would in all likelihood get swatted down. So, really, any smart lawyer worth their salt would likely weigh the cost of fighting it vs the chances of it actually working, and drop it.

Re:Did you read & understand the article?

[Vengie]

Rather than enter a special appearance to move to quash, they just waived personal jurisdiction. Nothing to see here. .....

You're the idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did YOU read the summary?

How about this part:

"Roberson’s subpoena was nothing more than a politely worded request, considering the limits of his law enforcement jurisdiction and the ambiguity of the online world. 'They don’t have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn’t,' said Roberson.

If you bothered to read the article, it's repeated there, as well. If it's just a "politely worded request" then use of the word subpoena was in error.

Definition of subpoena:

A subpoena (pronounced /sbpin/ or pronounced /spin/) is a writ issued by a court that commands the presence of a witness to testify, under a penalty for failure.

If they were able to legally enforce this, I doubt they would have bothered with said "politely worded request" - look at the TSA's use of subpoenas, for example.

Re:You're the idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, journalists often get their facts wrong, but by using the word subpoena 3 times, strongly suggests that THERE WAS A SUBPOENA.

Whether the subpoena is valid, correct, enforceable and legitimate is a completely different question. But a subpoena clearly was sent, when the poster claimed there was no subpoena.

A subpoena is not a court order, and a subpoena is not a warrant. The phrase "politely worded request" implies that the journalist knows how worthless a subpeona typically is.

As written in a law dictionary:

SUBPOENA, chancery practice. A mandatory writ or process, directed to and
requiring one or more persons to appear at a time to come, and answer the
matters charged against him or them; the writ of subpoena was originally a
process in the courts of common law, to enforce the attendance of a witness
to give evidence; but this writ was used in the court of chancery for the
game purpose as a citation in the courts of civil and canon law, to compel
the appearance of a defendant, and to oblige him to answer upon oath the
allegations of the plaintiff.

That just screams "politely worded request" doesn't it? It sounds like either the cop couldn't/didn't get one and tried anyway, or somebody's throwing around the word subpoena to make the request sound more legitimate.

That the word subpoena was used three times strongly suggests that word does not mean what somebody thinks it means.

Re:You're the idiot.

[snowgirl]

As written in a law dictionary:

SUBPOENA, chancery practice. A mandatory writ or process, directed to and
requiring one or more persons to appear at a time to come, and answer the
matters charged against him or them; the writ of subpoena was originally a
process in the courts of common law, to enforce the attendance of a witness
to give evidence; but this writ was used in the court of chancery for the
game purpose as a citation in the courts of civil and canon law, to compel
the appearance of a defendant, and to oblige him to answer upon oath the
allegations of the plaintiff.

That just screams "politely worded request" doesn't it? It sounds like either the cop couldn't/didn't get one and tried anyway, or somebody's throwing around the word subpoena to make the request sound more legitimate.

That the word subpoena was used three times strongly suggests that word does not mean what somebody thinks it means.

There are also "subpoena ducum tecum", which is essentially an order to supply a set of records under penalty of law, and can be worded in such a way as to not even require the appearance of the individual themselves at all.

The last statement that you said is probably the most clear and poignant... someone along the chain of reporting what happened is unclear about what "subpoena" actually means.

But everyone should understand this very well, a "subpoena ducum tecum" has the same force as a warrant. The difference is that the subpoena asks you to supply the information, while the warrant authorizes them to come and take the information.

RTFA people...

[CaptainPotato]

Blizzard was subpoenaed:

“None of that information was sound enough to pursue on its own, but putting everything we had together gave me enough evidence to send a subpoena to Blizzard Entertainment. I knew exactly what he was playing — World of Warcraft. I used to play it. It’s one of the largest online games in the world.”

Due to the guy being in a different country, there was not a need to respond to it, but I guess that there would have been nothing to have stopped one being sought in Canada....

Re:RTFA people...

[Clandestine_Blaze]

Blizzard was subpoenaed:

Well, they really weren't. A subpoena is a writ issued by a court, and the article heavily implies that this was simply a written request and that no judge had signed off on it. Why the deputy sheriff insisted on calling it a subpoena behooves me. Here's the quote I'm referring to:

But this is the Internet, and Blizzard is in California. Roberson’s subpoena was nothing more than a politely worded request, considering the limits of his law enforcement jurisdiction and the ambiguity of the online world.

So, it doesn't look like it was signed off by a judge - it was just a written request by the police. I'm not trying to split hairs or anything, but Blizzard wasn't exactly forced to comply.

Due to the guy being in a different country, there was not a need to respond to it, but I guess that there would have been nothing to have stopped one being sought in Canada....

Blizzard didn't have to respond because they are based in California and the police who were searching for Hightower are based in Howard County, Indiana and also because there was no real subpoena. Alfred Hightower skipped country and went to Canada and US Marshals could not locate him. So Sheriff deputy Matt Roberson sent a written request to Blizzard, who in turn sent them IP information to help track Hightower down. The Sheriff's department then notified the US Marshals, who asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to help deport him.

I don't have a problem with companies helping law enforcement track accused suspects down, I mean there was a warrant out on the guy, but I'd prefer if it were done the right way - with a judge signing off on a subpoena. The suspect was not exactly wanted for murder, but for dealing in a schedule III and IV substance.

Re:RTFA people...

[goodmanj]

I don't have a problem with companies helping law enforcement track accused suspects down, I mean there was a warrant out on the guy, but I'd prefer if it were done the right way - with a judge signing off on a subpoena.

The way I see it is, a subpoena is a device which *forces* someone to comply with law enforcement, but voluntary compliance doesn't require one.

The Indiana sherrif's action is the Internet equivalent of walking through a neighborhood with a mug shot, asking shopkeepers "have you seen this guy?". If we're going to require a subpoena for every casual conversation a cop has with a citizen... well, we're gonna need to hire some extra judges.

Re:RTFA people...

[MobyDisk]

well, we're gonna need to hire some extra judges.

So be it.

The Indiana sherrif's action is the Internet equivalent of walking through a neighborhood with a mug shot, asking shopkeepers "have you seen this guy?"

Not really. Giving someone's billing information is different from asking "have you seen this guy?"

So he's not a drug dealer.

[MrMista_B]

He's an alleged drug dealer.

Which means he is not a drug dealer.

He is innocent.

(until proven guilty in a court of law, but that bit always gets left out)

Re:So he's not a drug dealer.

[SurlyJest]

Which means precisely nothing. He is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. That doesn't give him any rights at all with respect to avoiding that judgement in the proper jurisdiction.

Re:So he's not a drug dealer.

[findoutmoretoday]

As long as the alleged drug dealer is not found guilty,  the alleged drugs are no drugs,  and I am cheated? Are quantum physics taking over the world?

Re:So he's not a drug dealer.

[Jacked]

Just because he's an alleged drug dealer doesn't mean he isn't one. What is historically factual does not depend on the future ruling of a court.

And, he's presumed innocent. If he did the crime, he's guilty, regardless of what any court has or has not said. And the reverse is true if he didn't do the crime.

Armory Link

[doomy]

He is pretty bad at wow too.

Look at his Armory.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bladefist&n=Rastlynn

Re:Armory Link

[DMorritt]

Dear god, anyone with Convection in a Resto build needs locking up.

I don't play on that server, so no idea what reputation he has, but to think... I could have x-realm pugged with him...

I'm sure he's a perfect angel

[Myrcutio]

Yea, because the county is going to spend hundreds of manhours extraditing a prisoner from Canada without enough evidence to convict. It's a done deal, call it for what it is.

Tracking

[andrewbwn]

Sir, I think we've located him, he's in Orgrimmar. Wait.... he just teleported in Thunder Bluff, he must be a mage, and he's talking to Cairne Bloodhoof. APB: Be on the look out for a level 65 undead mage wanted for selling Vision Dust and Dream Dust in the Orgrimmar Auction House. Be advised he's speced in Frost. Sir, I think we should send our undercover Troll Hunter with Humanoid Tracking to catch him.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

I see, your comment is a post modern take on what it means to post a comment on slashdot. It's flying in the face of the establishment and saying "We don't want to reply, we just want to say things, relevant, or not".

Right on man.

*click* *click* *click* *click*

bad joke:

[BenphemeR]

The cops totally camped this named spawn IRL

can you explain?

[YesIAmAScript]

All I see is he's level 80, which seems pretty high to me (it's the cap, isn't it?). Can you explain how you can tell he's lousy in terms us non-WoW players can understand?

Re:can you explain?

[goodmanj]

It's not so much that he's bad, he just doesn't play very seriously. Most of his gear is from older dungeons designed for small groups.

He's set up his character to specialize in healing, but serious players would question some of the choices he made in doing that.

Anyway, this has the look of a player who only plays a couple hours a week. Which makes sense, since he has some real-life issues to take care of.

Re:can you explain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some immediate notes:
The talent build he's using would generally be considered inefficient. He has spent far more points in restoration than is necessary or effective. Many of those points should be placed deeper into Enhancement. The overall effect on his ability to heal would be enhanced. There is actually a lot of math supporting this, in addition to real world experience and data by a large number of players supporting it.

His professions are not high enough to provide any great benefit. Currently, all professions provide some personal in-game benefit, and with his professions as low as they are he would not be able to reap that benefit in any meaningful way. For example, his Skinning is at 300. This gives him 12 critical strike rating. If he leveled it to 450 (the current maximum) it would provide 40 critical strike rating. His Leatherworking is at 43. If it were at 400 or higher, he could get a benefit equal in in-game stat value to the 40 critical strike rating via an enchant to his bracers. The bonus can be in attack power, spell power, or stamina. And this all ignores the side benefits of being able to craft (perhaps debatably) useful items or gathering materials to sell in-game.

All of his items that say "requires level 70" are holdovers from level 70 content, and thus much weaker than currently available replacements. Most of his gear is missing enchants (not obvious to non-players) or gems (the empty colored square that appears on his boots). He has low level or low quality gear in many gear slots. Where it says "item level", those pieces of gear that are item level 219 or lower would be consider "low quality". Also, much of his gear contains spirit, a stat which is consider nearly useless for shaman regardless of how they spend their talent points or specialize their character.

However, looking at his achievements, you can see he turned level 80 in late October. He also has not received a new achievement since late November. It seems to me he was only max level for a month before being arrested. A player just reaching level cap, being aware that his gear is bad, is much less likely to enchant or gem it because he knows he will replace it soon. It's also possible the player had not yet researched what would constitute a strong healing build, and what he seems to be using would be passable for entry-level max level dungeons or raids. However, looking at his Feats of Strength, he's played since at least 2007, and really does not have an excuse for his professions not being at least 450 in skinning (skinning is probably the easiest profession to max out in the game, often you can do it by accident just by remembering to skin a beast after its killed instead of walking away) and 400 leatherworking (in order to reap the benefits of the previously mentioned bracer enchant).

There are actually a lot of excuses I could use for the state of his character, which would not necessarily indicate that he is a poor or unknowledgeable player, but the overwhelming evidence is that he is, in fact, bad. Browsing his achievements, he seems to have played at least somewhat consistently for the past 2 years, and was still unable to reach level 80 for an entire year. His talents, while passable, are only passable because the game is, overall, very easy. A smart player simply making logical decisions would at least have gone ten points into enhancement to improve their water shield or increase their critical strike chance. More likely 13 points to increase the healing from Earthliving Weapon. They would not have put a lone point in Convection (which only reduces mana cost on an attack spell that a healing shaman would rarely be casting, and by such an insubstantial amount when you don't have all 5 points that's not worth the bother). He's shown no attempt at working on his professions despite their substantial bonus, and based on his class/race combination I find it likely he chose those professions at a very low level and simply did not improve them out of laziness or ignorance. His gear really is und

Re:can you explain?

[realityimpaired]

The game is set up so that you can get to level 80 fairly quickly... the amount of experience required to go from level 1-70 has been reduced significantly since the game came online, and the 70-80 grind can be done in a weekend if you're serious about it (and have no life). Most people who play the game fairly regularly have at least one level 80 character, many have multiple level 80 characters.

The reason he's saying that this appears to be a pretty bad player is because his equipment is sub-par in some cases, and because the way he's spent his skill points is a bit questionable... while it'd be perfectly effective for casual play, for the more hardcore raiding type players, the ones who get together in groups of 25 people to go kill gods and such, he would not be effective enough to be desireable.

Also, he lacks some things that you would expect on a better player... players who have more experience and better equipment usually make money faster in game, and he lacks some of the achievements and talents you would expect of somebody who has money in game. (notice that there's an option for him to have two different talent specializations, but one of them is greyed out.) By contrast, look at this one.... that's my death knight, who I've been really really half-assed about playing. I took 4 months off WoW in the fall (as in, didn't log in at all), and my hunter is actually my main character and the one that I go more "hardcore" with... though even that character is being supplanted by a priest that I've been playing, as I'm finding that I enjoy healing much more... but if you compare his against the gear on my death knight, you'll notice that some items have significantly higher "item level", and that everywhere I can put a gem I have... likewise, everything that can be enchanted is enchanted (those green things like "Rune of the Fallen Crusader" on the axe). And my gear on that DK is less than standard... item level 232 is the highest I have, and there's stuff with level 264 available now. The tradeskills are all maxed out, I have dual talent specialization, and I have epic flying. All on a character that I really don't care about playing that much. (and who hasn't actually gone into a dungeon or raid in almost 5 months)

There's an element of elitism among people who look at his gear and his talent spec and say that he's obviously a bad player... it's entirely possible that he makes it work and is a really good player. But it's more likely that he doesn't really understand his class or how to maximize his equipment and talent spec for the role he wants to play in the game.

Mass exodus

[Kenoli]

This decision is just going to lead the game straight to ruin.
I imagine the total number of accounts that will be closed as a result of this incident will be somewhere around, well, one.
Assuming the guy goes to jail

And assuming they don't have WoW in jail.

Blizzard aren't a very honest company

[CountBrass]

Try complaining about how there admins act in World of Warcraft: you have to jump through all sorts of hoops, including providing a certified copy of a birth certificate or drivers license in order to dispute an email from one of their GMs. Blizzard have proved over and over that they can't be trusted (see both this story and their recent weasley responses to the Slashdot questions for recent examples). I've cancelled my WoW account and I dont see myself buying Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3. Blizzard can't be trusted.

And if he's innocent..

[CountBrass]

..then I look forward to Blizzard being sued for millions. Privacy appears to be one of those things that separates generations: I value my privacy yet it appears that anyone under 30 sees no value in it. Just because you're happy or stupid enough to have pictures of you giving your "boyfriend" a blowjob posted on facebook or to send nude pictures of yourself to you everyone in your school in no way reduces the value of my privacy. Free societies are not run for the convenience of the police.

Re:And if he's innocent..

[goodmanj]

On what grounds? Their actions are consistent with the EULA the player agreed to when they started playing.

Too much black-and-white thinking here

[goodmanj]

Nevermind the Internet angle, the real question here is an ancient one: should you cooperate with the police?

I think most of us would agree that law enforcement is necessary -- if you don't, you and I are never going to see eye to eye so you might as well stop reading now. Law enforcement needs information to work properly. If citizens universally refuse to provide that information, the only way to get it is via direct police surveillance.

So you've got three options: A) police act without any information, B) they set up ubiquitous surveillance to get their info, or C) they get information from citizens. I hope we all agree that C) is the lesser of evils.

So our society has set things up so that in certain very limited circumstances, people are *required* to give information to the police (search warrants, subpoenas, etc.) In other situations, police are forbidden from demanding certain kinds of information, to protect the rights of the accused. (Miranda laws, etc)

For everything in between, cooperation is optional and voluntary. We can decide whether to help or not, based on our sense of the severity of the crime, our personal ties to the suspect, our trust of the police, and any details of the case we're familiar with. It's a judgment call.

I think we need to respect the fact that different people or entities are going to make that judgment call differently, based on their own priorities and values.

To say that helping the cops is always the right or the wrong choice is ridiculously simplistic. You can comment on Blizzard's decision in this particular case, but tying it to some absurd moral absolute is asking for trouble.

Re:Too much black-and-white thinking here

[CodeBuster]

I think most of us would agree that law enforcement is necessary

It may be necessary at some level, but IMHO it has grown to include far more than is strictly necessary to protect us. Combine this with numerous, superfluous and overreaching laws and you have a recipe for the modern mess in which we know find ourselves presently ensnared. Its enough to make one nostalgic for the days of the old west when everyone walked around armed, scores were settled outside of town, and people were generally more polite because being an insulting, rude, and annoying busybody was hazardous to one's continued breathing. These days people just can't seem to live and let live when people are different or have different preferences and it causes no end of trouble for society trying to regulate morals through aggressive law enforcement.

Re:Too much black-and-white thinking here

[Totenglocke]

Complying with the police already has loopholes - like client-attorney / patient-doctor / parishioner-priest confidentiality. Companies should by law have this same thing built in, where they cannot rat you out to the government just for using their service which is unrelated to a crime. Blizzard had no business getting involved because the crime he is accused of is completely unrelated to WoW.

Re:Too much black-and-white thinking here

[goodmanj]

Its enough to make one nostalgic for the days of the old west when everyone walked around armed, scores were settled outside of town, and people were generally more polite

You, sir, need to watch less Gunsmoke and more Deadwood. Lawlessness isn't as much fun as it sounds.

The difference in this is in your visa statement..

[freaker_TuC]

... Blizzard sells legal drugs (which you can have on your VISA statement) ...

that dealer apparantly sold illegal drugs .... which you rather don't want on your VISA statement ;)

repost

[xch13fx]

from wow EULA and my clipboard lol

C. Blizzard may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, Chat logs, and other information about you and your activities: (a) in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process; or (b) if Blizzard believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others.

D. BLIZZARD MAY MONITOR, RECORD, REVIEW, MODIFY AND/OR DISCLOSE YOUR CHAT SESSIONS, WHETHER VOICE OR TEXT, WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU, AND YOU HEREBY CONSENT TO SUCH MONITORING, RECORDING, REVIEW, MODIFICATION AND/OR DISCLOSURE. Additionally, you acknowledge that Blizzard is under no obligation to monitor Chat, and you engage in Chat at your own risk.

You're wrong.

[CountBrass]

Complying with a legitimate legal request (subpoena, court order, order in council whatever) is completely different from handing over *someone else's* personal information just because someone asks.

Re:You're wrong.

[chrysrobyn]

Complying with a legitimate legal request (subpoena, court order, order in council whatever) is completely different from handing over *someone else's* personal information just because someone asks.

Handing over information to police who have no jurisdiction over Blizzard is exactly the same as handing over information to an unauthenticated third party.

Re:You're wrong.

[goodmanj]

I never said they were the same. Blizzard *must* comply with a subpoena, but *may* provide information to the police without one, at their own discretion.

As I posted elsewhere, take away the Internet, and this is similar to the case of a detective walking through a neighborhood with a mug shot, asking for information about a suspect. If asked, a neighborhood shopkeeper *may* volunteer personal information about a suspect ("Yeah, I know the guy, he lives in an apartment across the street"), but may choose not to for any number of reasons.

Congress is bought

[tepples]

The fact is, the majority of the population favors keeping drugs illegal. If you want to change the law, all you have to do is convince people that drugs should be legalized.

Let me pick an example with which some Slashdot users might be more familiar: Do the majority of the people think copyright should last a century? I don't see any evidence of popular support for copyright term extension, but it passed anyway because the MAFIAA controls TV news and therefore federal elections. Likewise, the synthetic fiber and pharmaceutical industries can't stand a bit of competition from natural hemp and natural dronabinol, so they lobby against uses the cannabis plant.

Re:Congress is bought

[phantomfive]

Most of the people in the country A) think it is ok for creators to control their work with copyright and B) don't really care about the details. Any time the public doesn't care, it is an opportunity for those who do care to step in and affect the process. Traditionally the copyright fight has been between publishers, authors, songwriters, performers, etc, and all of those entities have fought hard to get their piece.

When the public does care about something, they tend to get their way; otherwise the politician who oppose them get voted out.

Lobbying includes campaign contributions

[tepples]

Ideological organisations do not lobby? Labour unions do not lobby?

A big part of lobbying involves donating to legislators' reelection campaigns. Large corporations have a lot more money with which to do this than PACs covering consumer interests, and unlike with PACs, the public is often required to give money to a large corporation.

Unsafe drugs

[tepples]

Well, how about drug use? Can you give me a rational argument for why any substance, taken willingly, should be banned?

A lot of drugs are banned because they make the user dangerous to other people while on them. Other drugs are banned simply because they aren't novel at the time they are discovered. This means there is no chance for a patent and therefore no way to finance the clinical trials involved in a new drug application.

Re:Unsafe drugs

[nxtw]

A lot of drugs are banned because they make the user dangerous to other people while on them.

Do you like to post about things you don't know about?

Schedule I drugs are the closest to being banned (no prescriptions can be issued). Many of these drugs had medical use in the USA before entering Schedule I or currently have medical use outside of the USA. Many Schedule I drugs do not actually meet the criteria for being placed in Schedule I:

• The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
• The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
• There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

Re:Unsafe drugs

[SanityInAnarchy]

A lot of drugs are banned because they make the user dangerous to other people while on them.

Like alcohol?

Other drugs are banned simply because they aren't novel at the time they are discovered. This means there is no chance for a patent...

Yes, but here, we're talking about illegal drugs. Are you suggesting marijuana, cocaine, etc are banned only because no one was able to patent them?

Re:Unsafe drugs

[tepples]

The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.

The page you linked states that the DEA defines "high" as "at least some potential for abuse" (that is, anything higher than zero) because the lack of "accepted medical use", which all lower schedules require, precludes classification in a lower schedule.

outside of the USA

That's the key. Because the second criterion contains "in the United States", the FDA and DEA infer the right to ignore foreign approvals. In effect, the only way to demonstrate "accepted safety" and "accepted medical use" is to do clinical trials on U.S. soil, and no single drug company can afford that without a promise of monopoly rents.

Wake me up when the arrest somebody inworld

[RobertLTux]

Even if its partly Real World partly Virtual World (of course i would have the police tricked out and leveled to +10 of current max.)

Re:Wake me up when the arrest somebody inworld

[earthforce_1]

That's what I was thinking. :)

A bunch of guys in blue uniforms show up in game with +100 night sticks and magical Tasers of Paralysis (Woe to those in metal armor) to thump your character into submission and drag them away to a dungeon.

Would be pretty cool to see something like this in 2nd life as well.

Re-roll

[BlackHawk-666]

The real moral of this story is that when you go on the run, you need to re-roll. If the guy had just grabbed a new copy of WoW for sub $20 and the expansions, then some game cards - he could have played all he wanted anonymously. On the run, hiding out alone in a different country, what better time to roll a FOTM and get leveling!

Re:Re-roll

[earthforce_1]

He could hang around just long enough to stash his items somewhere for his new character to inherit before abandoning the old one.

I wonder if the cops found out they would set up a virtual stake out on his stash to see who picks it up.

Bullshit

[Snaller]

"The police are working for us, they are our employees. "

That's a lie. If they were I could give them orders or have them fired. I can't. So they are not working for me. They are working for the state.

"I know this is a hard concept for some people to grasp,"

Its not hard, its just a lie.

"You of course know that police would stop arresting people for doing drugs as soon as we make selling drugs legal. It's our choice."

No its not. I was never asked. I have never had a choice. Its the state.

"The fact is, the majority of the population favors keeping drugs illegal."

Well, you haven't proven that - so for the moment we'll assume thats a lie as well, and only you are favoring that.

But even if the rest had that point of view, that would be *THEM* not *ME* and so not *US*

"Few politicians are willing to bring up the topic of legalization because they know they will be voted out of office if they do."

Because few politicians are competent.

Re:Bullshit

[phantomfive]

That's a lie. If they were I could give them orders or have them fired. I can't. So they are not working for me. They are working for the state.

Get involved in your city council. You are the state. Even if you don't want to run for office, if you get enough people to agree with you, then you can fire the cop.

Because few politicians are competent.

So it shouldn't be hard for you to get elected, right? Except based on the content of your post, I'm going to say when it comes to politics, you are not competent.

Irrelevant

[Snaller]

That bit is about law not morality.

Another lying Sheriff gets applauded

[fluffy99]

"Roberson’s subpoena was nothing more than a politely worded request"

So basically this Sheriff lied and misrepresented himself in order to trick Blizzard into revealing personal data? That is illegal in itself, btw. Or was there an actual court issued subpoena involved? I which case the court probably overstepped its authority.

I guess the cop also isn't as internet savvy as he thinks, since an IP address doesn't necessarily located a physical address.

Talbert explained that this online manhunt isn’t the first time his department has ventured onto the Internet to track down a suspect. Earlier this year, sheriff’s deputies used a phone number look-up Web site to find a man in North Carolina who was wanted on charges in Howard County. In that case, authorities found their suspect through an online classified ad on Craig’s List.

Wow. They discovered how to google a phone number! Are they really bragging about coming out of the dark ages?

You didn't fix anything

[Snaller]

You just proved you were 10 years old.

Re:So...

[fluffy99]

Congratulations. He now has an addiction. Probably not too bad, more along the lines of needing coffee in the morning. The good news is that he'll probably tire of it within a few months.

Now you have to teach him self control to go with this new addition. Start with something simple like if he gets his chores done first, only then he can play on the computer. That's a pretty basic life skill in my opinion.

If you tell me he's too young to have chores, I'm going to politely tell you that he's too young to be on the internet alone.

Re:TOS

[DurendalMac]

If you'd actually bother to RTFA, you'd find that there WAS A GODDAMNED SUBPOENA!

WoW got real

[findoutmoretoday]

Somewhere, just for a few seconds, WoW got real, for someone.

Re:Cooperate first, morality second.

[ibsteve2u]

That makes, imho, the moral thing to do becomes cooperation with the authorities, in all cases, even when you're not sure about the morality of their actions.

I believe that is the essentially the same argument employed by the defense at the Nuremberg Trials.

"This is the city"

[Chris Mattern]

"Stormwind, Azeroth. I work here. My name is Sir Lothar. I carry a mace."

Scheduling of coke and THC

[tepples]

Are you suggesting marijuana, cocaine, etc are banned only because no one was able to patent them?

Coke and meth are not banned; they're in Schedule II. Amphetamine-like stimulants such as amphetamine mixed salts (Adderall), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and even methamphetamine (Desoxyn) are approved by the FDA for the treatment of attention deficit disorder. Cocaine also has FDA-recognized uses.

Dronabinol, the active ingredient in cannabis, wasn't scheduled down from Schedule I to Schedule II until Solvay Pharmaceuticals managed to patent the synthesis of dronabinol. It's Schedule III by now, and there is an open petition to the DEA to reschedule other dronabinol preparations used pursuant to FDA regulation.

Do you know a better place?

[mi]

[...] the atrocious privacy situation in the US these days

Do you know a better place? Somewhere, where it is harder for the government to put your details together for reasons other than sheer incompetence or lack of computer equipment?

Re:Do you know a better place?

[CodeBuster]

Do you know a better place?

No I do not, but that is not the point. The point is not to completely evade determined surveillance, but rather to become too expensive to track effectively. Most corporate data brokers, advertisers, and marketers just aren't going to go to that much trouble to penetrate your disguise. So, with careful planning and proper execution it is possible to preserve a greater measure of personal privacy than would otherwise be possible. Will it prevent government intelligence agencies from tracking you down if they put resources into it? Probably not, but an individual citizen may be able to evade the sort of casual surveillance, corporate data mining, and driftnet techniques that are increasingly being deployed in the name of keeping us "safe". I don't trust the guarantees of the US Federal Government anymore; I don't believe that they are acting in my best interest and I treat encounters with them and their ilk as adversarial.

Re:Do you know a better place?

[mi]

No I do not, but that is not the point. The point is not to completely evade determined surveillance, but rather to become too expensive [...]

I'm sorry, but no, that was the point. You made a rather snide remark about the privacy situation in the US. While I agree, that the changes in our country are worrying, singling the US out — as you did — is unfair.

I don't trust the guarantees of the US Federal Government anymore

You were a fool, if you ever trusted them... A government — having honest citizens' best interests (the way it perceives them, anyway) in mind — always looks for ways to skirts limits on its power. This is true about all governments, but the US, however, has more such limits, than most other countries do...

What the TV tells them to care about

[tepples]

People[1] in the United States care about what the TV tells them to care about. The TV's corporate masters have a vested interest in making people not care because they have a vested interest in expansion of copyright, and they use their control of TV news to make people care about things other than copyright.

[1] "A person is smart; people are stupid." -- Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K, Men in Black

Re:What the TV tells them to care about

[phantomfive]

"Conspiracy theories appeal to people who are more familiar with Hollywood's idea of how the world works than with how the world works." Holman W Jenkins Jr, WSJ

Re:What the TV tells them to care about

[tepples]

You appear to claim that the dearth of mainstream media coverage of copyright issues is not a conspiracy on the part of MPAA-owned television news outlets and MPAA-owned newspapers. Do you have a better explanation for this lack of coverage?

Re:What the TV tells them to care about

[phantomfive]

Really? It's because when most people see an article in a newspaper talking about the intricacies of copyright, their eyes glaze over in boredom. Some newspapers do cover copyright issues. News outlets mainly give people information on topics they are interested in. Similarly, I doubt you keep up with the latest developments in choral music.

Re:What the TV tells them to care about

[tepples]

News outlets mainly give people information on topics they are interested in.

Or news outlets mainly make people interested in topics they give information on. If people see something on the news, they assume that someone thought it newsworthy.

Another angle: The major movie studios have those "I wouldn't steal" ads before films. What do free culture advocates have?

Re:What the TV tells them to care about

[phantomfive]

Oh, We've got this guy.

Wow

[ozzehmgaow]

WoW, doesn't sound too good, but it was a drug dealer so I don't care. Long as they don' give out info on everyone.