Citing such poor quality references weakens your argument rather than strengthening it.
My intention was to show, that I'm not alone in my opinion. The follow-up counter-arguments aren't robust at all, in my opinion, and are broken apart easily. For example, Gopher is, clearly, the "prior art", and so are other, even earlier systems.
The main point is, if Tim were to file a patent based on the claims made on his behalf, and try to enforce it to, say, collect royalties, the entire "community" would've been up in arms. As he is being a "nice guy" about it (and, according to others, he really is a nice guy), people are willing to grant him the crown, that is neither his, nor claimed by him. His personal attitude is not supposed to matter, but it clearly does.
And then, of course, is the fact, that he was not an American, while doing some of this inventing at CERN (although most of his work was done and continues today in Massachusetts). This is gleefully trumpeted by anti-Americans (in the US and abroad) jealous of our claim to having invented the Internet.
"Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web
This claim of "inventing" the WWW is rather dubious and is perpetuated mostly by those anti-Americans, who would like to diminish America's contribution to the Internet (wonder of the world).
What Tim wrote at CERN was more like a Wiki — a hyper-text interface to a single database. He invented neither the hyper-text itself, nor the database, of course. He did work on Mosaic, but was neither the only nor the main person there — and the project was funded by NCSA (an American organization).
His contribution was, no doubt, huge, but the inventor he was not — considering the existence of all the prior works, including Gopher, there was nothing in his work, that was not "obvious to someone skilled in the art".
If anyone tried to sue for licensing fees based on this sort of claims of inventorship, we would've been awash in fury...
I know, I know — America's NSA is "in on it" too (and most will, no doubt, suspect, that their participation is due to the worst intentions). But, at least, they are our spies — subject to our laws, responsible to our lawmakers.
Any increase of control over the Internet by the UN automatically means increase of control by China, Russia, et al. "The world", which, for example, is still unsure, who did 9/11 talks about being "multipolar" — they should be careful, what they wish for...
I don't understand, why wanting to be paid for your work is a sign of being a "control freak" and "jerk". I can only guess, you do unpaid charity work full-time, while living off of your trust fund...
The *federal* government should do as little as possible.
There is no distinction in principle. It is wrong at any level (town, state, fed)... It is just even worse if the federal government tries this.
... if the local populace votes and approves of it.
This is true even on a federal level, you know...
All I'm saying is, it is a dumb idea, and the populace (local or nation-wide) should never have approved of it. I neither know, nor express opinion on whether the law suit discussed has legal merit...
The digital ecosystem does not need the middle-man, the printing press or recording studio of days gone by.
This whole "middle-man" meme is a red herring. Even if allwriters and musicians start selling directly — rather than through publishers and studios — they will still be concerned about people, enjoying (or otherwise benefiting from) their creations without paying for it.
Personally, I think this is a better setup than letting the telco own the lines, since there's no incentive to gouge, and this sort of thing can work out just fine.
Once you violate a principle, even if it seems like a benign idea this one time, you'll be in trouble — consider AT&T, Fannie Mae/Freddi Mac, and "Social Security", which all seemed like a good idea at their times, for a government to meddle into the free market, because of an alleged "market failure" (to build nation-wide telephone network, to give mortgages to the poor, and to save for one's own retirement).
Back to this example of government Internet Service-provision, the next thing, the government will, likely, decide to do, will be filtering "smut" and file-sharing... Their tech-support — if any — will be unionized. Violating TOS of a business may mean account suspension or cancellation, but violating the rules of government-provided service will mean breaking the law — complete with fines, and magistrate hearings.
Just like with the government-provided "public" highways, access to government-provided Internet may become "a privilege, not a right" — requiring a license. They may then decide, that somebody's own satellite antenna, for example, is bad for the environment (it may injure a bird some day!) or is a safety hazard (what if it falls from your roof?), and whoops, you will not get a permit to renovate your house, until you connect to the "public Internet" and demolish the "hazard" — this already happened to owners of private septic tanks, who were forced to connect to the public sewer system.
Surely, businesses-provided service may have similar ills (just look at E-Z-Pass) — you may be saddled with high fees (instead of fines), for example, Verizon will try to cut your copper wires, to make it harder for you to cancel their FIOS service — but only, when the service-provider is a monopoly for some reason. And the government is a monopoly by definition — the strongest and most pervasive of all. Therefor, as little as possible should be done by them — only the things, that we don't want commerce to do (like law enforcement). Commerce not wanting to do something, is not an excuse for the government to do it — they aren't spending their own money.
Now, I don't know, whether the law suit in subject has legal merit — whether the town's government can legally engage in business activity. All I'm saying, is that it would be dumb idea, regardless of whether it is legal (like tobacco) or not (like marijuana).
It is neither Exactly or almost the same as tangible goods.
As I said before, downloading a song without the copyright-owner's permission is much closer to stealing, than selling of pornography is to "free speech".
Will they start banning videos that talk about presidential candidates poorly?
Already happened to McCain mocking Obama — one of the videos by this ("computer illiterate") man's campaign was pulled by YouTube.
I mean, we can't have people inciting hateful thoughts about a candidate.
Yes, we can — it is not a crime to hate someone.
Making/using a pipe-bomb, on the other hand, usually is a crime, and there may be some justification in banning people from teaching others, how to do it.
Worse, they would even seize computers (such as servers or database farms) that house the data of innocent people, and these people would not have any right to get their data back.
Although I have very little sympathy for copyright thievery — regardless of whether it is exactly or almost the same as thievery of tangible goods — the ease, with which the government can seize suspect's property, and the difficulties facing the ex-suspect in getting the property back are a major problem in our legal system.
There are a lot of safeguards for the suspect's person, but the property (including cash) is hardly protected at all. In Giulliany's New York, drunk drivers were supposed to lose their cars even — on a cop's say-so in a "traffic-court" (run by the Executive branch, not Judiciary). In this illiberal Massachusetts town, a kid would lose bicycles, if caught without a helmet. Police don't need to prove anything — they can just take it using the force we give them to fight crimes. Then, in many cases, the victim — already cleared of all (or most) of the originally suspected wrongdoing — has to sue to get the seized stuff back, and there is no telling, neither what it will cost them (in legal fees alone), nor what condition the stuff will be upon return.
The situation is slowly changing, but on the local levels only. A Constitutional amendment, or other sort of "Miranda rights"-like rule is long overdue.
Meanwhile, why should those accused of copyright violations have it any different? Because some of them could just have been by-standers? Well, if you give your bicycle to a kid, who is accused of riding helmet-less by the cop, you are bystander too. Same with loaning your car to a friend, who is then accused of DUI...
Except, as soon as they start giving away text messaging, the other four do the exact same thing, since, after all, SMS costs virtually nothing to provide.
This would require the other four to collude — and such a collusion is already banned by the (earlier-linked to) anti-trust laws. If the Senator suspects some sort of price-fixing agreement already in place, he is right. On the other hand, if he is just wondering, why the price is higher, than he thinks it ought to be, he should back off...
Are we suspecting, these guys have formed a trust to keep the prices same and/or rising? No... With 4 players, any one of them can hardly be called a monopoly either.
Then leave them alone and don't engage in price-control, Senator. Better yet, build your own wireless company — if you charge less for the same services without sacrificing other aspects, people will flock to you in droves...
the collection, investigation, analysis, and scientific examination of data held on, or retrieved from, computers, computer networks, computer storage media, electronic devices, electronic storage media, or electronic networks, or any combination thereof
Yes, I can see this already:
Your honor, during the attack, my client managed to pull some hair out of the attacker. The DNA extracted from the hair clearly matches that of the accused here.
Objection, your honor! The victim is not licensed to collect DNA samples in this State.
It is a bone-headed law, and it ought to be stricken out ASAP...
Are you running the 'whois' to use as evidence in court? (Honest question)
I'm not, but that guy, who took spammers to courts, certainly did. The simple activity should not require a license — and this entire forum would've been in agreement, had it not been related to music-sharing. Slashdot would've been outraged, if his lawsuit was turned down, because he was not licensed to collect the evidence (against spammers), that he collected. I do hope, MediaSentry and **AA challenge the very law itself here, instead of trying to weasel out...
Uhm, completely? I don't think so... In both cases you are enjoying somebody else's work without compensating them...
Theft is when you take something from someone and make it your own. When I download a song, what have I taken from the poor artist?
In my posting I acknowledged the existence of a (very small) difference, and stated, that it — the difference between unauthorized download and outright theft — is smaller, than the difference between selling pornography and exercising free speech. This comparison may have flown over your head, but an American understands it quickly. During the 60-ies, attempts were made to fight the proliferation of porn-sellers (see "People versus Larry Flint" for example). The right to sell pornography was defended (successfully) by legal professionals of the time based on America's 1st Constitutional Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Pretending, the pornography is speech and/or press (or did they mean religion?), was even more of a stretch, than calling "copyright infringement" a theft.
My pick of music and my pick of formats for a reasonable price.
Whether the price is "reasonable" is determined by a market — people are either willing to pay it, or they don't, but the choice ought to be between:
paying and getting
not paying and not getting
. Once you allow the third option: "not pay and still get", you break the market's fairness. If it is not illegal in your country, your laws are self-inconsistent, because they, no doubt, still punish the "traditional" theft of tangible goods. 0 equals 1 somewhere in your legal system.
And I was willing to pay. But to pay for every CD in my collection? I am not a millionaire.
Something being too expensive is not an excuse to steal it. We aren't even talking about bread or medicine here — just some entertainment.
Every time you run `whois' to determine, which network an attacking IP belongs to, you perform (an unlicensed) investigation.
Keep this in mind cheering for the little music-thief. He is using a completely bogus law — the licensing is required for more and more things, turning more and more things from being rights (derived directly from the Right to the Pursuit of Happiness) into privileges, which the Executive Government can take away on a whim, without bothering with Judicial, etc.
It is a far more important battle than "the right to free music" or any other of slashdot's usual topics of outrage.
File-sharing of copyrighted material: A creates a pattern of bits the same as one B has. A has been enriched. B has been neither damaged nor enriched. Third party C claims to have been damaged to the tune of $100,000.
B and C are the same parties, but nice try attempting to portray the **AA as "mean and bad" without appearing to demean the belovedmusicians.
Some musicians sell the rights to their creations to others. Some choose to market them themselves. It does not matter — for this argument — the B and C in your example are one and the same, and B is damaged — at least some of the people, who got their music for free, would've paid for it.
Giving away and using copies of somebody else's works without permission is much closer to theft, than, for example, the right to sell pornography is to free speech. Stop blaming other people's common sense, when they disagree with you — American schools aren't that bad...
Just look at England, a camera network set up specifically basically to spy on the public. The fact that it has no impact on the crime it was meant to deter and punish [...]
However, even the EPIC acknowledge, that there was some contribution made by the CCTV surveillance: "Evidence from Europe, however, suggests that the benefits of CCTV are significantly overstated." They then skillfully juggle the facts: "While the average Londoner is estimated to have their picture recorded more than three hundred times a day, no single bomber has been caught," — omitting completely the case of the fairly high-profile recent case of German train-bombers. The EPIC-guys are not being entirely honest, and you should not be falling for it.
I don't think, a camera is any worse, than a policeman standing there watching. A society just can't afford so many policemen, so we resort to these cameras as productivity tools.
It sounds a lot like stalking, which is illegal in most US States.
The illegal kinds of stalking are those, where (unwanted) physical presence takes place. It is criminalized under names such as "criminal menace" or "criminal harassment". I don't think, what we are talking about here (which, mind you, is in itself some blogger's speculation), would rise to illegal stalking, even if it were true...
You jest, but isn't it a little sad that one must be an amateur cryptographer to have some privacy?
Without encryption, your expectation of privacy should be no more than that of a ham radio operator.
That said, the article seems to be about phone location snooping — somebody, somewhere records where you (or, rather, your phone) were, and not, what you said. Encryption will not help you here, but your privacy is not violated either — or not nearly as much, as the "Heil Bush" moron would like you to think.
It is not even illegal — for example from an earlier era, consider the fact, that although the contents of your mail correspondence is private, the fact of the correspondence is not. The government can observe/record/use against you the fact, that you wrote to so-and-so and/or received letters from such-and-such even if it does not know, what was written, because it could not (or would not) obtain a warrant to open up your mail.
I'd prefer to look at it as every able-bodied living person obtaining a $0.99 rubber chicken and shaking it at the sky... Costs the same, involves the entire world community, and is just as useful.
Incorrect. The stated aim of the Pentagon bombing was to halt the air campaign over Vietnam.
Incorrect. It was not a "stated aim", but totally unintended — at least, according to Bill Ayers himself: "It turns out that we blew up a bathroom and, quite by accident [emphasis mine -mi], water plunged below and knocked out their computers for a time, disrupting the air war and sending me into deepening shades of delight."
Clearly a "military purpose".
Ooops... You really ought to study your heroes better so as not to embarrass yourself less defending them.
The WTC was hit (in part) to disrupt the US economy because it was the centerpiece of American trade. This was successful, the US economy took a hit after 9-11.
Actually, no, it did surprisingly little to the economy. Although the country was still recovering from Clinton's dot-com boom-bust of 2000, the destruction of WTC had little economic effect, other than the cost of the buildings and the lives of the people in them and in the airplanes. More importantly, the intent was not to disrupt trade — bin Laden et al did not even expect the buildings to collapse. It was simply violence against civilians perpetrated to further their agenda. Which is exactly, what terrorism is defined as...
Do you consider the current Russian invasion of Georgia "terrorism"?
No, of course not. They didn't use or threaten violence against civilians — the closest they came to it, was "warning" Georgians after the shooting ended, that their safety "can not be guaranteed", if they chose to return to their homes in the "liberated" enclaves. That's simply old-fashioned war followed by ethnic cleansing — not terrorism...
"Terrorist" is now largely a pejorative term with no meaning
It is certainly pejorative, but there remains a fairly tight definition (already quoted). This thread is in evidence, even if unintentionally...
Slashdot Mirror
My intention was to show, that I'm not alone in my opinion. The follow-up counter-arguments aren't robust at all, in my opinion, and are broken apart easily. For example, Gopher is, clearly, the "prior art", and so are other, even earlier systems.
The main point is, if Tim were to file a patent based on the claims made on his behalf, and try to enforce it to, say, collect royalties, the entire "community" would've been up in arms. As he is being a "nice guy" about it (and, according to others, he really is a nice guy), people are willing to grant him the crown, that is neither his, nor claimed by him. His personal attitude is not supposed to matter, but it clearly does.
And then, of course, is the fact, that he was not an American, while doing some of this inventing at CERN (although most of his work was done and continues today in Massachusetts). This is gleefully trumpeted by anti-Americans (in the US and abroad) jealous of our claim to having invented the Internet.
This claim of "inventing" the WWW is rather dubious and is perpetuated mostly by those anti-Americans, who would like to diminish America's contribution to the Internet (wonder of the world).
What Tim wrote at CERN was more like a Wiki — a hyper-text interface to a single database. He invented neither the hyper-text itself, nor the database, of course. He did work on Mosaic, but was neither the only nor the main person there — and the project was funded by NCSA (an American organization).
His contribution was, no doubt, huge, but the inventor he was not — considering the existence of all the prior works, including Gopher, there was nothing in his work, that was not "obvious to someone skilled in the art".
If anyone tried to sue for licensing fees based on this sort of claims of inventorship, we would've been awash in fury...
I know, I know — America's NSA is "in on it" too (and most will, no doubt, suspect, that their participation is due to the worst intentions). But, at least, they are our spies — subject to our laws, responsible to our lawmakers.
Any increase of control over the Internet by the UN automatically means increase of control by China, Russia, et al. "The world", which, for example, is still unsure, who did 9/11 talks about being "multipolar" — they should be careful, what they wish for...
I don't understand, why wanting to be paid for your work is a sign of being a "control freak" and "jerk". I can only guess, you do unpaid charity work full-time, while living off of your trust fund...
There is no distinction in principle. It is wrong at any level (town, state, fed)... It is just even worse if the federal government tries this.
This is true even on a federal level, you know...
All I'm saying is, it is a dumb idea, and the populace (local or nation-wide) should never have approved of it. I neither know, nor express opinion on whether the law suit discussed has legal merit...
This whole "middle-man" meme is a red herring. Even if all writers and musicians start selling directly — rather than through publishers and studios — they will still be concerned about people, enjoying (or otherwise benefiting from) their creations without paying for it.
It will not take long for someone to lay down enough magnets to move the bus to where they want it to go — such as a neighbor's pool...
"No incentive to gouge"? Ha-ha- ha!
Once you violate a principle, even if it seems like a benign idea this one time, you'll be in trouble — consider AT&T, Fannie Mae/Freddi Mac, and "Social Security", which all seemed like a good idea at their times, for a government to meddle into the free market, because of an alleged "market failure" (to build nation-wide telephone network, to give mortgages to the poor, and to save for one's own retirement).
Back to this example of government Internet Service-provision, the next thing, the government will, likely, decide to do, will be filtering "smut" and file-sharing... Their tech-support — if any — will be unionized. Violating TOS of a business may mean account suspension or cancellation, but violating the rules of government-provided service will mean breaking the law — complete with fines, and magistrate hearings.
Just like with the government-provided "public" highways, access to government-provided Internet may become "a privilege, not a right" — requiring a license. They may then decide, that somebody's own satellite antenna, for example, is bad for the environment (it may injure a bird some day!) or is a safety hazard (what if it falls from your roof?), and whoops, you will not get a permit to renovate your house, until you connect to the "public Internet" and demolish the "hazard" — this already happened to owners of private septic tanks, who were forced to connect to the public sewer system.
Surely, businesses-provided service may have similar ills (just look at E-Z-Pass) — you may be saddled with high fees (instead of fines), for example, Verizon will try to cut your copper wires, to make it harder for you to cancel their FIOS service — but only, when the service-provider is a monopoly for some reason. And the government is a monopoly by definition — the strongest and most pervasive of all. Therefor, as little as possible should be done by them — only the things, that we don't want commerce to do (like law enforcement). Commerce not wanting to do something, is not an excuse for the government to do it — they aren't spending their own money.
Now, I don't know, whether the law suit in subject has legal merit — whether the town's government can legally engage in business activity. All I'm saying, is that it would be dumb idea, regardless of whether it is legal (like tobacco) or not (like marijuana).
As little as possible should be done by the government — that's the principle.
Having them provide Internet service is like running word-processing in a kernel.
As I said before, downloading a song without the copyright-owner's permission is much closer to stealing, than selling of pornography is to "free speech".
Already happened to McCain mocking Obama — one of the videos by this ("computer illiterate") man's campaign was pulled by YouTube.
Yes, we can — it is not a crime to hate someone.
Making/using a pipe-bomb, on the other hand, usually is a crime, and there may be some justification in banning people from teaching others, how to do it.
Although I have very little sympathy for copyright thievery — regardless of whether it is exactly or almost the same as thievery of tangible goods — the ease, with which the government can seize suspect's property, and the difficulties facing the ex-suspect in getting the property back are a major problem in our legal system.
There are a lot of safeguards for the suspect's person, but the property (including cash) is hardly protected at all. In Giulliany's New York, drunk drivers were supposed to lose their cars even — on a cop's say-so in a "traffic-court" (run by the Executive branch, not Judiciary). In this illiberal Massachusetts town, a kid would lose bicycles, if caught without a helmet. Police don't need to prove anything — they can just take it using the force we give them to fight crimes. Then, in many cases, the victim — already cleared of all (or most) of the originally suspected wrongdoing — has to sue to get the seized stuff back, and there is no telling, neither what it will cost them (in legal fees alone), nor what condition the stuff will be upon return.
The situation is slowly changing, but on the local levels only. A Constitutional amendment, or other sort of "Miranda rights"-like rule is long overdue.
Meanwhile, why should those accused of copyright violations have it any different? Because some of them could just have been by-standers? Well, if you give your bicycle to a kid, who is accused of riding helmet-less by the cop, you are bystander too. Same with loaning your car to a friend, who is then accused of DUI...
Fuck off.
This would require the other four to collude — and such a collusion is already banned by the (earlier-linked to) anti-trust laws. If the Senator suspects some sort of price-fixing agreement already in place, he is right. On the other hand, if he is just wondering, why the price is higher, than he thinks it ought to be, he should back off...
Are we suspecting, these guys have formed a trust to keep the prices same and/or rising? No... With 4 players, any one of them can hardly be called a monopoly either.
Then leave them alone and don't engage in price-control, Senator. Better yet, build your own wireless company — if you charge less for the same services without sacrificing other aspects, people will flock to you in droves...
Libraries give out paid-for copies of books and other media.
No, it can't be — it does not pay the creators of "their" contents anything.
Yes, I can see this already:
It is a bone-headed law, and it ought to be stricken out ASAP...
I'm not, but that guy, who took spammers to courts, certainly did. The simple activity should not require a license — and this entire forum would've been in agreement, had it not been related to music-sharing. Slashdot would've been outraged, if his lawsuit was turned down, because he was not licensed to collect the evidence (against spammers), that he collected. I do hope, MediaSentry and **AA challenge the very law itself here, instead of trying to weasel out...
Uhm, completely? I don't think so... In both cases you are enjoying somebody else's work without compensating them...
In my posting I acknowledged the existence of a (very small) difference, and stated, that it — the difference between unauthorized download and outright theft — is smaller, than the difference between selling pornography and exercising free speech. This comparison may have flown over your head, but an American understands it quickly. During the 60-ies, attempts were made to fight the proliferation of porn-sellers (see "People versus Larry Flint" for example). The right to sell pornography was defended (successfully) by legal professionals of the time based on America's 1st Constitutional Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Pretending, the pornography is speech and/or press (or did they mean religion?), was even more of a stretch, than calling "copyright infringement" a theft.
Whether the price is "reasonable" is determined by a market — people are either willing to pay it, or they don't, but the choice ought to be between:
. Once you allow the third option: "not pay and still get", you break the market's fairness. If it is not illegal in your country, your laws are self-inconsistent, because they, no doubt, still punish the "traditional" theft of tangible goods. 0 equals 1 somewhere in your legal system.
Something being too expensive is not an excuse to steal it. We aren't even talking about bread or medicine here — just some entertainment.
Every time you run `whois' to determine, which network an attacking IP belongs to, you perform (an unlicensed) investigation.
Keep this in mind cheering for the little music-thief. He is using a completely bogus law — the licensing is required for more and more things, turning more and more things from being rights (derived directly from the Right to the Pursuit of Happiness) into privileges, which the Executive Government can take away on a whim, without bothering with Judicial, etc.
It is a far more important battle than "the right to free music" or any other of slashdot's usual topics of outrage.
B and C are the same parties, but nice try attempting to portray the **AA as "mean and bad" without appearing to demean the beloved musicians.
Some musicians sell the rights to their creations to others. Some choose to market them themselves. It does not matter — for this argument — the B and C in your example are one and the same, and B is damaged — at least some of the people, who got their music for free, would've paid for it.
Giving away and using copies of somebody else's works without permission is much closer to theft, than, for example, the right to sell pornography is to free speech. Stop blaming other people's common sense, when they disagree with you — American schools aren't that bad...
These claims are often made by privacy advocates, but other sources have the opposite view.
However, even the EPIC acknowledge, that there was some contribution made by the CCTV surveillance: "Evidence from Europe, however, suggests that the benefits of CCTV are significantly overstated." They then skillfully juggle the facts: "While the average Londoner is estimated to have their picture recorded more than three hundred times a day, no single bomber has been caught," — omitting completely the case of the fairly high-profile recent case of German train-bombers. The EPIC-guys are not being entirely honest, and you should not be falling for it.
I don't think, a camera is any worse, than a policeman standing there watching. A society just can't afford so many policemen, so we resort to these cameras as productivity tools.
The illegal kinds of stalking are those, where (unwanted) physical presence takes place. It is criminalized under names such as "criminal menace" or "criminal harassment". I don't think, what we are talking about here (which, mind you, is in itself some blogger's speculation), would rise to illegal stalking, even if it were true...
Without encryption, your expectation of privacy should be no more than that of a ham radio operator.
That said, the article seems to be about phone location snooping — somebody, somewhere records where you (or, rather, your phone) were, and not, what you said. Encryption will not help you here, but your privacy is not violated either — or not nearly as much, as the "Heil Bush" moron would like you to think.
It is not even illegal — for example from an earlier era, consider the fact, that although the contents of your mail correspondence is private, the fact of the correspondence is not. The government can observe/record/use against you the fact, that you wrote to so-and-so and/or received letters from such-and-such even if it does not know, what was written, because it could not (or would not) obtain a warrant to open up your mail.
I'd prefer to look at it as every able-bodied living person obtaining a $0.99 rubber chicken and shaking it at the sky... Costs the same, involves the entire world community, and is just as useful.
Incorrect. It was not a "stated aim", but totally unintended — at least, according to Bill Ayers himself: "It turns out that we blew up a bathroom and, quite by accident [emphasis mine -mi], water plunged below and knocked out their computers for a time, disrupting the air war and sending me into deepening shades of delight."
Ooops... You really ought to study your heroes better so as not to embarrass yourself less defending them.
Actually, no, it did surprisingly little to the economy. Although the country was still recovering from Clinton's dot-com boom-bust of 2000, the destruction of WTC had little economic effect, other than the cost of the buildings and the lives of the people in them and in the airplanes. More importantly, the intent was not to disrupt trade — bin Laden et al did not even expect the buildings to collapse. It was simply violence against civilians perpetrated to further their agenda. Which is exactly, what terrorism is defined as...
No, of course not. They didn't use or threaten violence against civilians — the closest they came to it, was "warning" Georgians after the shooting ended, that their safety "can not be guaranteed", if they chose to return to their homes in the "liberated" enclaves. That's simply old-fashioned war followed by ethnic cleansing — not terrorism...
It is certainly pejorative, but there remains a fairly tight definition (already quoted). This thread is in evidence, even if unintentionally...