Technically most ISPs are operating under the 'Common Carrier Defense' for infringing and/or illegal content that passes through their services in Canada. They do not have the true Common Carrier status that Telcos themselves have but they can go 'well we dont interfere with the line so we shouldnt be punished, we complied with the police' and get off of any problems.
Now if the ISPs want to be Judge, Jury and Executioner then they better be prepared to take on the full responsibility. If they should let even 1 child porn image slip through their network they'd be responsible for possession and distribution of child pornography! Maybe we should start making a special section in the Sex Offender Registry and start putting the company execs on it.
Background into the Canadian Copyright Landscape... See a few years back the Canadian version of the RIAA/MPAA lobbied Ottawa to put what is effectively a TAX on blank media (cassettes, CD-R/W, DVD-R/W, Hard Drives, USB Drives, etc..) and give it to them but technically it was called a 'Levy'. This was to cover the fact these things could potentially be used for copyright infringement. Now there was a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada where they basically said 'They already paid you via Blank Media Levies. You cant charge them for copyright infringement because it was non-commercial copyright infringement'. Which is good since looking at my desk they probably owe me a few hundred dollars in entertainment anyways. Commercial Copyright Infringement is basically someone downloads or rips a DVD and burns 100 copies and sells them at $5 a pop. Those are the outfits they should be targeting.
I agree... It is tantamount to removing someone's freedom of speech as most people use it as their primary conduit to post their own thoughts and feelings as well.
I sure hope that some people get together and sue over this policy. Not only is it unfair and unjust. You have to realize that much public money has gone into helping these companies build the infrastructure they make money off of. None of this half assed begging for public money to do things then treating the network as your own personal back yard.
In fact I think that only a COURT ORDER should be the only means to remove someones internet access. Even people convicted of phone crimes are permitted to have a phone that they can dial 911 with within their home.
Maybe but at that point you take your case to the appeals court for cruel and unusual punishment. Its cruel and unusual to lock someone up for life because they forgot a password.
True but in this case it will be a he said-she said sorta deal... They want the encryption key/passphrase in order to make it an easy slam dunk so they have a strong enough case to force a plea bargain.
Without the computer files they got the word of a border agent against a (presumably) law abiding citizen. Is it feasible that the person might have something embarrassing enough on there that they would not want to cooperate now? Is it possible that he has the Trade Secrets for his company on it (remember the US is not above industrial espionage either!)? Is he afraid they'll find his Brittany Spears 'illegal' download collection and tack that onto his case?
All you need to do is introduce the shadow of a doubt to 12 average randomly selected citizens and you walk. Just because a cop stops you for speeding doesnt mean you have to open the trunk for him and show him you got some weed on you.
Except encryption is stronger than any safe ever made. It could take the police years to break the encryption. Typically this could takes years, even a lifetime depending on the size of the key. Any 'minor' charges will probably reach or surpass their statute of limitations before they could break it anyways. This is why you'll see stuff like this or laws requiring people to give up their encryption keys or passwords or be declared criminals or laws which make encryption illegal. These laws will naturally assume that the data contained must be on par with murder or child porn or terrorist materials and thus carry huge sentences like 10-20 years or life in prison.
Or maybe its a case of people buying the hardware and building their own homebrew and/or using them for hacking purposes like a very cheap IM program/web browser. Korea has a health number or smart tech savvy users so this cant be out of the realm of possibility either.
Patented Babies coming to you!
on
Designer Babies
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Just wait until they patent the genes for intelligence. If your kid reproduces without the assistance of the medical company they'll be spreading patented genes or something and they'll demand the DNA information of the offspring. Sorta like Monsanto does with crops... Just imagine if these companies only give you sterile kids and require you to go through them to have future kids.
Yeah Vista was a flop, Windows 7 is going to be a flop too.
Operating Systems can no longer afford to BLOAT uncontrollably. Moore's law will take care of that as it will eventually come to an end and seems to be slowing. Today's computers are essentially the computer world equivalent of muscle cars of old. The average joe does not need a vehicle that goes from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds and has a top speed of like 200 MPH if all they're doing is going to the corner store. Neither does the average joe need a computer with 2-4x 2GHz processors when all they want to do is read email, browse the web and watch Youtube videos. Sure some games require a little more muscle which 3d graphics cards provide adequately.
If you take out all the BLOAT then all you need is a single core 1GHz processor to do the tasks of reading email, web browsing and watching the occasional video. This is why the original Eee was so popular. $300 machine that you could take with you anywhere and browse from any wifi connection and it didnt weigh a ton. And it was primarily possible because it ran Linux so Asus could cut out most of the bloat. This is perfectly fine for about 85-95% of users which coincidentally is roughly the equivalent of Microsoft's Market Share.
Unfortunately if you say use ext3 file system or something... Unless Windows can write to it you're gonna have to require users to be running Linux because Microsoft has no file system support for anything other than NTFS or FAT32. Which would probably be possible to settle with an anti-competitive counter lawsuit claiming that Microsoft is unfairly leveraging their monopoly position.
Embezzlement is a *CRIME*. Crimes should be reported to the police and not to the company's HR or Legal departments. As others have said you should talk to the SEC or DA. I'm sure they'll be only too happy to deal with it for you (unless they're in on it too and I doubt it for a piddly little sum like $20,000.
Also I'd suggest getting a lawyer and explaining you figure that your former employer is giving you bad references which is illegal in most places to do more than confirm employment dates and pay rate. I'm sure if they are bad mouthing you as badly as you suspect they will more then likely be able to get an investigator to prove it by calling them up and asking them for references for some bogus company and position that you'd typically apply for. People can win big $$$ if it can be proven so the lawyer might work on retainer taking like 10-20% of the take if they think it might be an open and shut case.
If you have your new employment in the bag already I would say ditch the current outfit ASAP. If the new company is will is willing to take you right away do it and leave them in a lurch. You'll probably be with the new company for 1-5 years. They will more than likely be happy to give you a reference when you're done working with them from the sound of it.
Particularly if the current company you are working for is full of douchebags.
I figure text in videos could be snagged automatically (after all we already have OCR technology its just a case of applying it to a moving image instead of a static one). Now using sign language might throw it for a loop but if you really dont want them to understand you wont use something standard and common like American Sign Language and instead come up with your own directory of signals like gangs do.
This one, among others probably. Your work passwords are the intellectual property of your employer.
Ok so I can I start copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret numbers now? lemme start by copyrighting 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0...
No. Not your job to decide what's authorized. Your manager decides what's authorized. He/she gives you an order, you follow it or quit, your choice. Just don't steal anything on the way out.
Actually it is his job to decide who is authorized as the role of Network Administrator/Chief Information Officer (not sure which title he held exactly). That is their role to ensure the security of the network from threats both external and internal. He apparently felt comfortable handing off the passwords to the person with the ultimate authority (The Mayor) but the underlings in question. If this were a company then him in Network Admin/CIO role would mean that he only answers to the CEO in this case the Mayor. He did his job and he did it right from what I see.
IANAL but I play one on Slashdot... but the original comment about the HR person not being authorized to have the password may be a valid concern/complaint. Passwords are supposed to be secure and on a need to know basis and the HR person doesnt need to know. Only other Network Admins and the Mayor would be in the 'need to know' category.
If that is the case then we can demand that Blu-Ray Player manufacturer give us the encryption keys? After all the Blu-ray player is your own system what right do they have to keep their encryption keys secret?
Actually you realize there is the option of 'guilty with justification'. I'm not sure the exact term in the US but Self Defense is one.
It's the same as someone speeding because theres a (pregnant woman having a kid/someone bleeding to death) in the back seat. As long as you dont run over an 80 year old woman while getting the person to the hospital.
Basically as long as you can prove that your actions prevented a greater crime and/or were in the public interest then you can be declared not guilty.
The only thing that we as geeks can do is to make sure we completely understand the basics of the law (at least more than your boss). Remember unless your boss is a lawyer then you probably can learn more than him or her.
Hey Cliffski I like what you do with your software business and how you reached out to people who were pirating games and stuff.
The fact is that they are based in Sweden and the servers are based in Sweden and thus only Swedish law applies. Sweden does not have a DMCA, DMCA-like laws and thus they have no need to kowtow to DMCA notices who's jurisdiction is limited in scope to the US.
I'd agree with you *IF* they were based in the US or their servers were located in the US they would be 'Guilty as fuck' but the US != The World. There are a number of sovereign nations out there who do not do things the same way that the US does. Canada one of the closest friends and allies of the US is one, we have stupid blank media Levies that go straight to the media companies because it 'could be used for copyright infringement' so every time I buy a DVD-RW $2 of that is going to the RIAA/MPAA either directly or indirectly through their Canadian front organizations. Looking to my side they clearly owe me $50-100 of entertainment and as a result personal copyright infringement is not even looked at seriously because the case they did try to sue someone for non-commercial infringement the judge slapped them in the proverbial face saying that Canadians are already paying for the potential to do this (blank media levy) and they cant basically do that and sue people at the same time.
Now the US wants to ram the WIPO treaty down our throats which would force us to change our (admittedly WORKING) copyright laws and force us to adopt DMCA-like laws probably at the behest of the RIAA/MPAA. Also this ACTA treaty thats probably some RIAA/MPAA's wet dream legislation trying to be backdoored into many countries laws by getting it dealt with as a treaty rather than countries voting on it. The thing is this treaty is being created *BEHIND CLOSED DOORS* to the point where they make people sign *NDAs* before they're allowed to see it or work on it. Now I dont know about you but that doesnt exactly sound very democratic to me. It sounds like a bunch of sleezeball scumsuckers who need to be curbstomped and brought back to reality.
I can tell you how they'd come up with damages if they could...
((Population of World = Potential Customers) - (Actual Customers)) * $20 + ($100,000 * songs or movies being 'made available') = $9871298791823471023971098371037840178987234
I pulled that number out of my ass but its just as good as the formula Sony uses for their damages.
Actually look up the word automated. The Pirate Bay's website is automated in that the owners do not have to touch anything in order for people to add content to it. The users self select the categories and as far as I can tell the only torrents they've ever removed were ones which they were required to by law (IE. Child Porn).
People in favor of Piracy arent always 'wanting free stuff'. The fact remains that COPYRIGHT was initially designed to last for 7 years then upgraded to 14 years. After a while it was bumped up to 70 years as a result of a certain cartoon mouse potentially entering the public domain then bumped again to life + 70 years and presumably when that comes around it'll be bumped up again. The thing is nothing has entered the public domain prior to 1923. Theft from the public domain is still Theft, Copyright Infringement is bound to happen when you have *86 YEARS* worth of culture held hostage by big media conglomerates.
The thing is being a one hit wonder like Rick Astley should not automatically entitle you, your children, your grandchildren and your great grandchildren and your great great grandchildren, etc... to live off one piece of work forever. The person who crafts a new chair doesnt get to live off the sale for their entire life and doesnt get $$$ everytime someone sits on it (the equivalent to hearing a song on the radio or something)
I'm rooting for TPB to win, but not because 'I want free stuff', but because I want SANE COPYRIGHT TERMS/rethinking this copyright scheme. Could you imagine if Patents got out of control like Copyright did and that patents lasted for Life + 70 years? Technical progress would grind to a halt. Well we're sorta experiencing the same with Copyright. Cultural progress is grinding to a halt.
Well the ISP has the right to give up information if they please to the police without a warrant because it would be the ISP that would be served with the warrant and NOT the person being investigated. It is much the same way that a person on the street can choose whether or not to talk to a police officer and give information (IE. You dont have to talk to the police, and if they arrest you as a result of that then you automatically have the right to remain silent).
I do however believe that it is upon the ISP's head that they should maintain the confidentiality of IP to Customer Data unless served with a warrant. This would prevent the use of 'requests' because of 'child porn' to go on fishing expeditions. There is I believe a reasonable expectation to privacy of your IP to Physical Address due to the generally anonymous communication on the internet. You wouldnt want a stalker being able to phone up your ISP and go 'Hey I need the name and address of this IP address' now would you? Thats the sorta things that requiring a warrant for any divulging of information to the police will prevent.
Remember its quite possible for someone to pretend to be Law Enforcement over the phone. They might even be able to spoof Caller ID and/or ANI data. Remember most attacks on security are a result of social engineering more than anything. So make sure all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed before giving out information.
How about making patent holders have to defend their patent like trademark owners have to. I think there was one case where some company licensed their patent out far too widely and they lost their protection as well.
Dont patents last for 20 years or did they up the times on that too? Because if the patent was filed in 1987 then 2007 would have been when it became public domain.
Sounds like Defense is due for a cut... Seriously how much has all the extra spending on Defense gotten the US as a nation? Not a whole lot, they still havent even caught Osama Bin Laden.
Slashdot Mirror
Technically most ISPs are operating under the 'Common Carrier Defense' for infringing and/or illegal content that passes through their services in Canada. They do not have the true Common Carrier status that Telcos themselves have but they can go 'well we dont interfere with the line so we shouldnt be punished, we complied with the police' and get off of any problems.
Now if the ISPs want to be Judge, Jury and Executioner then they better be prepared to take on the full responsibility. If they should let even 1 child porn image slip through their network they'd be responsible for possession and distribution of child pornography! Maybe we should start making a special section in the Sex Offender Registry and start putting the company execs on it.
Background into the Canadian Copyright Landscape... See a few years back the Canadian version of the RIAA/MPAA lobbied Ottawa to put what is effectively a TAX on blank media (cassettes, CD-R/W, DVD-R/W, Hard Drives, USB Drives, etc..) and give it to them but technically it was called a 'Levy'. This was to cover the fact these things could potentially be used for copyright infringement. Now there was a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada where they basically said 'They already paid you via Blank Media Levies. You cant charge them for copyright infringement because it was non-commercial copyright infringement'. Which is good since looking at my desk they probably owe me a few hundred dollars in entertainment anyways. Commercial Copyright Infringement is basically someone downloads or rips a DVD and burns 100 copies and sells them at $5 a pop. Those are the outfits they should be targeting.
PS: IANAL just thinking of going to law school
I agree... It is tantamount to removing someone's freedom of speech as most people use it as their primary conduit to post their own thoughts and feelings as well.
I sure hope that some people get together and sue over this policy. Not only is it unfair and unjust. You have to realize that much public money has gone into helping these companies build the infrastructure they make money off of. None of this half assed begging for public money to do things then treating the network as your own personal back yard.
In fact I think that only a COURT ORDER should be the only means to remove someones internet access. Even people convicted of phone crimes are permitted to have a phone that they can dial 911 with within their home.
Baggies are suspicious? Well damn I better not brown bag my lunch anymore because I might be a drug dealer.
Maybe but at that point you take your case to the appeals court for cruel and unusual punishment. Its cruel and unusual to lock someone up for life because they forgot a password.
True but in this case it will be a he said-she said sorta deal... They want the encryption key/passphrase in order to make it an easy slam dunk so they have a strong enough case to force a plea bargain.
Without the computer files they got the word of a border agent against a (presumably) law abiding citizen. Is it feasible that the person might have something embarrassing enough on there that they would not want to cooperate now? Is it possible that he has the Trade Secrets for his company on it (remember the US is not above industrial espionage either!)? Is he afraid they'll find his Brittany Spears 'illegal' download collection and tack that onto his case?
All you need to do is introduce the shadow of a doubt to 12 average randomly selected citizens and you walk. Just because a cop stops you for speeding doesnt mean you have to open the trunk for him and show him you got some weed on you.
Except encryption is stronger than any safe ever made. It could take the police years to break the encryption. Typically this could takes years, even a lifetime depending on the size of the key. Any 'minor' charges will probably reach or surpass their statute of limitations before they could break it anyways. This is why you'll see stuff like this or laws requiring people to give up their encryption keys or passwords or be declared criminals or laws which make encryption illegal. These laws will naturally assume that the data contained must be on par with murder or child porn or terrorist materials and thus carry huge sentences like 10-20 years or life in prison.
Or maybe its a case of people buying the hardware and building their own homebrew and/or using them for hacking purposes like a very cheap IM program/web browser. Korea has a health number or smart tech savvy users so this cant be out of the realm of possibility either.
Just wait until they patent the genes for intelligence. If your kid reproduces without the assistance of the medical company they'll be spreading patented genes or something and they'll demand the DNA information of the offspring. Sorta like Monsanto does with crops... Just imagine if these companies only give you sterile kids and require you to go through them to have future kids.
Call me when they can give me laser beams that shoot out of my eyes and the ability to fly.
Yeah Vista was a flop, Windows 7 is going to be a flop too.
Operating Systems can no longer afford to BLOAT uncontrollably. Moore's law will take care of that as it will eventually come to an end and seems to be slowing. Today's computers are essentially the computer world equivalent of muscle cars of old. The average joe does not need a vehicle that goes from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds and has a top speed of like 200 MPH if all they're doing is going to the corner store. Neither does the average joe need a computer with 2-4x 2GHz processors when all they want to do is read email, browse the web and watch Youtube videos. Sure some games require a little more muscle which 3d graphics cards provide adequately.
If you take out all the BLOAT then all you need is a single core 1GHz processor to do the tasks of reading email, web browsing and watching the occasional video. This is why the original Eee was so popular. $300 machine that you could take with you anywhere and browse from any wifi connection and it didnt weigh a ton. And it was primarily possible because it ran Linux so Asus could cut out most of the bloat. This is perfectly fine for about 85-95% of users which coincidentally is roughly the equivalent of Microsoft's Market Share.
Quick someone patent the business process of suing over patent infringement so we have 20 years of peace.
Unfortunately if you say use ext3 file system or something... Unless Windows can write to it you're gonna have to require users to be running Linux because Microsoft has no file system support for anything other than NTFS or FAT32. Which would probably be possible to settle with an anti-competitive counter lawsuit claiming that Microsoft is unfairly leveraging their monopoly position.
Embezzlement is a *CRIME*. Crimes should be reported to the police and not to the company's HR or Legal departments. As others have said you should talk to the SEC or DA. I'm sure they'll be only too happy to deal with it for you (unless they're in on it too and I doubt it for a piddly little sum like $20,000.
Also I'd suggest getting a lawyer and explaining you figure that your former employer is giving you bad references which is illegal in most places to do more than confirm employment dates and pay rate. I'm sure if they are bad mouthing you as badly as you suspect they will more then likely be able to get an investigator to prove it by calling them up and asking them for references for some bogus company and position that you'd typically apply for. People can win big $$$ if it can be proven so the lawyer might work on retainer taking like 10-20% of the take if they think it might be an open and shut case.
I'll agree.
If you have your new employment in the bag already I would say ditch the current outfit ASAP. If the new company is will is willing to take you right away do it and leave them in a lurch. You'll probably be with the new company for 1-5 years. They will more than likely be happy to give you a reference when you're done working with them from the sound of it.
Particularly if the current company you are working for is full of douchebags.
That's what they'd want you to believe!
I figure text in videos could be snagged automatically (after all we already have OCR technology its just a case of applying it to a moving image instead of a static one). Now using sign language might throw it for a loop but if you really dont want them to understand you wont use something standard and common like American Sign Language and instead come up with your own directory of signals like gangs do.
This one, among others probably. Your work passwords are the intellectual property of your employer.
Ok so I can I start copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret numbers now? lemme start by copyrighting 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0...
No. Not your job to decide what's authorized. Your manager decides what's authorized. He/she gives you an order, you follow it or quit, your choice. Just don't steal anything on the way out.
Actually it is his job to decide who is authorized as the role of Network Administrator/Chief Information Officer (not sure which title he held exactly). That is their role to ensure the security of the network from threats both external and internal. He apparently felt comfortable handing off the passwords to the person with the ultimate authority (The Mayor) but the underlings in question. If this were a company then him in Network Admin/CIO role would mean that he only answers to the CEO in this case the Mayor. He did his job and he did it right from what I see.
IANAL but I play one on Slashdot... but the original comment about the HR person not being authorized to have the password may be a valid concern/complaint. Passwords are supposed to be secure and on a need to know basis and the HR person doesnt need to know. Only other Network Admins and the Mayor would be in the 'need to know' category.
If that is the case then we can demand that Blu-Ray Player manufacturer give us the encryption keys? After all the Blu-ray player is your own system what right do they have to keep their encryption keys secret?
Actually you realize there is the option of 'guilty with justification'. I'm not sure the exact term in the US but Self Defense is one.
It's the same as someone speeding because theres a (pregnant woman having a kid/someone bleeding to death) in the back seat. As long as you dont run over an 80 year old woman while getting the person to the hospital.
Basically as long as you can prove that your actions prevented a greater crime and/or were in the public interest then you can be declared not guilty.
The only thing that we as geeks can do is to make sure we completely understand the basics of the law (at least more than your boss). Remember unless your boss is a lawyer then you probably can learn more than him or her.
Hey Cliffski I like what you do with your software business and how you reached out to people who were pirating games and stuff.
The fact is that they are based in Sweden and the servers are based in Sweden and thus only Swedish law applies. Sweden does not have a DMCA, DMCA-like laws and thus they have no need to kowtow to DMCA notices who's jurisdiction is limited in scope to the US.
I'd agree with you *IF* they were based in the US or their servers were located in the US they would be 'Guilty as fuck' but the US != The World. There are a number of sovereign nations out there who do not do things the same way that the US does. Canada one of the closest friends and allies of the US is one, we have stupid blank media Levies that go straight to the media companies because it 'could be used for copyright infringement' so every time I buy a DVD-RW $2 of that is going to the RIAA/MPAA either directly or indirectly through their Canadian front organizations. Looking to my side they clearly owe me $50-100 of entertainment and as a result personal copyright infringement is not even looked at seriously because the case they did try to sue someone for non-commercial infringement the judge slapped them in the proverbial face saying that Canadians are already paying for the potential to do this (blank media levy) and they cant basically do that and sue people at the same time.
Now the US wants to ram the WIPO treaty down our throats which would force us to change our (admittedly WORKING) copyright laws and force us to adopt DMCA-like laws probably at the behest of the RIAA/MPAA. Also this ACTA treaty thats probably some RIAA/MPAA's wet dream legislation trying to be backdoored into many countries laws by getting it dealt with as a treaty rather than countries voting on it. The thing is this treaty is being created *BEHIND CLOSED DOORS* to the point where they make people sign *NDAs* before they're allowed to see it or work on it. Now I dont know about you but that doesnt exactly sound very democratic to me. It sounds like a bunch of sleezeball scumsuckers who need to be curbstomped and brought back to reality.
I can tell you how they'd come up with damages if they could...
((Population of World = Potential Customers) - (Actual Customers)) * $20 + ($100,000 * songs or movies being 'made available') = $9871298791823471023971098371037840178987234
I pulled that number out of my ass but its just as good as the formula Sony uses for their damages.
Actually look up the word automated. The Pirate Bay's website is automated in that the owners do not have to touch anything in order for people to add content to it. The users self select the categories and as far as I can tell the only torrents they've ever removed were ones which they were required to by law (IE. Child Porn).
People in favor of Piracy arent always 'wanting free stuff'. The fact remains that COPYRIGHT was initially designed to last for 7 years then upgraded to 14 years. After a while it was bumped up to 70 years as a result of a certain cartoon mouse potentially entering the public domain then bumped again to life + 70 years and presumably when that comes around it'll be bumped up again. The thing is nothing has entered the public domain prior to 1923. Theft from the public domain is still Theft, Copyright Infringement is bound to happen when you have *86 YEARS* worth of culture held hostage by big media conglomerates.
The thing is being a one hit wonder like Rick Astley should not automatically entitle you, your children, your grandchildren and your great grandchildren and your great great grandchildren, etc... to live off one piece of work forever. The person who crafts a new chair doesnt get to live off the sale for their entire life and doesnt get $$$ everytime someone sits on it (the equivalent to hearing a song on the radio or something)
I'm rooting for TPB to win, but not because 'I want free stuff', but because I want SANE COPYRIGHT TERMS/rethinking this copyright scheme. Could you imagine if Patents got out of control like Copyright did and that patents lasted for Life + 70 years? Technical progress would grind to a halt. Well we're sorta experiencing the same with Copyright. Cultural progress is grinding to a halt.
Well the ISP has the right to give up information if they please to the police without a warrant because it would be the ISP that would be served with the warrant and NOT the person being investigated. It is much the same way that a person on the street can choose whether or not to talk to a police officer and give information (IE. You dont have to talk to the police, and if they arrest you as a result of that then you automatically have the right to remain silent).
I do however believe that it is upon the ISP's head that they should maintain the confidentiality of IP to Customer Data unless served with a warrant. This would prevent the use of 'requests' because of 'child porn' to go on fishing expeditions. There is I believe a reasonable expectation to privacy of your IP to Physical Address due to the generally anonymous communication on the internet. You wouldnt want a stalker being able to phone up your ISP and go 'Hey I need the name and address of this IP address' now would you? Thats the sorta things that requiring a warrant for any divulging of information to the police will prevent.
Remember its quite possible for someone to pretend to be Law Enforcement over the phone. They might even be able to spoof Caller ID and/or ANI data. Remember most attacks on security are a result of social engineering more than anything. So make sure all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed before giving out information.
How about making patent holders have to defend their patent like trademark owners have to. I think there was one case where some company licensed their patent out far too widely and they lost their protection as well.
Dont patents last for 20 years or did they up the times on that too? Because if the patent was filed in 1987 then 2007 would have been when it became public domain.
Sounds like Defense is due for a cut... Seriously how much has all the extra spending on Defense gotten the US as a nation? Not a whole lot, they still havent even caught Osama Bin Laden.