both in and out of schools, will be using all the focus on the internet as a distraction while quitely slipping these subversive documents called "books" to "kids" under the table.
I almost got into trouble for that. My girlfriend's daughter's school was having an open-house for parents to talk about the program, curriculum, et cetera.
I think the English teachers were a little irritated when I started demanding to know why John Steinbeck, Edward Abbey, Aldous Huxley, etc., were completely missing from the curriculum, and why she was told to do her book report over because she did it on Steinbeck's "In Dubious Battle." And why those three authors were represented in the school library by one misplaced copy of "Of Mice and Men." Hell, even a tame little rabbit like George Orwell shouldn't be sending up those kinds of alarm bells.
Of course, my parents sent me to a Jesuit school even though we're Lutheran, so I believe that education should actually involve learning to think. This gets me in no end of trouble with the average public-school teacher.
Hm.. IAAC.. I Am A Criminal? That would explain the 15-year career. Though if you've been in court that many times may I humbly suggest a new line of work?
Heh. Maybe I should have said "IAAPO," but that just sounds so..I dunno, formal?
Can't you countersue right away? Is there anything good that can come out directly from this trial?
Yes and no.
The Federal District Court actually can rule on the Constitutionality of a law or other state act: in criminal matters, they conduct suppression hearings all the time.
I've been in Federal court precisely once in my 15-year career, so I'm not expert (IAAC, but IANAL). However, the purpose of a trial is to submit factual evidence to a trier of fact (usually a jury) so that they can rule as to guilt or innocence. IOW, questions of law are typically settled before the jury is even empaneled.
In other words, if this is the actual trial then there's not much left to happen at this stage wrt getting the DMCA tossed out. Everything here (from the non-participant anti-DMCA point of view which appears to be the majority on/.) is just getting positioned for the appeal.
As for the question of a countersuit...I don't believe so. In civil cases they can happen all the time. In this case Sklyarov MIGHT have a civil rights claim under 42 USC 1984. I wouldn't bet on it, though. However, IIRC the trial now opening is a criminal matter. Criminal cases basically cannot be privately prosecuted in the United States. Only a District/State's/Commonwealth Attorney (in state courts) or a United States Attorney (in Federal courts) can initiate criminal proceedings.
I don't know if this will simplify this for you or confuse you even more, but here's some background:
Civil cases are (usually) cases between two private parties. The stakes are monetary damages, and possibly an order from a court to either perform some legally-required duty or to refrain from some other activity.
Criminal cases are cases filed by a prosecutor, on behalf of the People (of the United States/of the State of XXX), in which he alleges that the defendant committed some offense "against the peace and dignity of the People of the blah blah blah." Criminal cases can only be filed for a violation of some specific provision of law.
So, this trial is basically to deal with the question of fact "Did he, or didn't he?" At this point, any real change of law will probably have to come through the appeals process, and a Federal Court of Appeals ruling is only binding in that court's own circuit. IOW, IIRC this is in the Ninth Federal Circuit. That means, an appellate ruling either way is only binding in a few states on the Pacific Coast. It will be persuasive in the other courts.
Re:Okay, it's neat, but...
on
239 MPG Car
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· Score: 1
You wanna impress me, make something the size of a Honda Civic that gets 100mpg at practical speeds with a reasonable carrying capacity on fuel I can buy at the local Kwik-e-mart.
It's even harder in the sticks. How does one haul eight hundred pounds of firewood, or a useful quantity of farm diesel, groceries, or lumber in a pregnant roller skate?
The rest of the world is complying with new Regulations (often brought out by Americans)
Which ones would these be? And I hope you don't mean Kyoto: We didn't bring it out. And thank god: a pollution treaty that exempts China?????
Take the Irak thing for example: America feels like war (somehow good for their Economy) and decides that Saddam is the best target economically (they have oil) while there are currently worse villains out there (Mugabe or any of the dictators/rebel leaders in Central/West africa)
Were that the case, we would have killed Hussein ten or twelve years ago. Frankly, I think letting him waste oxygen was a mistake back then, and would be even more of one now.
And if we were just trying to take over countries with large oil reserves, let me point out that Saudi Arabia barely has an army? And yet we only have troops there so that the House of Saud doesn't get executed by a bunch of Wahabi militants or packed off to some Iraqi salt mine or something.
you thing the US can define human rights? the US who touts freedom and requires a license for everything right down to fishing?
To get a fishing license in the US, you go to any tackle shop and drop fifteen bucks on the counter. To get a small-game/bird hunting license, you take a hunter's safety class (eight hours, usually free: Contact your state DNR/DOW) and THEN go and drop your fifteen bucks. I defy you to go to ANY European country and get a hunting license so easily. (And, FWIW, that money makes up a big chunk of your state's wildlife management/conservation budget.)
To get a concealed handgun license, you pay the cost of the background check and processing, submit fingerprints and proof of training(the aforementioned hunter's safety class combined with a one-Saturday NRA Personal Protection class, for instance), and get your license issued when the prints come back clean. Other than concealed carry, unsafe discharge, and prohibited person bans (juveniles, felons), it's pretty much unregulated here.
I can put out a newspaper without worrying about a D-notice. I can publish Mein Kampf. I don't have a mandatory French content on radio stations.
My taxes don't go to support any churches (How many European countries give tax money to the Catholic, Episcopalian, or Lutheran churches?).
If some cop violates my civil rights here, I can haul his ass into civil court and OWN him.
But then, I'm one of those people who considers those to be fundamental rights: The right to feed myself; the right to life, which implies a right to protect that life and to possess the means to do so; the right to make any non-slander non-libel statement I please; the right to practice, or not practice, or support, or not support any particular church; and the right to be heard in court when I've been unlawfully harmed by someone else. These ALL apply within the US, and if any European nation is batting better than.500 on this list, I'd love to hear about it.
It's this way even in the US. Try setting up a powerful radio transmitter at a random frequency and see how much time passes before the FCC is slamming your door open.
There's a distinction there, which US law recognizes:
Content-based restrictions are almost universally unsupported.
"Time, place, and manner" restrictions intended to prevent breaches of the peace or to maximize the possible use of a finite resource are okay.
Hence, the FCC may step on you for running an unlicensed transmitted. However, they pretty much can't touch you for using a licensed transmitter (or an unregulated medium: internet, print, etc.) to say "I think President Bush is a moron."
If I handed out flyers in the Square of Heavenly Peace (love the irony!) about how the Communist Party are a bunch of Satanic, fascistic, murderous goat-raping thugs, think I'd be alive at the end of the day? Now, say I subbed the name George W. Bush into the flyer and handed them out in the middle of the Cherry Creek Mall in SE Denver, what would happen? I'd probably just be told to make sure I wasn't littering.
IOW, in that fascistic rathole known as the PRC, it doesn't really matter who owns the printing press.
Fact: US constitution DOES NOT GUARANTEE THE RIGHT TO LIFE. You execute people under your constitution. Don't call it murder if you dislike it. But the guy is dead by other's hands.
FACT: With ONE exception (the Thirteenth Amendment) the Constitution says absolutely nothing at all about the interactions between private parties. It ONLY governs the relationship between government and citizen.
In other words, right to life? Not quite. What it says on the matter is that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, save through the due process of law. Also, police seizures of persons (including police use of force, under Tennessee v. Garner) must be "reasonable."
That's all it says on the matter.
The Declaration of Independence, OTOH, does say "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
FWIW, the DoI is rarely (if ever) cited in our courts. It's considered to be largely a statement of philosophy from which the Constitution is derived.
I'm guessing you're from elsewhere. I'm willing to bet that either your country has just as much blood on its hands, or your country has faded into insignificance.
I don't suppose the fact they aren't used in crimes could have anything to do with the fact that the government won't let you own one. Could it, now?
They are legal in Colorado, and still aren't used in crimes. Ever. There's been precisely ONE illegal use of a licensed NFA weapon (like a machine gun) in seventy years. ONE.
I consider clothing with huge ads on them a form of commercialization. Before my day, clothing never had ads on them. It was simple and elegant. Now, people pay $30 for a t-shirt, for the sole reason that it has a big logo that will associate them with a brand only a certain social class can afford.
More or less.
When Cross Colors were big, I got to know more than a few people who had to decide between a new pair of huge-assed pants and paying their child support. "Screw the Kids" was apparently in that year.
Now, near as I can tell, the big names are Tommy Hilfiger (whoever the hell HE is) and Phillies. Brilliant. Why don't you walk around wearing a flag which tells every single bluesuit that you're probably holding?
That was brought about by the commercialization of society.
Society has pretty much always been commercialized. Ever since Oog the Caveman realized that he wanted something that Ugg of the Hill Tribe had, and there was a way to get it that didn't involve sneaking into someone's camp or whacking him over the head.
Commercialization has done a lot for us.. but I feel we're pushing it too far. Companies are starting to blatently ignore any privacy we have so they know where to advertise.
They can't act on information they don't have. All Nextel knows about my phone service is that the bill is paid on time. All the Chevrolet dealer needed to know was what name to put on the bill of sale for my truck, and how to call the bank to be sure there really was $7500 to cover my truck.
If you don't give a businessman enough info to ensure that he'll be able to collect from you, he'll be iffy about extending you credit. However, there are these green cotton things marked "This note legal tender for all debts public and private," most bearing pictures of dead white men, which tend to go a long way.
This is why the American parts of the Internet backbone should be administered and maintained by the Department of Homeland Security or a division of it. We must ensure that terrorists do not take down this vital information super-highway. Who better than Tom Ridge? Corporations? I don't think so, they're part of the conspiracy!
In other words, you're trying to say that a certain government department, already the third or fourth most-bloated and grabastic cabinet-level department in the US government, should also take over a very large part of what's currently done by a stack of phone companies.
I thought the situation might be a little different when you:
1. don't sue to stop a single person for a single crime, but rather to scare other people from committing the same crime.
That might just be another difference. The use of lawsuits to deter certain conduct is generally accepted in the US. Ford and Firestone can't go around selling cars which they know will roll over and burn, killing the occupants. They're getting a very expensive reminder right now. Animal rights people can't break into the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center labs and burn the place-not only are there criminal charges, but once they lose that lawsuit they won't even own the hair on their own asses.
2. don't have a direct financial gain in settelling, but rather in a conviction.
I'm not seeing how APG has an interest in this at all. At least in US courts, we have a concept called "standing." You can't raise an issue in court unless you have standing to do so. That means you can't raise an issue unless it actually somehow affects you. If APG actually represents a copyright owner, they might have standing. On first appearances, though, it looks like they're just puffing their chest to look important.
Or I might be really ignorant of some part of this case. Non-common-law civil codes are generally a mystery to me.
It seems to me, that if APG was about to go around sending bill's to everyone that does p2p filesharing (as a legit activity), it would be rather nice for them to have at least one court ruling supporting their claims.
A lovely theory, unless they have something which hasn't made the press. Anything is possible, and lawsuit settlement offers, like the stock market, work by the Greater Fool Theory.
Also, there's really no financial gain in setteling with those 150 people, less that $200.000, that's probably less than the APG spends a year on saleries.
I think you misplaced the decimal place. 150 people * $14,000 makes $2.1e6.
As for your guess as to the reasoning behind APG, I'm not going to argue. All I know about this is what I've seen on/.
I would prefer the word para-police here.
Pseudo-police would be something that pretends to be police (but doesn't actually function as police). Para-police (like in paramilitary) is private organizations that functionally compete with the real police.
That's exactly why "psuedo-police" is a better term.
Unless something has changed, the RIAA does not employ anybody with the lawful authority to serve criminal summonses, execute warrants, make custodial arrests based upon probable cause for offenses committed outside of their presence, carry firearms concealed upon their person without a permit, et cetera.
Nor does this Antipiratgruppen, unless something has changed. IIRC, Denmark is very restrictive on firearms ownership and most of Europe doesn't have citizens' arrest laws that we'd recognize as such in the US. I don't see them allowing some MADD-style busybody group to carry weapons and hook people.
Granted, I'm speaking from a state that won't let ANY non-governmental organization commission peace officers. (Okay, railroads and the E-470 toll road excluded.)
indicators of just how flimsy the cases are, can be that APG:
1. didn't run a case to try out the validity
2. Offers to not go to court (if they were out to set an example, thay would probably want at least one conviction)
3. Offers a "discount"-solution
That would make Danish civil law very markedly different from any system based upon English common law (like the US, for instance.)
If they file a test case, that'll take forever to resolve. If there's a "speedy trial" rule which applies to civil matters anywhere in the world, I've not heard of it.
Your second two points illustrate a time-honored tradition: The out-of-court settlement. In general, out of court settlements are merely agreements in which both parties to a suit agree to dispose of it (typically by the defendant paying damages less than the plaintiff would have been awarded at trial) and usually without anybody formally admitting fault.
In other words, IN THEORY it's a way for a defendant to say "I screwed up. Let's fix this without wasting a judge's time."
If you've ever been in an auto accident, and you and the other driver agreed that you would just pay for the repairs without reporting it to your insurer, that's a similar behavior. One party agrees to make the other one whole for injuries or losses, without involving a third party. (I've done that. It's legal in most or all of the US. I've no idea what the rule is in Denmark.)
It's a lovely theory. Personally, for professional reasons (I'm a cop) I have to worry that someone will file a civil rights lawsuit against my city because I told him to sit down and shut up. People will often file such suits because they know the city will settle: settling a bullshit lawsuit is often cheaper than fighting it. After paying the barracuda, the plaintiff will usually be able to take six months off work.
So, yes, settlements out-of-court make a lovely theory. And usually they're a pretty good idea. If two people can come to their own solution, they'll live with it a lot better than if it were forced upon them.
And in practice (and probably in the specific case of the Danish piracy group also) you got it right: Extortion.
Well, it doesn't really explain why even in the urban areas in the US, the coverage is spotty.
I live in Colorado, and on my porch the signal sucks. You see, we have these things here calls _mountains_.
Now, let's say I go anywhere near Denver, the Springs, Pueblo, Durango, GJ, etc. Relatively major cities, 50,000 residents on up. Spotless coverage.
I was just at a conference in Kansas City. Not only did my cellular work perfectly in KC, but it worked perfectly along every stretch of major highway between here and there. And that includes central Kansas, which is damn empty.
Don't rule out topography. Or that whole population density thing. We have fewer people in the US, on almost three times as much land. (And thank GOD! Blessed elbow room!)
because (ignoring the finacial side), that's all they know how to do. The human side of spying we no longer want to do. It's all about hardware and automation. God forbid someone should actually want to go into the field and get their hands dirty.
And that's the gods' own truth.
I've been a cop my entire adult life. I spent some time as a detective. I've all kinds of neat surveillance toys to play with: tracking devices, six million kinds of listening devices, FO cameras, et cetera. And take a wild guess what the very, very best investigative tool on the planet was and still is:
It's a person who goes out and identifies people who may know something useful and talks to them. It's a journalist who has cultivated minor officials throughout the government bureaucracy and and see a pattern in what they tell him. It's the counsellor or priest-confessor who can listen to a patient/penitent and get at exactly what's bothering the guy. It's the street cop on midwatch who goes to the 7-11 at three in the morning for coffee and actually pays attention while gossiping with the clerk.
At the CIA level, I blame Jimmy Carter. The CIA head he appointed tried to eliminate human intelligence in favor of technology. Satellite cameras might tell you how many tanks he has and where they are. It won't tell you what someone's thinking.
This may be obvious to most americans, but I'm wondering if somebody can explain the whole democrat/republican thing to an outsider? To me, there's no difference
I'd be glad to, if I could.
The Dems ostensibly are founded on the notion of leaving people alone and having the US be an agrarian republic, or at least that's what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he founded them. Over the years, they've flirted with expansionism (Andrew Jackson), State's Rights (which lead to the US Civil War), and became the left-wing of the two major parties with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. (IMHO the worst president we've ever had-even worse than Nixon or Clinton, but I digress) Democrat Presidents usually appoint judicial activists to the court and advocate a strong social safety net (when it doesn't interfere with their core constituency: themselves)
The Republicans were founded in the 1850's for the purpose of having an anti-slavery political party. Along the way they've toyed with strengthening the federal union (civil war and afterwards), being active in foreign policy (late, late 19th century), being isolationist (after WWI until the 1950's), being activist in foreign policy (after that). Republican Presidents pay lip service to a free market (when it doesn't interfere with their core constituency: themselves) and tend to appoint judicial strict constructionists to the court. They'll also typically argue for a greater degree of local control and a lesser degree of Federal control in most matters (education, public assistance/welfare, most criminal justice/public safety matters).
However, these aren't hard and fast rules: It was a Dem president who pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement into force. It's been administrations of both parties who've pushed for Federal drug prohibition despite the numerous states which have tried to change their own laws on the matter. Both parties will almost always claim to be for individual freedom. However, if a proposed law is about enforcing "decency," it will USUALLY have come from a Republican. If a proposed law is about enforcing "not being racist," it will USUALLY have come from a Democrat. Laws restricting guns USUALLY come from Democrats. Laws aimed at restricting consensual sex between adults USUALLY are suppoorted by Republicans more than Democrats.
And bear in mind I've grossly oversimplified a LOT of things here. There are all kinds of regional differences as well. The Boulder, Colorado, Democrats don't look too much like the Mobile, Alabama, Democrats, for instance. And the Colorado Springs, Colorado, Republicans and the Dover, Delaware Republicans are pretty different too.
Honestly, i wouldn't care if the NSA, CIA, FBI wanted to snoop on to what i do, just don't let me know about it. Don't report the little things that i (and everybody else) does.
I gotta disagree.
I had to go through a background check for my current job: a very thorough criminal history, including supposedly-sealed juvenile records; seven years of driving history; financial history (credit check and tax audit both); five references plus secondary references, plus interviews with most of my relatives; drug test; psych test; complete employment history with interviews of former supervisors and co-workers, and God only knows what else.
Not to mention, my work space is subject to inspection and search without notice and with very little justification needed. And an IA detective can conduct surveillance on me any time he wants.
I can live with it: I volunteered. By my count, though, even if every cop volunteered for that this leaves 299 out of every 300 people in the US who didn't waive their privacy rights.
And I won't lie to you: some cops won't use this surveillance to make sure that you're not Osama's secret gay lover and unindicted co-conspirator. They'll use it just to screw with you. Local yokels with both the motivation and the free time to pull a stunt like that are few and far between, but the federals are a different story. Hell, the FBI used to have a program designed EXACTLY to surveil and set up political opponents.
Besides, the Fourth Amendment exists for a reason. And it's law. Where the laws are universally unknown or ignored, they cease to be credible. That's why some people already hold our justice system in disrepute: Some cops are asses and most of the public knows nothing beyond what they've seen on NYPD Blue or Judge Judy.
Our Constitution has served us for better than two centuries. I vote for not toying with it.
I'm not sure i understand what you're point is... That kind of stuff happens all the time now. Banks take over houses because of mortgages
Yeah, but they don't do that on their own. They get an order from a (government) court, and serve it. If the order is not followed, then ultimately the Sheriff (or an equivalent officer in states which don't have county/parish sheriffs) forcibly removes the people in violation (and may arrest them on contempt charges, depending upon jurisdiction.)
Do you really want a private entity to have the power to issue binding court orders and arrest people for violating them? A somewhat-similar situation exists in the area of bail bonds, and so-called "bail enforcement agents" are the biggest bunch of morons in the cop-wanna-be industry.
Read up on the labor movements pre-WWII. In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck is pretty good. Private police who are not ultimately responsible to the public have historically been a disaster every time they've been tried. If I do something wrong, I have to account to my sergeant, who has to account to the watch commander, who has to account to the patrol division captain, who has to account to the chief, who has to account to the city manager, who has to account to the mayor, who has to account to the electorate. That's a long chain of command, but by god ultimately the public does have control.
Also, I as a (public) officer (and therefore a state actor, in the legal jargon) can be held civilly liable for violations of civil rights. Private people acting in their private interests cannot. They're subject to regular civil law, but unless they act under the direction of a state actor they don't fall under the civil rights statutes (primarily 42 USC 1984) and cannot be held liable under them.
In other words, you have little recourse against private cops. They're responsible to their chain of command, but that chain terminates with stockholders, rather than the public at large. Do you really want to hock your home to buy Wackenhut stock just so you can have a say in their behavior?
How about an interview with a normal everyday user in China (i.e. the chinese version of the average/. reader) asking what it is like to be a computer user/nerd over there
I hear Jon Katz is working on it. He has a line on a guy in Tibet who buried his C64 when the communists invaded and just dug it out to download Car Talk.
I guess this is where we insert lines about the Statue of Liberty shaking her fist and it'll feel like the whole world coming down on him courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue?
Oh, wait, that song is mean and insensitive. How could Toby Keith dare write something so offensive to the oh-so-compassionate Eurotrash? Next I suppose Hank Junior and Chad Brock will collaborate on something! (Oh, wait, they already did. )
But... consider that the President does, and always has have the ability to declare martial law in the event of emergencies. Clearly we don't have a situation that justifies this, for which I am deeply glad.
Yes and no.
Yes, the President has the power. No, we have nothing even close to such an emergency.
The same issue arose during the Civil War. President Lincoln declared martial law throughout a large part of the country. The US Supreme Court ruled that he had that power ONLY in places under insurrection, or where the civil authorities were not functioning.
Because otherwise there would be no incentive for people to show up to court.. They'd just be like 'ah screw it I know I'm innocent.. forget that..' so instead, if you don't show up, they just put in a verdict against you and then put out a warrent for your arrest.
Not quite.
What happens is the defendant (in criminal cases-civil cases are different) fails to appear. The judge then postpones the proceedings and issues a bench warrant for the defendant. Then, one of two things can happen. In rare and relatively-serious cases, the sheriff's fugitive squad will actually go hunting. Far more commonly (like the guy who gets cited for driving an uninsured car and skips his court date) the charge remains filed and the warrant sits in the state's central registry until some cop contacts the defendant again. That's when the defendant goes to jail.
The vast majority of such fugitive warrants are just that: Someone got a traffic citation. He didn't pay it but didn't appear in court to contest it. Warrant issues, and he gets arrested the next time I catch him running a stop sign. He posts bond (non-DUI-related traffic misdemeanors range from $200-$1000 in my county, 10% non-refunded if he uses a bondsman), is released on that bond, and a new court date is set. Or he doesn't post bond, and is taken before the judge "without undue delay." (That's the exact wording of my state's statute. It's been interpreted to mean the next morning that the court is open for regular business)
In Skylarov's case, I'm not sure where it'll go. He's not the defendant, so he's unlikely to be subject to any warrants for failing to appear. The US Attorney MAY try to reinstate the charges since Skylarov didn't testify as required by his plea agreement. However, if Skylarov made a good-faith effort to comply and was blocked by government actions beyond his control, I doubt a judge will allow the charges to actually be reinstated.
Besides, this is Federal law enforcement we're talking about. We local cops have a saying, that no situation is so bad that the FBI/INS/DEA/Etc. can't screw it up even more.
Civil law is both simpler and more complex. If one party to a civil case fails to appear, the judge may just order summary judgement for the other. I suppose it might be possible for a civil defendant to be held in contempt for failing to appear, but I don't know. I've never arrested someone for it, and here in Colorado a person cannot be jailed without any criminal charges at all. God only knows what kind of silliness the feds are playing with, though.
From military days, I recall you want 1950+fps in order to get hydrostatic shock to tear the hell out of the victim and not just drill a hole. So, with a.223 at about 200 yards, you could use a light charge of fast burning powder, and assuming a normal 22" to 24" barrel length have a not very conspicuous "pop".
Concur on the velocity. However, I question whether hydrostatic shock really has that much effect. I don't know what sort of bullet this guy is using, but.223 jacketed hollowpoint loads are not to be underestimated: there are actually states where such loads are legal for deer. For some reason, both Texas and Idaho ring a bell.
How badly do we really want to guess at barrel length? I can get 2900 off of the muzzle with a 14.5" bbl semiauto, and I'm going to guess that'll leave 1800-2000 f/s at 200 yards. And does it even matter?
This guy isn't totally disfunctional, although the Tarot card suggests he's not very insightful of symbolism (read "very literal", often an indicator of schizophrenia, and schizophrenics tend to be either totally disfunctional or above average in intelligence).
I never confuse intelligence with sanity. The most intelligent people I've ever met have all been seriously bent.
I do recall hearing some speculation about this shooter being a (current|former) cop or military sniper, because he actually picked up his spent brass. Yeah, right. Any yahoo who's read ANY non-restricted text on crime scene processing (James Osterberg's is reasonably good) would have caught that. Look at anybody who's bought a book in their local junior college's bookstore.
And someone slap the living crap out of the press who seem to be in a race to see who can release more close-held details and scare more people.
Slashdot Mirror
I almost got into trouble for that. My girlfriend's daughter's school was having an open-house for parents to talk about the program, curriculum, et cetera.
I think the English teachers were a little irritated when I started demanding to know why John Steinbeck, Edward Abbey, Aldous Huxley, etc., were completely missing from the curriculum, and why she was told to do her book report over because she did it on Steinbeck's "In Dubious Battle." And why those three authors were represented in the school library by one misplaced copy of "Of Mice and Men." Hell, even a tame little rabbit like George Orwell shouldn't be sending up those kinds of alarm bells.
Of course, my parents sent me to a Jesuit school even though we're Lutheran, so I believe that education should actually involve learning to think. This gets me in no end of trouble with the average public-school teacher.
Heh. Maybe I should have said "IAAPO," but that just sounds so..I dunno, formal?
Yes and no.
The Federal District Court actually can rule on the Constitutionality of a law or other state act: in criminal matters, they conduct suppression hearings all the time.
I've been in Federal court precisely once in my 15-year career, so I'm not expert (IAAC, but IANAL). However, the purpose of a trial is to submit factual evidence to a trier of fact (usually a jury) so that they can rule as to guilt or innocence. IOW, questions of law are typically settled before the jury is even empaneled.
In other words, if this is the actual trial then there's not much left to happen at this stage wrt getting the DMCA tossed out. Everything here (from the non-participant anti-DMCA point of view which appears to be the majority on /.) is just getting positioned for the appeal.
As for the question of a countersuit...I don't believe so. In civil cases they can happen all the time. In this case Sklyarov MIGHT have a civil rights claim under 42 USC 1984. I wouldn't bet on it, though. However, IIRC the trial now opening is a criminal matter. Criminal cases basically cannot be privately prosecuted in the United States. Only a District/State's/Commonwealth Attorney (in state courts) or a United States Attorney (in Federal courts) can initiate criminal proceedings.
I don't know if this will simplify this for you or confuse you even more, but here's some background:
Civil cases are (usually) cases between two private parties. The stakes are monetary damages, and possibly an order from a court to either perform some legally-required duty or to refrain from some other activity.
Criminal cases are cases filed by a prosecutor, on behalf of the People (of the United States/of the State of XXX), in which he alleges that the defendant committed some offense "against the peace and dignity of the People of the blah blah blah." Criminal cases can only be filed for a violation of some specific provision of law.
So, this trial is basically to deal with the question of fact "Did he, or didn't he?" At this point, any real change of law will probably have to come through the appeals process, and a Federal Court of Appeals ruling is only binding in that court's own circuit. IOW, IIRC this is in the Ninth Federal Circuit. That means, an appellate ruling either way is only binding in a few states on the Pacific Coast. It will be persuasive in the other courts.
It's even harder in the sticks. How does one haul eight hundred pounds of firewood, or a useful quantity of farm diesel, groceries, or lumber in a pregnant roller skate?
Which ones would these be? And I hope you don't mean Kyoto: We didn't bring it out. And thank god: a pollution treaty that exempts China?????
Take the Irak thing for example: America feels like war (somehow good for their Economy) and decides that Saddam is the best target economically (they have oil) while there are currently worse villains out there (Mugabe or any of the dictators/rebel leaders in Central/West africa)
Were that the case, we would have killed Hussein ten or twelve years ago. Frankly, I think letting him waste oxygen was a mistake back then, and would be even more of one now.
And if we were just trying to take over countries with large oil reserves, let me point out that Saudi Arabia barely has an army? And yet we only have troops there so that the House of Saud doesn't get executed by a bunch of Wahabi militants or packed off to some Iraqi salt mine or something.
To get a fishing license in the US, you go to any tackle shop and drop fifteen bucks on the counter. To get a small-game/bird hunting license, you take a hunter's safety class (eight hours, usually free: Contact your state DNR/DOW) and THEN go and drop your fifteen bucks. I defy you to go to ANY European country and get a hunting license so easily. (And, FWIW, that money makes up a big chunk of your state's wildlife management/conservation budget.)
To get a concealed handgun license, you pay the cost of the background check and processing, submit fingerprints and proof of training(the aforementioned hunter's safety class combined with a one-Saturday NRA Personal Protection class, for instance), and get your license issued when the prints come back clean. Other than concealed carry, unsafe discharge, and prohibited person bans (juveniles, felons), it's pretty much unregulated here.
I can put out a newspaper without worrying about a D-notice. I can publish Mein Kampf. I don't have a mandatory French content on radio stations.
My taxes don't go to support any churches (How many European countries give tax money to the Catholic, Episcopalian, or Lutheran churches?).
If some cop violates my civil rights here, I can haul his ass into civil court and OWN him.
But then, I'm one of those people who considers those to be fundamental rights: The right to feed myself; the right to life, which implies a right to protect that life and to possess the means to do so; the right to make any non-slander non-libel statement I please; the right to practice, or not practice, or support, or not support any particular church; and the right to be heard in court when I've been unlawfully harmed by someone else. These ALL apply within the US, and if any European nation is batting better than .500 on this list, I'd love to hear about it.
There's a distinction there, which US law recognizes:
Content-based restrictions are almost universally unsupported.
"Time, place, and manner" restrictions intended to prevent breaches of the peace or to maximize the possible use of a finite resource are okay.
Hence, the FCC may step on you for running an unlicensed transmitted. However, they pretty much can't touch you for using a licensed transmitter (or an unregulated medium: internet, print, etc.) to say "I think President Bush is a moron."
If I handed out flyers in the Square of Heavenly Peace (love the irony!) about how the Communist Party are a bunch of Satanic, fascistic, murderous goat-raping thugs, think I'd be alive at the end of the day? Now, say I subbed the name George W. Bush into the flyer and handed them out in the middle of the Cherry Creek Mall in SE Denver, what would happen? I'd probably just be told to make sure I wasn't littering.
IOW, in that fascistic rathole known as the PRC, it doesn't really matter who owns the printing press.
FACT: With ONE exception (the Thirteenth Amendment) the Constitution says absolutely nothing at all about the interactions between private parties. It ONLY governs the relationship between government and citizen.
In other words, right to life? Not quite. What it says on the matter is that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, save through the due process of law. Also, police seizures of persons (including police use of force, under Tennessee v. Garner) must be "reasonable."
That's all it says on the matter.
The Declaration of Independence, OTOH, does say "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
FWIW, the DoI is rarely (if ever) cited in our courts. It's considered to be largely a statement of philosophy from which the Constitution is derived.
I'm guessing you're from elsewhere. I'm willing to bet that either your country has just as much blood on its hands, or your country has faded into insignificance.
They are legal in Colorado, and still aren't used in crimes. Ever. There's been precisely ONE illegal use of a licensed NFA weapon (like a machine gun) in seventy years. ONE.
More or less.
When Cross Colors were big, I got to know more than a few people who had to decide between a new pair of huge-assed pants and paying their child support. "Screw the Kids" was apparently in that year.
Now, near as I can tell, the big names are Tommy Hilfiger (whoever the hell HE is) and Phillies. Brilliant. Why don't you walk around wearing a flag which tells every single bluesuit that you're probably holding?
That was brought about by the commercialization of society.
Society has pretty much always been commercialized. Ever since Oog the Caveman realized that he wanted something that Ugg of the Hill Tribe had, and there was a way to get it that didn't involve sneaking into someone's camp or whacking him over the head.
Commercialization has done a lot for us.. but I feel we're pushing it too far. Companies are starting to blatently ignore any privacy we have so they know where to advertise.
They can't act on information they don't have. All Nextel knows about my phone service is that the bill is paid on time. All the Chevrolet dealer needed to know was what name to put on the bill of sale for my truck, and how to call the bank to be sure there really was $7500 to cover my truck.
If you don't give a businessman enough info to ensure that he'll be able to collect from you, he'll be iffy about extending you credit. However, there are these green cotton things marked "This note legal tender for all debts public and private," most bearing pictures of dead white men, which tend to go a long way.
In other words, you're trying to say that a certain government department, already the third or fourth most-bloated and grabastic cabinet-level department in the US government, should also take over a very large part of what's currently done by a stack of phone companies.
I hope to god that was a joke.
1. don't sue to stop a single person for a single crime, but rather to scare other people from committing the same crime.
That might just be another difference. The use of lawsuits to deter certain conduct is generally accepted in the US. Ford and Firestone can't go around selling cars which they know will roll over and burn, killing the occupants. They're getting a very expensive reminder right now. Animal rights people can't break into the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center labs and burn the place-not only are there criminal charges, but once they lose that lawsuit they won't even own the hair on their own asses.
2. don't have a direct financial gain in settelling, but rather in a conviction.
I'm not seeing how APG has an interest in this at all. At least in US courts, we have a concept called "standing." You can't raise an issue in court unless you have standing to do so. That means you can't raise an issue unless it actually somehow affects you. If APG actually represents a copyright owner, they might have standing. On first appearances, though, it looks like they're just puffing their chest to look important.
Or I might be really ignorant of some part of this case. Non-common-law civil codes are generally a mystery to me.
It seems to me, that if APG was about to go around sending bill's to everyone that does p2p filesharing (as a legit activity), it would be rather nice for them to have at least one court ruling supporting their claims.
A lovely theory, unless they have something which hasn't made the press. Anything is possible, and lawsuit settlement offers, like the stock market, work by the Greater Fool Theory.
Also, there's really no financial gain in setteling with those 150 people, less that $200.000, that's probably less than the APG spends a year on saleries.
I think you misplaced the decimal place. 150 people * $14,000 makes $2.1e6.
As for your guess as to the reasoning behind APG, I'm not going to argue. All I know about this is what I've seen on /.
That's exactly why "psuedo-police" is a better term.
Unless something has changed, the RIAA does not employ anybody with the lawful authority to serve criminal summonses, execute warrants, make custodial arrests based upon probable cause for offenses committed outside of their presence, carry firearms concealed upon their person without a permit, et cetera.
Nor does this Antipiratgruppen, unless something has changed. IIRC, Denmark is very restrictive on firearms ownership and most of Europe doesn't have citizens' arrest laws that we'd recognize as such in the US. I don't see them allowing some MADD-style busybody group to carry weapons and hook people.
Granted, I'm speaking from a state that won't let ANY non-governmental organization commission peace officers. (Okay, railroads and the E-470 toll road excluded.)
1. didn't run a case to try out the validity
2. Offers to not go to court (if they were out to set an example, thay would probably want at least one conviction)
3. Offers a "discount"-solution
That would make Danish civil law very markedly different from any system based upon English common law (like the US, for instance.)
If they file a test case, that'll take forever to resolve. If there's a "speedy trial" rule which applies to civil matters anywhere in the world, I've not heard of it.
Your second two points illustrate a time-honored tradition: The out-of-court settlement. In general, out of court settlements are merely agreements in which both parties to a suit agree to dispose of it (typically by the defendant paying damages less than the plaintiff would have been awarded at trial) and usually without anybody formally admitting fault.
In other words, IN THEORY it's a way for a defendant to say "I screwed up. Let's fix this without wasting a judge's time."
If you've ever been in an auto accident, and you and the other driver agreed that you would just pay for the repairs without reporting it to your insurer, that's a similar behavior. One party agrees to make the other one whole for injuries or losses, without involving a third party. (I've done that. It's legal in most or all of the US. I've no idea what the rule is in Denmark.)
It's a lovely theory. Personally, for professional reasons (I'm a cop) I have to worry that someone will file a civil rights lawsuit against my city because I told him to sit down and shut up. People will often file such suits because they know the city will settle: settling a bullshit lawsuit is often cheaper than fighting it. After paying the barracuda, the plaintiff will usually be able to take six months off work.
So, yes, settlements out-of-court make a lovely theory. And usually they're a pretty good idea. If two people can come to their own solution, they'll live with it a lot better than if it were forced upon them.
And in practice (and probably in the specific case of the Danish piracy group also) you got it right: Extortion.
I live in Colorado, and on my porch the signal sucks. You see, we have these things here calls _mountains_.
Now, let's say I go anywhere near Denver, the Springs, Pueblo, Durango, GJ, etc. Relatively major cities, 50,000 residents on up. Spotless coverage.
I was just at a conference in Kansas City. Not only did my cellular work perfectly in KC, but it worked perfectly along every stretch of major highway between here and there. And that includes central Kansas, which is damn empty.
Don't rule out topography. Or that whole population density thing. We have fewer people in the US, on almost three times as much land. (And thank GOD! Blessed elbow room!)
And that's the gods' own truth.
I've been a cop my entire adult life. I spent some time as a detective. I've all kinds of neat surveillance toys to play with: tracking devices, six million kinds of listening devices, FO cameras, et cetera. And take a wild guess what the very, very best investigative tool on the planet was and still is:
It's a person who goes out and identifies people who may know something useful and talks to them. It's a journalist who has cultivated minor officials throughout the government bureaucracy and and see a pattern in what they tell him. It's the counsellor or priest-confessor who can listen to a patient/penitent and get at exactly what's bothering the guy. It's the street cop on midwatch who goes to the 7-11 at three in the morning for coffee and actually pays attention while gossiping with the clerk.
At the CIA level, I blame Jimmy Carter. The CIA head he appointed tried to eliminate human intelligence in favor of technology. Satellite cameras might tell you how many tanks he has and where they are. It won't tell you what someone's thinking.
I'd be glad to, if I could.
The Dems ostensibly are founded on the notion of leaving people alone and having the US be an agrarian republic, or at least that's what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he founded them. Over the years, they've flirted with expansionism (Andrew Jackson), State's Rights (which lead to the US Civil War), and became the left-wing of the two major parties with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. (IMHO the worst president we've ever had-even worse than Nixon or Clinton, but I digress) Democrat Presidents usually appoint judicial activists to the court and advocate a strong social safety net (when it doesn't interfere with their core constituency: themselves)
The Republicans were founded in the 1850's for the purpose of having an anti-slavery political party. Along the way they've toyed with strengthening the federal union (civil war and afterwards), being active in foreign policy (late, late 19th century), being isolationist (after WWI until the 1950's), being activist in foreign policy (after that). Republican Presidents pay lip service to a free market (when it doesn't interfere with their core constituency: themselves) and tend to appoint judicial strict constructionists to the court. They'll also typically argue for a greater degree of local control and a lesser degree of Federal control in most matters (education, public assistance/welfare, most criminal justice/public safety matters).
However, these aren't hard and fast rules: It was a Dem president who pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement into force. It's been administrations of both parties who've pushed for Federal drug prohibition despite the numerous states which have tried to change their own laws on the matter. Both parties will almost always claim to be for individual freedom. However, if a proposed law is about enforcing "decency," it will USUALLY have come from a Republican. If a proposed law is about enforcing "not being racist," it will USUALLY have come from a Democrat. Laws restricting guns USUALLY come from Democrats. Laws aimed at restricting consensual sex between adults USUALLY are suppoorted by Republicans more than Democrats.
And bear in mind I've grossly oversimplified a LOT of things here. There are all kinds of regional differences as well. The Boulder, Colorado, Democrats don't look too much like the Mobile, Alabama, Democrats, for instance. And the Colorado Springs, Colorado, Republicans and the Dover, Delaware Republicans are pretty different too.
I gotta disagree.
I had to go through a background check for my current job: a very thorough criminal history, including supposedly-sealed juvenile records; seven years of driving history; financial history (credit check and tax audit both); five references plus secondary references, plus interviews with most of my relatives; drug test; psych test; complete employment history with interviews of former supervisors and co-workers, and God only knows what else.
Not to mention, my work space is subject to inspection and search without notice and with very little justification needed. And an IA detective can conduct surveillance on me any time he wants.
I can live with it: I volunteered. By my count, though, even if every cop volunteered for that this leaves 299 out of every 300 people in the US who didn't waive their privacy rights.
And I won't lie to you: some cops won't use this surveillance to make sure that you're not Osama's secret gay lover and unindicted co-conspirator. They'll use it just to screw with you. Local yokels with both the motivation and the free time to pull a stunt like that are few and far between, but the federals are a different story. Hell, the FBI used to have a program designed EXACTLY to surveil and set up political opponents.
Besides, the Fourth Amendment exists for a reason. And it's law. Where the laws are universally unknown or ignored, they cease to be credible. That's why some people already hold our justice system in disrepute: Some cops are asses and most of the public knows nothing beyond what they've seen on NYPD Blue or Judge Judy.
Our Constitution has served us for better than two centuries. I vote for not toying with it.
Yeah, but they don't do that on their own. They get an order from a (government) court, and serve it. If the order is not followed, then ultimately the Sheriff (or an equivalent officer in states which don't have county/parish sheriffs) forcibly removes the people in violation (and may arrest them on contempt charges, depending upon jurisdiction.)
Do you really want a private entity to have the power to issue binding court orders and arrest people for violating them? A somewhat-similar situation exists in the area of bail bonds, and so-called "bail enforcement agents" are the biggest bunch of morons in the cop-wanna-be industry.
Read up on the labor movements pre-WWII. In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck is pretty good. Private police who are not ultimately responsible to the public have historically been a disaster every time they've been tried. If I do something wrong, I have to account to my sergeant, who has to account to the watch commander, who has to account to the patrol division captain, who has to account to the chief, who has to account to the city manager, who has to account to the mayor, who has to account to the electorate. That's a long chain of command, but by god ultimately the public does have control.
Also, I as a (public) officer (and therefore a state actor, in the legal jargon) can be held civilly liable for violations of civil rights. Private people acting in their private interests cannot. They're subject to regular civil law, but unless they act under the direction of a state actor they don't fall under the civil rights statutes (primarily 42 USC 1984) and cannot be held liable under them.
In other words, you have little recourse against private cops. They're responsible to their chain of command, but that chain terminates with stockholders, rather than the public at large. Do you really want to hock your home to buy Wackenhut stock just so you can have a say in their behavior?
Take Back Your Government, published in the late 40's or early 50's and re-published in 1992.
I hear Jon Katz is working on it. He has a line on a guy in Tibet who buried his C64 when the communists invaded and just dug it out to download Car Talk.
Oh, wait, that song is mean and insensitive. How could Toby Keith dare write something so offensive to the oh-so-compassionate Eurotrash? Next I suppose Hank Junior and Chad Brock will collaborate on something! (Oh, wait, they already did. )
Yes and no.
Yes, the President has the power. No, we have nothing even close to such an emergency.
The same issue arose during the Civil War. President Lincoln declared martial law throughout a large part of the country. The US Supreme Court ruled that he had that power ONLY in places under insurrection, or where the civil authorities were not functioning.
Not quite.
What happens is the defendant (in criminal cases-civil cases are different) fails to appear. The judge then postpones the proceedings and issues a bench warrant for the defendant. Then, one of two things can happen. In rare and relatively-serious cases, the sheriff's fugitive squad will actually go hunting. Far more commonly (like the guy who gets cited for driving an uninsured car and skips his court date) the charge remains filed and the warrant sits in the state's central registry until some cop contacts the defendant again. That's when the defendant goes to jail.
The vast majority of such fugitive warrants are just that: Someone got a traffic citation. He didn't pay it but didn't appear in court to contest it. Warrant issues, and he gets arrested the next time I catch him running a stop sign. He posts bond (non-DUI-related traffic misdemeanors range from $200-$1000 in my county, 10% non-refunded if he uses a bondsman), is released on that bond, and a new court date is set. Or he doesn't post bond, and is taken before the judge "without undue delay." (That's the exact wording of my state's statute. It's been interpreted to mean the next morning that the court is open for regular business)
In Skylarov's case, I'm not sure where it'll go. He's not the defendant, so he's unlikely to be subject to any warrants for failing to appear. The US Attorney MAY try to reinstate the charges since Skylarov didn't testify as required by his plea agreement. However, if Skylarov made a good-faith effort to comply and was blocked by government actions beyond his control, I doubt a judge will allow the charges to actually be reinstated.
Besides, this is Federal law enforcement we're talking about. We local cops have a saying, that no situation is so bad that the FBI/INS/DEA/Etc. can't screw it up even more.
Civil law is both simpler and more complex. If one party to a civil case fails to appear, the judge may just order summary judgement for the other. I suppose it might be possible for a civil defendant to be held in contempt for failing to appear, but I don't know. I've never arrested someone for it, and here in Colorado a person cannot be jailed without any criminal charges at all. God only knows what kind of silliness the feds are playing with, though.
Concur on the velocity. However, I question whether hydrostatic shock really has that much effect. I don't know what sort of bullet this guy is using, but .223 jacketed hollowpoint loads are not to be underestimated: there are actually states where such loads are legal for deer. For some reason, both Texas and Idaho ring a bell.
How badly do we really want to guess at barrel length? I can get 2900 off of the muzzle with a 14.5" bbl semiauto, and I'm going to guess that'll leave 1800-2000 f/s at 200 yards. And does it even matter?
This guy isn't totally disfunctional, although the Tarot card suggests he's not very insightful of symbolism (read "very literal", often an indicator of schizophrenia, and schizophrenics tend to be either totally disfunctional or above average in intelligence).
I never confuse intelligence with sanity. The most intelligent people I've ever met have all been seriously bent.
I do recall hearing some speculation about this shooter being a (current|former) cop or military sniper, because he actually picked up his spent brass. Yeah, right. Any yahoo who's read ANY non-restricted text on crime scene processing (James Osterberg's is reasonably good) would have caught that. Look at anybody who's bought a book in their local junior college's bookstore.
And someone slap the living crap out of the press who seem to be in a race to see who can release more close-held details and scare more people.