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Canadian Court Rejects US Demand For Full Access To Megaupload Servers
An anonymous reader writes "Nearly one year ago, the U.S. government launched
a global takedown of Megaupload.com, with arrests of the leading
executives in New Zealand and the execution of search warrants in
nine countries. Canada was among the list of participating countries
as the action included seizure of Megaupload.com servers. Last week,
a Canadian court rejected
a request to send mirror-imaged copies of 32 computer servers to
authorities in the U.S., indicating that a more refined order is
needed. Megaupload successfully argued 'that there is an enormous
volume of information on the servers and that sending mirror image
copies of all of this data would be overly broad, particularly in
light of the scantiness of the evidence connecting these servers to
the crimes alleged by the American prosecutors.'"
What is the official reason for requesting the data anyway? Kim is being prosecuted and the site is down.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
This makes up for your frozen desolate wasteland of a climate for refusing to allow my car to start.
Since I'm stuck home for the day, I think I'll download a movie. ;)
Canada continues to appear in the United States' Trade Representative "Special 301" report as a "Priority Watch Foreign Nation", under active suspicion of not supporting US intellectual property regimes, having inadequate intellectual property laws, and also not being "a team player".
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I'm just waiting for the declaration from the US that Canada has joined the "axis of evil".
OMG, we* have a nuclear program! And oil!
* see username
The rain was getting harder. It was now precisely 11:51 PM, and Mark was into his fifth beer. He was feeling pretty invincible but the night was young, and he intended to get wasted before it was all over. He had put in a rough week at work and he deserved it.
He lit another cigarette. He and his drinkin' buddies sat in their traditional circle, in Ian's apartment. The talk wandered from sex to work, back to sex, to basketball, finally settling on sex. Mark had eaten lunch at Taco Bell, and had drunk four cups of coffee between lunchtime and quitting. In addition, the beers were beginning to settle in. And now, at 11:51 PM, Mark had to take a shit. He stood up. "Shit break," he announced. It was customary among this group to make such an announcement.
Mark walked to the bathroom. As he locked the door behind him, thunder boomed. It was storming out there.
He pulled his pants down and sat on the toilet. Ian's bathroom was a mess. He counted five empty toilet paper rolls, two paperbacks, and yesterday's newspaper. His friends laughed about something. The lights flickered for a moment, and the pre-shit growl came from within. He could feel the product lined up inside him for disposal. Then, he began to push.
Plop. The first piece fell to the water. Then some movement, and Mark felt the main feature inside him, the mother lode. He grunted softly as he squeezed it out. It crackled past his sphincter, and splashed neatly into the bowl.
Then another one queued up, and came out. It was almost as big as its predecessor. Mark would have well-purged bowels tonight, he realized with a smirk. He heard thunder again, closer this time.
Another one? Jeez, he thought. When was my last shit? It ventured forth, Mark's muscles helping it out. It was the biggest one so far. The shit's passage through his anus, that rarest mix of pain and pleasure, was longer than any he could remember. Ahhhh...the stout log advanced with conviction. This was definitely going to be his finest creation; this was a huge one. Still grinning, he wondered if Ian had a camera.
He pushed. Peering between his legs, past his genitals, he saw that it had reached the water. This was like seeing the longest freight train ever. Damn, it was a wide one. And it was still attached! And there was more! He pushed more, harder. It kept coming. He couldn't even feel the end of this one yet; soon it was bending, folding on itself like a sundae topping. Mark stopped pushing and caught his breath. He was sweating; he realized that however long this piece of shit was, it wasn't nearly all the way out yet. He still couldn't feel the end.
He pushed, he strained, it kept coming. His intestines couldn't be that damn long, but this shit just wouldn't quit. In fact, he was feeling the diarrhoeal urgency of *having* to shit. He dutifully answered nature's call, and pushed harder. His efforts were rewarded with more shit. His sphincter was too strained to even pinch the loaf off. It was whole and complete.
He couldn't feel the end.
Fear now came to Mark. He flushed the toilet to make room for more. Even as the bowl refilled, the cramps rose up, and he pushed. Within seconds, the shit extended from his anus to bottom of the bowl. The harder he pushed, the more he had to shit. And it was getting worse. He scarcely had time to catch his breath; his face was quite red as he grunted and struggled to keep up. The shit seemed endless. He looked between his legs again, and gasped as he saw that the bowl was fully a quarter filled with his product, the water dangerously high. The tank wasn't even done filling, but he flushed again. Unfortunately, the plumbing was unable to handle the volume of feces, and the toilet backed up. Mark jumped when the cold water touched his buttocks.
It was now 11:57. Thunder roared outside as water and shit particles flowed onto the tile.
Mark's pants were bunched about his ankles, and he was in pain. The shit advanced relentlessly as he stumbled into the bathtub. He was almost panicking now, and
Search and seizure needs to be for a specific item or copyright. You just can't say I want the hard drive because we think there is something on it. Now if it was deemed a proceeds of crime then anything can be taken.
And not often mentioned is the role Harper's lot played in getting the Canada on that list.... thanks to Wikileaks we can see the coordination between Harper and the US.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5986/135/
Industry Minister Tony Clement’s policy director asked U.S. officials to add Canada to their Special 301 Priority Watch List. See, they have an agenda, they ask Canada to be put on the list, then they can use the presence of Canada on the list as an excuse to enact a lot of nasty IP laws they wanted to do anyway. Cute huh?
By duplicating the hard drives, the Canadian ISP/administrator/whomever would be engaging in (alleged) copyright infringement!
I love living in the US, but our government has been on a massive powertrip for decades now. It really needs to be reigned in.
During these past few years, the Canadian court system has been a bit of a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel with regards to this and striking down draconian laws instituted at the federal level.
Just in the past week (part of) the legislation regarding human smuggling was struck down in BC (giving aid to someone attempting to illegally enter the country could be construed as giving legal advice, or even coffee); mandatory sentencing for a guy in Surrey with no priors, but caught with a loaded Glock in a public place also struck down (an unreasonable gap between levels of sentencing, IIRC).
Now if they could just pick up the pace on the election fraud case(s) being heard; we cannot allow these ones to be unresolved through the next election, like the last one involving the Conservative Party of Canada (In & Out scandal).
Well, that turned into more of a rant than I expected.
TL;DR hooray for the Canadian courts.
This is how the US authorities go after everything - with massive, overwhelming, completely unnecessary force. Ever see the video of the invasion of Kim's compound? You'd think they were invading a small nation with that army of agents. It's like those cop shows on tv where they burst into some guys house - 10 or 20 or them, armed to the teeth - and all you see is some redneck standing there with no shirt and unarmed.
It's looking more and more to me like the US authorities had a pretty flimsy case with improper search warrants. Now they are trying to get everything they can, thus the "mirror" request. But the Canadian authorities have stuck a finger in the eye of the American justice machine by refusing to just hand over the contents of the entire server, not just what Kim is accused of being involved with.
My prediction is that not only will Kim not get extradited to the US, his lawyers will find a way to get him off the charges. Of course, it will cost him several years of his life and several million dollars. The US government, on the other hand, has virtually unlimited resources (thanks to the taxpayer). Backed up by the greedy Hollywood producers they will continue their campaign of harassment.
Maybe , just maybe an american company should not have started suing Canadians especially using such flimsy evidence and maybe they should be focusing there economy and people rather then imaginary property.
Wouldn't they want a bit for bit copy rather than a "mirror image"?
Or did they mean ROT13...
You're just n the wrong part of Canada:
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/cabc0313
4 Deg Celsius and Partly Cloudy. It will likely rain later tonight, whatever the forecast says.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid