Let's take their methods out a few generations. Right now, they are threatening or terminating their top 1% of "bandwidth abusers". Let's assume that these folks consumed 50GB a month in bandwidth. Now that those people are "fixed", the top 1% becomes the folks who consume 45GB. They can go throught the same process next quarter/billing cycle/year. If they keep eliminating the top 1%, then the threshold is constantly getting lower for the other 99% before they get their "warning". If left unchecked, the top 1% could very well end up being someone who has less than modem usage.
Allow me to play devil's advocate...
Say their cap is not strictly 50GB per month, but those who consume 50GB over the amount averaged across all users. In other words, is it not necessarily the top 1%, but only those above X GB above the average, which happens to be 1% this month.
Those 1% are sent Comcast love notes and either mend their ways or are terminated from service. Next month, no one goes above 45GB above the average. If this is below their trigger of 50GB, then no one gets bumped. In fact, the overall average should go down due to some hogs bumped from the previous month, thus it should be a little harder for the remaining users to reach the cap.
This to me sounds more like the approach being used by the industry. To do as you say makes no sense because they would quickly cut into their bottom line, and their bottom line says keep as many users on their service as possible without overall degradation of service. This is a policy that I can agree with, as long as it is done intelligently. Yes, I know, insert usual jokes here about the cable company and intelligence, but they are not so dumb that they would intentionally drive people away.
I find it interesting that the cable companies have no problem feeding you nearly 100 channels of television, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (remember, that's bandwidth too - voice and full screen video), for, say, $50 a month -- yet when it's *Internet* bandwidth people want, suddenly we're supposed to respect all these artifically set limits/caps, and understand what a "great value" we're getting for that additional $49.95 per month.
It's not the same thing.
TV is one way. They blast content down a one-way pipe in a continuous stream with little intelligence to it. No real switching or routing involved. And there is greater margin for error in the data flowing down the pipe, even with digital cable. Lose a few packets? Oh well, no problem, probably will show up as a tiny graphics glitch on the screen that goes by so fast the viewer won't notice.
Broadband internet is two-way. Information travels in descreet packets that cannot simply be blasted down the pipe but must be carefully routed. The real bottleneck is not the physical cable running to your home or the copper wire, it is the routers and switches. Packets must be actively read by the equipment to know where to send them. There is also much less margin for error. Lose a few packets? Oops, gotta retransmit.
This is why cable is a latecomer to the broadband market. Their expertise was in one-way content delivery. They took awhile to build up the infrastructure to handle interactive communications over the coax cable.
And what makes you think that Linux or any other open source OS is going to be able to view any media in the future?
You can forget about viewing this content on Linux. Go to the DTLA website at http://www.dtcp.com. Click on the link titled "DTCP Specification Volume 1 Version 1.29 Draft (Informational Version).". Under the heading "Intellectual Property" is this nice little statement:
Implementation of this specification requires a licence from the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator.
Unless this license is royalty-free, which I doubt, then this is going to be a problem. There is no information on the site as to what this license entails.
recieves so much attention from slashdot and the open sauce community.
And I think it's about time that the open sauce community received more attention. I can't be the only one tired of all these restaurants using proprietary sauces. I mean, I have the right to know what goes into my sauces.
What I do want do see is "open" document formats to allow them to switch software providers easily.
In another post, I stated that I did not want to see a mandate of open source software, but a mandate that I could live with and see the benefits of would be exactly this, a mandate that document standards (and, I would add, communications standards) be open.
Unlike the mandate of open source, a mandate of open standards would not be open to the risk of a legally enforced monopoly. Quite the contrary, it would make it much more difficult for a monopoly to be established. Anyone could implement the standard, whether proprietary or open source. Then the consumer could be left with a clear choice. With no vendor lock-in, the playing field would be truly level.
As much as an advocate as I am for open source software, and a supporter of free software though not an outright fanatic about it, I have mixed feelings about the mandating of open source in government or any other area.
The problem with mandates like this is that it, in a way, sanctions monopoly. Monopoly by open source/free software may not sound like such a bad thing, but I personally have a bad reaction to anything that presents a choice as my only choice.
Example: There are forms of pornography that I find particularly repulsive (not talking obviously illegal stuff like pedophilia, but just things between consenting adults that would make my hair curl looking at it). However, that doesn't give me the right to mandate that YOU can't look at it. Moreover, if someone on high decreed "you can no longer look at this", I would fight it. Even though I have no intention of looking at this stuff, I made that choice, not someone else, and I would fight for the continued right to make that choice.
I use open source software almost exclusively. My desktop runs Linux. My wife made the choice to try Linux and now runs it exclusively on her laptop. But that's our choice, not someone else's mandate. Yes, I would love to see the whole world go open source. But it has to happen by choice, not by mandate.
Same with SUVs. The problem isn't the inherent safety of the SUV for those who drive halfway intelligently. It is the fact that people don't drive well. They think 4WD somehow makes them invulnerable in snow.
Give this man a cee-gar, he hit the nail right on the head.
Another true story: Back when I lived in New Jersey and we had the Winter From Hell, where we had one ice storm after another, I remember creeping along the highway going to work, about to get onto the off-ramp, in my 10 year old Toyota Corolla. This asshole comes blazing around me in a huge SUV with realtime four-wheel drive, ABS, the works. It's so new it still had the temporary plate in the window.
We get the off-ramp, and he's way ahead of me... and out of control. He pulls two 360s, a 180, goes down backwards, then sideways, then hits a guardrail and finally stops, one headlight smashed. I glide down the ramp in my dinky Corolla with nothing more than front-wheel drive, straight as an arrow, carefully pumping the brake as I go. I got through the whole winter without so much as a scratch on the car.
These days I also have an SUV that my wife and I use for camping trips and when we run lots and lots of errands in a day. I learned my lesson on NJ and don't drive that sucker any faster on snow and ice than I did with the Corolla (which I still have and still runs great).
If Microsoft is forced to pay off Eolas, doesn't that mean they've paid for the patent?
Nope. The settlement is simply the damages that MS pays for violating the patent. If MS wants to license the technology, they have to fork over more money, and there's no guarantee Eolas will give them the time of day.
The fact that MS is considering changes to IE should give you an idea whether they decided to buy a license or not.
Something I came across that may be of interest in this discussion. I considered submitting a story on this, but rather than risk it getting rejected, I'll just mention it here.
ESR may have something up his sleeve. Check out this article on eWeek. ESR has apparantly come up with some program that can compare source trees at a phenominal rate. He's keeping mum on what he exactly intends to do with it, but he's wearing a mighty big grin.
See, now this shows the difference between me and SCO. If I had been SCO, I would have sued your ass off for making a line by line copy of my own post. Since I am not SCO, I will do no such silly thing, other than to draw attention to your lack of courtesy in failing to attribute the post.
I think this means SCO are pretty much digging in and wagering the entire future of the company on this lawsuit.
An interesting thing happens when you repeat a lie often enough and loud enough. Not only do you begin to sway the masses, you begin to believe it yourself. I have to wonder if this is possibly what has happened here. The human mind is an amazing thing. One moment it is capable of the most keen observation and insight. The next, it very easily knows how to apply its own filters to make you not see things that contradict your most deeply-held beliefs. Anyone only need look at religious fundamentalism to realize the truth in this.
I make no excuses for SCO. I merely point out what might be some of the driving force behind their actions. Remember that in war, intelligence is everything. Everything you can learn about your enemy is an advantage on the battlefield, and knowledge of the psychology of your enemy can be very useful.
... to his own ends, and this is precisely what has happened here in the LinuxWorld article.
I will not go into the details of the misquotations from ESR and Mr. Perens, or his abuse of the DDoS attack, as several other astute/. posters have already done so above (below? not sure where the post will appear in the thread). I will instead turn to the interesting tidbit that Mr. McBride mentions near the end, after all the talk about the flaws in the Open Source development process:
It is easier for some in the Open Source community to fire off a "rant" than to sit across a negotiation table... Working together, there are ways we can make sure this happens.
And to this I can only respond: Mr. McBride, how the FUCK can we negociate with you or work together with you when you WON'T REVEAL A SINGLE GODDAMN LINE OF INFRINGING CODE?
Mr. McBride is playing an interesting game here. He is acting as the master manipulator of the public mindset. Whether this was his intent from the beginning or simply a means to cover up a huge blunder is irrelevant at this point. While it is true that many of his statements are contradictory to the rational person, his intended audience is NOT the rational, but the business world and the media. He knows all the buzzwords that make business/media sit up and pant like lapdogs. What makes this an uphill battle for the OSS community is the very fact that we eschew these buzzwords and prefer to rely on fact. Unfortunately, fact is apparantly not what business/media wants to hear. I am sure that in the next few days we will see reports from the media that Mr. McBride is presenting the proverbial olive branch to the community. I can almost guarantee that the very term "olive branch" will be used.
It will be interesting to see if this is successful in affecting the tide of opinion. I sincerely hope not. But then again, the vitriol and self-contradictory, specious, racist bullshit spewed by Adolf Hitler was enough to sway the masses.
I came onto Slashdot with the express intent to post the very same link. I obviously came up with it first, therefore you are infringing on my copyright. I shall now sue you for fifty kajillion dollars unless you sign this simple amnesty form:
I hearby promise to never infringe on stwrtpj's copyrights ever again. I will destroy all copies of his posts in my browser's cache and will change my Slashdot ID to "insensitive clod" as penance for my sins.
It straddles criminal and civil law, depending on the infringement and the scope. I'm not familiar with the exact details, though.
Why do they not just turn over the list of sharers to the FBI or whoever investigates and prosecutes theses cases?
Because you're assuming that the RIAA is doing this purely to stop piracy, which I have my doubts about. $150,000 per offense? What bullshit.
If the RIAA is truly interested in stopping copyright infringement, why are they suing instead of prosecuting? If someone steals my car, and I know who it is, I'm going to let the law handle the situation, not file a civil suit.
And if you had the possibility of suing him instead for 1.2 million and have a good chance of winning, even if it gets settled out of court for $250,000 for a car that cost you $30,000, which would you pick?
Yes, the DMCA allows copyright holders to supboena the names of people from ISP's without bringing a case first, or getting it signed by a real judge, but that doesn't mean that the system of innocent until proven guilty is out the window.
You're confusing civil and criminal law. In criminal law, yes, you're innocent until proven guilty. It does not work that way in civil law, which is what we are talking about here. All you need to show is a small amount of proof to haul someone into court, and then you only need a "preponderance of the evidence" to win the case.
This is why I object to the RIAA's tactics. I agree wholeheartedly that the ones who are actively sharing files are the ones guilty of copyright infringement under the law, but I disagree with subpoenas issued without a judge's signature.
These people, if it goes to court, will have the same rights afforded to them as in any other legal case.
Except the right to a lawyer. Once again, in criminal law, I am guaranteed a lawyer, paid for me by the state if I cannot afford one. Not so in civil law. I have to pay for my own attorney. So I see nothing wrong with the EFF providing funds to help defend people in civil cases, since this helps offset the disparity that exists in the system.
There are problems with the DMCA, but can we cut out the FUD please?
Subpoeans without a judge's approval is not FUD, it's a travesty of justice.
Not being able to pay for your own defense in a country that so highly values liberty is not FUD, it's legalized extortion.
Filter by default - if you need your ports or you want to do your own firewalling then get the "advanced user" account that costs less but requires more responsibility from the user.
Or perhaps have a question like this on the application form for opening a new account:
Please list the specific ports (by number) you wish to leave open. If you do not understand this question, your needs do not likely require open ports. Basic account functionality such as email, instant messaging, and access to the World Wide Web does not require this feature, and leaving your ports closed will better secure your computer.
However, I believe strongly in the balance of powers and unfortunately agree that guns are a necessary evil to keep that balance between a government and their citizens.
[Emphasis mine]
Good point. However, it's only half the issue. The 2nd amendment clearly states A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..., which, I believe is in accordance with the original intent, that of the citizens being the final check on the power of the government, and thus agrees with the basic gist of your statement.
However, a single citizen owning a gun is neither well-regulated, nor does it constitute a militia. My dictionary says that the definition of "miltitia" is "an army of citizens called out in times of emergency". The use the term "army" here is key. An army must have organization, or it is simply a mob. Thus I still contend that the 2nd amendment does NOT give carte blanch ownership of guns to the masses. It gives them the right to bear arms under the auspices of a volunteer army.
So what's my point? Collection agencies don't have proof. But when you are falsely accused of owing money, in my experience they behave perfectly reasonably.
Huh. Not all of them. I remember the first apartment I had after I started working my first full time job. A few months after I had been living there, I started getting phone calls from a collection agency for someone that I had never heard of. They claimed this was the address they had for him. I patiently explained to them that I had only just moved in. Then they demanded (not asked, demanded) to know where he went, and I responded how the hell should I know and why should I care? FInally they actually accuse me of covering for this person and that I could be in legal shit if I keep doing it. At that point I lost it and told him in no uncertain terms that if I got so much as one more fucking phone call from them, I would report them to the Better Business Bureau and the state attorney general. I never got another call from them again.
Probably at least in part because of regulations on the industry,
Probably why they backed off after I told them off, when they realized they had someone who knew his rights under the law.
Here is the cause. Taiwan recently conducted military exercises simulating a Chinese invasion despite Chinese protests. I would imagine that this is China's response.
I'm sure China was royally pissed that Taiwan has the audacity to want to defend themselves against an outside aggressor. I mean, what were they THINKING?
Carter, however, is NOT president any more, and really needs to keep his opinions to himself when it comes to the things that subsequent presidents have done.
I didn't realize that former presidents of the US had to waive their free speech rights after leaving office. Learn something new every day.
Slashdot Mirror
Allow me to play devil's advocate ...
Say their cap is not strictly 50GB per month, but those who consume 50GB over the amount averaged across all users. In other words, is it not necessarily the top 1%, but only those above X GB above the average, which happens to be 1% this month.
Those 1% are sent Comcast love notes and either mend their ways or are terminated from service. Next month, no one goes above 45GB above the average. If this is below their trigger of 50GB, then no one gets bumped. In fact, the overall average should go down due to some hogs bumped from the previous month, thus it should be a little harder for the remaining users to reach the cap.
This to me sounds more like the approach being used by the industry. To do as you say makes no sense because they would quickly cut into their bottom line, and their bottom line says keep as many users on their service as possible without overall degradation of service. This is a policy that I can agree with, as long as it is done intelligently. Yes, I know, insert usual jokes here about the cable company and intelligence, but they are not so dumb that they would intentionally drive people away.
It's not the same thing.
TV is one way. They blast content down a one-way pipe in a continuous stream with little intelligence to it. No real switching or routing involved. And there is greater margin for error in the data flowing down the pipe, even with digital cable. Lose a few packets? Oh well, no problem, probably will show up as a tiny graphics glitch on the screen that goes by so fast the viewer won't notice.
Broadband internet is two-way. Information travels in descreet packets that cannot simply be blasted down the pipe but must be carefully routed. The real bottleneck is not the physical cable running to your home or the copper wire, it is the routers and switches. Packets must be actively read by the equipment to know where to send them. There is also much less margin for error. Lose a few packets? Oops, gotta retransmit.
This is why cable is a latecomer to the broadband market. Their expertise was in one-way content delivery. They took awhile to build up the infrastructure to handle interactive communications over the coax cable.
You can forget about viewing this content on Linux. Go to the DTLA website at http://www.dtcp.com. Click on the link titled "DTCP Specification Volume 1 Version 1.29 Draft (Informational Version).". Under the heading "Intellectual Property" is this nice little statement:
Implementation of this specification requires a licence from the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator.
Unless this license is royalty-free, which I doubt, then this is going to be a problem. There is no information on the site as to what this license entails.
And he will insist that everyone refer to it as "GNU/DNA"
And I think it's about time that the open sauce community received more attention. I can't be the only one tired of all these restaurants using proprietary sauces. I mean, I have the right to know what goes into my sauces.
Oh, and by the way, that's GNU/sauce.
But, dude, imagine a beowulf cluster of these things!!
Some people will go to incredible lengths to hide their illegally ripped MP3s from the RIAA.
In another post, I stated that I did not want to see a mandate of open source software, but a mandate that I could live with and see the benefits of would be exactly this, a mandate that document standards (and, I would add, communications standards) be open.
Unlike the mandate of open source, a mandate of open standards would not be open to the risk of a legally enforced monopoly. Quite the contrary, it would make it much more difficult for a monopoly to be established. Anyone could implement the standard, whether proprietary or open source. Then the consumer could be left with a clear choice. With no vendor lock-in, the playing field would be truly level.
As much as an advocate as I am for open source software, and a supporter of free software though not an outright fanatic about it, I have mixed feelings about the mandating of open source in government or any other area.
The problem with mandates like this is that it, in a way, sanctions monopoly. Monopoly by open source/free software may not sound like such a bad thing, but I personally have a bad reaction to anything that presents a choice as my only choice.
Example: There are forms of pornography that I find particularly repulsive (not talking obviously illegal stuff like pedophilia, but just things between consenting adults that would make my hair curl looking at it). However, that doesn't give me the right to mandate that YOU can't look at it. Moreover, if someone on high decreed "you can no longer look at this", I would fight it. Even though I have no intention of looking at this stuff, I made that choice, not someone else, and I would fight for the continued right to make that choice.
I use open source software almost exclusively. My desktop runs Linux. My wife made the choice to try Linux and now runs it exclusively on her laptop. But that's our choice, not someone else's mandate. Yes, I would love to see the whole world go open source. But it has to happen by choice, not by mandate.
Give this man a cee-gar, he hit the nail right on the head.
Another true story: Back when I lived in New Jersey and we had the Winter From Hell, where we had one ice storm after another, I remember creeping along the highway going to work, about to get onto the off-ramp, in my 10 year old Toyota Corolla. This asshole comes blazing around me in a huge SUV with realtime four-wheel drive, ABS, the works. It's so new it still had the temporary plate in the window.
We get the off-ramp, and he's way ahead of me ... and out of control. He pulls two 360s, a 180, goes down backwards, then sideways, then hits a guardrail and finally stops, one headlight smashed. I glide down the ramp in my dinky Corolla with nothing more than front-wheel drive, straight as an arrow, carefully pumping the brake as I go. I got through the whole winter without so much as a scratch on the car.
These days I also have an SUV that my wife and I use for camping trips and when we run lots and lots of errands in a day. I learned my lesson on NJ and don't drive that sucker any faster on snow and ice than I did with the Corolla (which I still have and still runs great).
Nope. The settlement is simply the damages that MS pays for violating the patent. If MS wants to license the technology, they have to fork over more money, and there's no guarantee Eolas will give them the time of day.
The fact that MS is considering changes to IE should give you an idea whether they decided to buy a license or not.
Something I came across that may be of interest in this discussion. I considered submitting a story on this, but rather than risk it getting rejected, I'll just mention it here.
ESR may have something up his sleeve. Check out this article on eWeek. ESR has apparantly come up with some program that can compare source trees at a phenominal rate. He's keeping mum on what he exactly intends to do with it, but he's wearing a mighty big grin.
See, now this shows the difference between me and SCO. If I had been SCO, I would have sued your ass off for making a line by line copy of my own post. Since I am not SCO, I will do no such silly thing, other than to draw attention to your lack of courtesy in failing to attribute the post.
An interesting thing happens when you repeat a lie often enough and loud enough. Not only do you begin to sway the masses, you begin to believe it yourself. I have to wonder if this is possibly what has happened here. The human mind is an amazing thing. One moment it is capable of the most keen observation and insight. The next, it very easily knows how to apply its own filters to make you not see things that contradict your most deeply-held beliefs. Anyone only need look at religious fundamentalism to realize the truth in this.
I make no excuses for SCO. I merely point out what might be some of the driving force behind their actions. Remember that in war, intelligence is everything. Everything you can learn about your enemy is an advantage on the battlefield, and knowledge of the psychology of your enemy can be very useful.
... to his own ends, and this is precisely what has happened here in the LinuxWorld article.
I will not go into the details of the misquotations from ESR and Mr. Perens, or his abuse of the DDoS attack, as several other astute /. posters have already done so above (below? not sure where the post will appear in the thread). I will instead turn to the interesting tidbit that Mr. McBride mentions near the end, after all the talk about the flaws in the Open Source development process:
It is easier for some in the Open Source community to fire off a "rant" than to sit across a negotiation tableAnd to this I can only respond: Mr. McBride, how the FUCK can we negociate with you or work together with you when you WON'T REVEAL A SINGLE GODDAMN LINE OF INFRINGING CODE?
Mr. McBride is playing an interesting game here. He is acting as the master manipulator of the public mindset. Whether this was his intent from the beginning or simply a means to cover up a huge blunder is irrelevant at this point. While it is true that many of his statements are contradictory to the rational person, his intended audience is NOT the rational, but the business world and the media. He knows all the buzzwords that make business/media sit up and pant like lapdogs. What makes this an uphill battle for the OSS community is the very fact that we eschew these buzzwords and prefer to rely on fact. Unfortunately, fact is apparantly not what business/media wants to hear. I am sure that in the next few days we will see reports from the media that Mr. McBride is presenting the proverbial olive branch to the community. I can almost guarantee that the very term "olive branch" will be used.
It will be interesting to see if this is successful in affecting the tide of opinion. I sincerely hope not. But then again, the vitriol and self-contradictory, specious, racist bullshit spewed by Adolf Hitler was enough to sway the masses.
You would think that alone is embarassment enough.
I came onto Slashdot with the express intent to post the very same link. I obviously came up with it first, therefore you are infringing on my copyright. I shall now sue you for fifty kajillion dollars unless you sign this simple amnesty form:
It straddles criminal and civil law, depending on the infringement and the scope. I'm not familiar with the exact details, though.
Why do they not just turn over the list of sharers to the FBI or whoever investigates and prosecutes theses cases?Because you're assuming that the RIAA is doing this purely to stop piracy, which I have my doubts about. $150,000 per offense? What bullshit.
If the RIAA is truly interested in stopping copyright infringement, why are they suing instead of prosecuting? If someone steals my car, and I know who it is, I'm going to let the law handle the situation, not file a civil suit.And if you had the possibility of suing him instead for 1.2 million and have a good chance of winning, even if it gets settled out of court for $250,000 for a car that cost you $30,000, which would you pick?
You're confusing civil and criminal law. In criminal law, yes, you're innocent until proven guilty. It does not work that way in civil law, which is what we are talking about here. All you need to show is a small amount of proof to haul someone into court, and then you only need a "preponderance of the evidence" to win the case.
This is why I object to the RIAA's tactics. I agree wholeheartedly that the ones who are actively sharing files are the ones guilty of copyright infringement under the law, but I disagree with subpoenas issued without a judge's signature.
These people, if it goes to court, will have the same rights afforded to them as in any other legal case.Except the right to a lawyer. Once again, in criminal law, I am guaranteed a lawyer, paid for me by the state if I cannot afford one. Not so in civil law. I have to pay for my own attorney. So I see nothing wrong with the EFF providing funds to help defend people in civil cases, since this helps offset the disparity that exists in the system.
There are problems with the DMCA, but can we cut out the FUD please?Subpoeans without a judge's approval is not FUD, it's a travesty of justice.
Not being able to pay for your own defense in a country that so highly values liberty is not FUD, it's legalized extortion.
Or perhaps have a question like this on the application form for opening a new account:
Please list the specific ports (by number) you wish to leave open. If you do not understand this question, your needs do not likely require open ports. Basic account functionality such as email, instant messaging, and access to the World Wide Web does not require this feature, and leaving your ports closed will better secure your computer.
[Emphasis mine]
Good point. However, it's only half the issue. The 2nd amendment clearly states A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state ..., which, I believe is in accordance with the original intent, that of the citizens being the final check on the power of the government, and thus agrees with the basic gist of your statement.
However, a single citizen owning a gun is neither well-regulated, nor does it constitute a militia. My dictionary says that the definition of "miltitia" is "an army of citizens called out in times of emergency". The use the term "army" here is key. An army must have organization, or it is simply a mob. Thus I still contend that the 2nd amendment does NOT give carte blanch ownership of guns to the masses. It gives them the right to bear arms under the auspices of a volunteer army.
Huh. Not all of them. I remember the first apartment I had after I started working my first full time job. A few months after I had been living there, I started getting phone calls from a collection agency for someone that I had never heard of. They claimed this was the address they had for him. I patiently explained to them that I had only just moved in. Then they demanded (not asked, demanded) to know where he went, and I responded how the hell should I know and why should I care? FInally they actually accuse me of covering for this person and that I could be in legal shit if I keep doing it. At that point I lost it and told him in no uncertain terms that if I got so much as one more fucking phone call from them, I would report them to the Better Business Bureau and the state attorney general. I never got another call from them again.
Probably at least in part because of regulations on the industry,Probably why they backed off after I told them off, when they realized they had someone who knew his rights under the law.
I'm sure China was royally pissed that Taiwan has the audacity to want to defend themselves against an outside aggressor. I mean, what were they THINKING?
Assuming they even get as far as prison.
I didn't realize that former presidents of the US had to waive their free speech rights after leaving office. Learn something new every day.