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Joining Lavabit Et Al, Groklaw Shuts Down Because of NSA Dragnet
An anonymous reader was the first to write with news that Groklaw is shutting down: "There is now no shield from forced exposure. Nothing in that parenthetical thought list is terrorism-related, but no one can feel protected enough from forced exposure any more to say anything the least bit like that to anyone in an email, particularly from the U.S. out or to the U.S. in, but really anywhere. You don't expect a stranger to read your private communications to a friend. And once you know they can, what is there to say? Constricted and distracted. That's it exactly. That's how I feel. So. There we are. The foundation of Groklaw is over. I can't do Groklaw without your input. I was never exaggerating about that when we won awards. It really was a collaborative effort, and there is now no private way, evidently, to collaborate." Why it's a big deal.
I never read Groklaw but from what I've seen others write about it, it's been a pretty important website in terms of keeping the truth 'out there'. And now it's closing because people now have concrete proof the land of the free is anything but.
South Park Stan Marsh has a perfect saying for situations like this: Dude that's pretty fucked up right there.
Groklaw was the IP world's equivalent of the Glenn Beck show. It was a venue for people with strong opinions who had no idea what they were talking about to debate subtle legal issues that were way over their heads. The dark underbelly of an enabling technology. It never changed anything meaningful in any meaningful way and was generally considered noise by anyone with a nontrivial knowledge of U.S. intellectual property law. The reasons for its closure sound like pure BS, something along the lines of: "I've been advised that one should never send any important information via email and since Groklaw can't survive without email, I need to shut it down." What, huh, really?? More likely, Ms. Groklaw just got tired of having to face dopey-but-heated I-ANAL debates all day every day and was too lazy to even spend the time to come up with a rationalization that made sense. So good friggin' riddance. The Internet's aggregate IQ just went up. If you're really interested in intelligent discussions of intellectual-property issues, it's not hard to Google a better-informed IP law blog that is entertaining and that attracts posters who, regardless of whether they're experts in the field, at least have a clue. Patently-O, for example, has its moments. And if losing this silly site breaks you up too much, Glenn Beck can always help you get your fill of start-with-a-conclusion-and-then-cherry-pick-facts-to-support-it debates. I-ANAL, indeed.