I will grant you that. There is nothing morally drastically different from 1 moment to the next during the development of the fetus (except for an increasing likely hood that the fetus will get to the point of actually appreciating its own existence). However that doesn't mean that a potential person has the same moral value as an actual person. And the moral calculus can not rest there.
I do not assign a moral value of 0 to potential people. They do have moral value.
I do not suggest that prior to a specific point in time, abortion is flat out a good thing.
There is an issue of weighing the harm caused to the woman by governmental imposition of child birth, and to all people in general by the fear of prosecution and fear of pregnancy which such a severe regime would cause, and the harm caused to the potential human being by abortion, and the harm caused to future potential human beings which are displaced by the birth of the non-aborted human being (who was saved by state prohibition of abortion).
We must also weigh the potential benefit of abortion to the life of the woman in question, and the benefit the abortion of 1 fetus, brings to the life of future potential children that woman will choose to bear (if the abortion is permitted), but will not bear if child birth is imposed.
we also must measure the value of allowing women to PLAN their families rather than having LUCK (and the strong arm of the law) impose a family decision on the woman involuntarily.
Anti-abortionists typically use a presumption that the number of pregnancies a woman will have in her life is fixed. When most women actually plan their life by a count of children rather than pregnancies.
That is, more woman plan to have X number of kids, rather than X number of pregnancies.
If you presume that a woman will get pregnant 3 times in her life *period* then any abortion is tantamount to murder. However, if you presume that a woman is actually more likely to have 3 children in her life *period*, then abortion is almost a non-event.
Since it is only the specific woman who knows which calculus she uses, only *she* is in a position to know which case is correct and whether abortion is "murder" for her.
We may be able to safe a specific fetus by banning abortion. But where does that leave the mother, and future not as yet conceived fetuses. Do you assign them a moral value of "0"?
As far as rape/incest being the extreme argument. What of it. You must still consider the moral weight of situation when formulating a conclusion.
And if the government wants to get involved in this moral calculation, then we must weigh how much harm the invasion of privacy will cause compared to the benefit. Would the government be in a better position to perform the moral calculus? That is very questionable. However I dont think anyone is seriously doubting that the invasion of privacy would be harmful.
My opinion is: The act of abortion is somewhat wrong. But not wrong enough to warrant government prohibition.
To ban abortion in all cases you must be able to show that in the harm caused by lawful abortion and the benefit of prohibiting it outweigh the harm to women, and society and the potential benefit to the women and society by allowing them to make their own choice in private.
I wonder, how many women have an abortion and then go on to never have a child for the remainder of their life compared to how many women have at least 1 abortion and then later go on to carry a child to term willingly.
You are saying that a fetus is a baby because in a "natural" environment the fetus would become a baby. And I asked what relevance does naturality have, and you responded:
This is an answer to the idiotic statement a preborn baby is no different than a skin cell
And I'm still wondering what is the relevance of naturality?
You are putting that forward as a "moral difference" between an embryo and another "living" cell of the human body.
I didn't ask WHY you raise the issue of naturality, I challenged you to show the relevance, because my position is that "naturality" is not morally relevant.
With cloning, it would be possible to produce a human being from a living cell (you chose skin cell). If the cell has potential what difference does it make that it is a natural or an artificial process. The resultant "BABY" is still a baby.
Do you believe that cloned baby's are not human beings? Do you believe that cloned babies would not be happy to be alive and would wish they were dead or aborted?
And in 99.9999% of abortions a baby was put into the womb by the actions of said woman. I know this is a slight inconvenience but killing the baby is not right for that reason.
So you concede then that killing babies who were conceived by the act of rape is morally correct?
And if killing a fetus (or baby as you like to call it) conceived by rape is correct, then this goes back to your issue of naturality. It also begs the questions.. if killing a fetus conceived by rape is correct, and you draw no distinction between a fetus and a child, then is it wrong to kill children conceived by rape *after* they are born?
Isn't an embryo conceived by rape still just as likely to become a baby in its "natural" environment?
And if you are raising the issue of the "Actions of said woman", I must ask you, why you are raising that issue? So what if the woman had sex. Does it matter? Why does that mean the woman has an obligation to a fetus that would otherwise never have existed? Would the fetus have preferred never to have been conceived in the first place?
Take an embryo put it in its natural environment what does it become?
what do you mean "natural environment"? And what relevence does naturality have?
The womb is a privately owned environment and it belongs to a particular female and no one else. The fact that the environment is natural or artificial does not change the fact that it is HER WOMB. It is her body.
I repeat: The womb is not a public space.
I said: Fetuses do not have a right to life because nothing in law gives fetuses a right to life.
you said: Great circular logic, I think they used that for slavery. Slavery is ok because nothing in the law makes a slave a person.
I do believe the constitution needed to be ammended to make slavery illegal in America. (I'm not sure on that point. I'm not american) I dont know how it is a "circular" argument. The constitution is the legal document which lays out your rights is it not?
I was putting that forward for those who tried to use a purely constitutional and legal argument to justify their dream of a prohibition on abortion.
As far as the law is concerned. It is an accurate statement. I do believe it was the reason the supreme court upheld slavery. I don't think it was really the commonly used justification for slavery.
But so what?
Slaves did not live inside the wombs of their owners.
The more generic question is, do you think that a fetus is alive? ... Does a pinworm begin to be a separate life only when you pull it out of your body? My point is two fold. One, pinworms are killed mostly for self-defense. But at the same time, humans place much less worth on a pinworm than a human child.
A human child is not a fetus, and a fetus is not a human child. And if you are discussing a moral rights issue, then it really doesn't matter what "worth" anyone puts on the fetus or the pinworm. The pinworm has just as much moral right to live as a fetus. Your rights do not derive from what "worth" others place on you.
yes. I do think a fetus is alive. And so is a pinworm.
This is mostly because except in rare exception (rape), human conception is the intentional act of two people with the outcome being a desirable result (this from the biological, not necessarily sociological/logical sense).
How do you know the result was "desirable" in the specific case where abortion is the wish of the female. I would infer the probable conclusion that if the female wants an abortion, then pregnancy was probably NOT the desired result of the original sex.
If it was desired she would probably not want an abortion.
The last issue, rape, is by far the most troubling.
rape is most troubling. Most troubling to your hypothesis.
However, the fetus has the same rights regardless of whether or not it was rape. Because the fetus did not commit the rape.
As for the mothers rights. I do not see how the mother has diminished rights to her own body simply because sex was consentual. The mother has a right to have sex.
If the mother has a right to have sex, then she need not waive any other rights in order to exercise her sexual rights.
So the question is: Does a woman have a right to have sex?
I suggest from a strictly moral rights analysis, abortion should either be outlawed even in the case of rape, or it should be allowed even in the case of consentual sex.
I dont really see the argument being made to explain how it is OK to abort a rape induced fetus, if it is not OK to abort a fetus induced by other means.
It is certainly unfair on the victim for their genetic material to be stolen and their bodily possibly used for growth (men can be raped, which removes the latter; it's still conceivably a question of granting abortion, given the genetic code was stolen). But, it's not the government that is raping the woman/man, so it's not they who are violating the man/woman's body, so it doesn't seem like the government has the right to impose some choice on the interaction of two individuals. The only reasoning I can gather is the government could force the removal on the grounds of "ill-gotten gains". But, I truly can't morally resolve this disturbing issue. I am only glad that this is the exception rather than the rule.
1) No pro-choicers are arguing that the government or anyone has a right to impose an abortion on a woman.
The debate is whether or not to let women choose to have an abortion or whether to impose pregnancy and child birth on the woman.
Actually the debate is over. The woman does have such a right. It is the pro-lifers who keep trying to bring the debate back to life.
2) It is very commendable of you to admit you can't resolve that particular moral question (abortion in cases of rape). However, it does behoove lawmakers to account for it, before trying to revoke a womans rights on her own body.
But if your moral hypothesis leads to a contradiction or a problem in a particular case, this is a strong hint that your moral hypothesis itself is questionable or wrong.
I suggest that the essential question is not merely "Is a fetus alive?".
Unless you're a person who thinks that it happens when a baby is taken out of it's mother (which would seem to be awfully arbitrary), you are forced to the conclusion that it happens sometime in the womb. At what point does that happen?
You are right. I didn't answer that question. I did however state that:
"even if a fetus has a right to life. That right is not absolute and does not outweigh the rights of the mother. "
In another message I submitted that even if a fetus was a person, that would not automatically decide that abortion is immoral.
As for your question. When does personhood start? In so far as it is not a decisive factor to the issue of abortion, I am not unwilling to admit, I dont know if I can answer that question right now.
But I have a feeling it is sometime after the time the fetus would survive if it was removed from the mother's body.
And the removal of that fetus with the mothers consent, should not be illegal. (before or after that time).
Both the fetus and the mother have rights. But to the question of who has rights on the mothers own body. I believe everyone has more rights on their own body than any other person does.
I think killing is wrong. But if you must kill to defend yourself you have the right to do so.
Agreed. Although "law" is filled with arbitrary points. You must be 18 to vote, 21 to drink(some places), 35 to be president.
An arbitrary point can be chosen based on some scientific/legal rational. At that point a fetus can be granted "human" or "person" status. However, at that point, the mother still should not automatically relenquish all rights to her body.
There is a weighing of harm, just as in all other cases where the rights of 2 people infringe on one another. The unborn "person" (if personhood is defined to occur at some time prior to birth) does not have absolute rights. There are 2 parties involved.
I do not think most pro-choicers advocate that abortion should be legal up until moment the umbilical cord is cut.
I would argue against that position.
But I also argue against the position that a fetus has a right to life which outweighs the mothers right to self-defend from the instant of conception.
I also do not think a fetus is automatically a human being just because of its potential to be born.
Any more than I think a living person is a corpse (just because they have the potential to become a corpse).
Okay then. When does "personhood" start? Does a human who's been reduced to a parapalegic vegetable count as a person? They contribute less to society than a fetus because the fetus at least has potential. Would it be murder to walk into the nearest hospital and yank the plug on some permanently comatose person? Of course it would.
Actually it would not.
In most places it is not murder to turn off life support of a person in such a state as you describe. This may or may not be contingent on whether you were the one who put them on life support in the first place. It is probably a crime to go into a hospital and arbitrarily interfere with someones else's life support system. But "yanking the plug" can be done, and it *IS DONE* every day in the United States and other countries.
Likewise, there is no legal obligation to put such a sick person on life support in the first place. It is not murder to refuse to provide treatment.
The fact that they are a vegetable or not, is not relevant. Yanking the plug on a healthy person, or a person who is unaware is not murder, unless the act of yanking was somehow the cause of death.
You are raising an unrelated issue. A "person" who has been reduced to a parapalegic vegetable is still a person until they are legally dead. And until they are legally deceased, they continue to be a person in law.
Personhood has nothing to do with your contribution to society. If contributing to society was a requirement, then we would be able to simply "Abort" many millions of people world wide who we deem to be not contributing.
I just do not see how someone can do "moral math" and come out with any sort of justification for this. I would argue that a fetus has just as much right to life as you, I, or anyone else.
Anyone else or anything else?
If a fetus is not a person, then your statement does not apply to fetuses.
If you apply your statement to non people then you must apply it individually to each and every single cell in your entire body, as well as to plants, animals and perhaps fungus. Otherwise you would need to justify why a fetus has more right to life than a fungus.
Or you would need to argue a fetus is a person, and explain why you hold this position. (you haven't explained).
It is a commonly held belief that murderers and terrorists have a reduced right to life.
Many anti-abortionists are also pro-capital punishment.
Rights are granted by law. Fetuses do not have the right to life. Because the law does not recognize fetuses as persons. Be this wrong or right it is the law.
However, even if a fetus has a right to life. That right is not absolute and does not outweigh the rights of the mother. Unless the fetuses rights are superior to human rights, in which case a fetus must not be a human.
You just have to accept that the right to defend ones own life surpasses the rights of any other person to impose harm or misery on you. And if the only possible means to end the harm or misery is to end the relationship with that other person then you can try to end that relationship. If you can accept that is being possibly moral, then you have to come to the table and admit in certain cases abortion is morally correct.
The death of the fetus should not be the goal of abortion. (and where death is the goal, that would be immoral). However the discontinuation of the harmful relationship seems like a legitimate goal of self defense.
If the fetus can be saved, and someone is willing to pay for it then the fetus should be saved. However, the obligation to save the fetus after aborting the pregnancy is a whole seperate issue for discussion.
Denying that means that you have to justify what makes one life more meaningful than another and *THAT* is a slipperly slope if I've ever heard of one.
I never said a person needs to justify their right to life. The fact of being a person gives them that right by la
I dont think pro choicers are arguing that fetuses are not alive. It isn't so simple.
If the fetuses was an alien infection implanted via airborn spores, would you say abortion is wrong?
The question should be "when does human life start?".
Or more in legal terms, at what point does a fetus become a person? But even that is a trivialization.
Seeing as there is no scientific argument to extend the point of becoming a person all the back to the moment of conception, banning abortion is a religious issue.
If you argue that a person is created at conception on some type of scientific grounds, then it is only a matter of lack of technology that we dont classify every single cell of the human body to be a person. Having a biopsy would be murder.
Does a fetus have the right to life? Does that right to life include the right to infringe on the mothers right to life, liberty, privacy and security of person (including self defence). How much infringement is permissible?
Fetuses do not have a right to life because nothing in law gives fetuses a right to life. Mothers do have a well established right to self defence.
If fetuses are persons, they could still be aborted out of self defence. But even if fetuses are granted a right to life, that does not automatically mean abortion must be prohibited.
The bottom line is that a fetus causes harm to the mother. If a human being has a right to protect themselves from harm why should that right be abrogated when the source of harm is a fetus?
And if the fetus was the result of rape or incest, as opposed to consentual sex. Why does *rape/incest* caused fetus have fewer rights than the fetus resulting from consentual sex. Neither fetus was a party to the original rape or sex and neither fetus is more or less blaimworthy.
Or do you feel the woman is more blaimworthy if she consents to sex?
We know that sex is immoral. They told us so in church.
Just like many other crimes, to be guilty of perjury, a person must typically have willful intent or at a bare minimum, knowledge.
Good faith belief is a higher standard than mere belief. So if the DMCA requires good faith, this is a good thing. (that is to say the words "good faith" didn't lower the standard themselves).
It is not enough to simply claim good faith, for good faith to exist. good faith must be based on some kind objective reasons and you are not simply choosing to believe something because you have a vested interest in believing your competition is violating your copyright and accusing them of doing so.
Without a good faith requirement, then someone could simply 'choose' to believe as an act of free will, and claim whatever the hell they want.
I was under the impression that historically a defence against any charge of perjury has always been 'belief' or 'good faith belief'. In fact I was under the impression that perjury was knowingly making a false statement under oath.
Does the DMCA lower the standards of perjury?
let me tell you, "good faith" is a pretty loose standanrd.
"good faith belief" is pretty loose. But it is less loose than "bad faith belief". We all have the right to believe whatever we want to, but that doesn't make any belief automatically 'good faith'.
I believe that "good faith belief" does put some burden on the believer to at least consider any information they have which should lead them to question or doubt their belief, and have an excuse prepared as to why they disregarded it. Whereas simple belief allows the believer to arbitrarily disregard out of hand anything which doesn't agree with their belief just because they didn't believe it.
'belief' is not proof.
Perhaps the DMCA should require proof rather than belief, but changing the definition of perjury (just for the DMCA) would be a mistake.
Microsoft has no authority or power to punish its customers. Microsoft can punish itself by alienating its customers.
As for raising licensing fees. (going back to the original issue):
It is as you said. Microsoft is a business. Customers can leave if they want to (without moral justification). And Microsoft can raise licensing fees unilaterally without any moral justification. Very few customers who actually are in position to spend money ask for a moral justification for a price because they know better. They know that in a market based economy 'moral justification of product price' is just bullshit and spin.
Price is whatever the market is willing to pay. And that is influenced by the price and availability competing products, as well as the demand for the product in question.
Microsoft has a practical monopoly in its market. It only needs to compete against older versions of Windows. And with the introduction of new DRM based hardware, Microsoft appears to be hoping that old versions of windows will not have any hardware to run on, and will thus have 0 availability. Which will in turn allow microsoft to increase the price of the current generation of software.
Microsoft isn't holding back. Losing a lawsuit will not cause the price of software to increase. It will merely reduce the profit margin of a monopoly, guilty of violating anti-trust laws.
As an alternative resolution, we would find it acceptable if the pending patents were granted to a non-profit organization such as ISOC and licensed under sufficiently open terms.
This, OTOH, is a valid option and should be exercised but I highly doubt it will be for obvious reasons.
It still wouldn't enable the license to be compatible with the GPL.
I know this because I know the admin of the place through a friend, and he also had his personal server taken by the FBI as part of the raid. It was later returned to him, but at the time we were all angry because we thought it was unjustified.
What caused you to change your mind? Have you examined the original information used to obtain the warrant?
The fact was we didnt have all the information(which later it was told to me they were investigating DDoS attacks, which turned out to be true).
What they were investigation in and of itself doesn't justify a seizure. Only the information (reasonable grounds) they were acting on can justify it.
And you don't know what that is without looking at the original affidavits.
And if you have never examined the affidavits, then your current believe is more of a matter of faith rather than an objective conclusion.
With that said.. I'll say it again. I'm not saying anything wrong was done.
Just curious... what was improper about their warrant? When your business is literally shut down by a DDOS extortion racket.. what do you want the police to do? Nothing?
I didn't say anything was improper about their warrant. However, if the police intentionally went beyond what was authorized and ordered, or misrepresented the evidence in obtaining their warrant *that would be wrong*.
As to your second question. I want the police to obey and enforce the law to the best of their abilities.
What was it about their original method that was illegal?
I never said it was. I just said that *if* it was, it really doesn't matter after the fact that they happened to find something. It was wrong for the police to break the law. (if they did).
Nobody is above the law.. except criminals, who operate outside the law to begin with.
Where the did you pull that from? We put criminals in jail... why? THE LAW SAYS SO.
Or are you saying that the correct way for cops to enforce the law,is to become criminals themselves?
If we operate 100% by a set of rules and regulations, and leave nothing open to individual decision or responsibility, we end up paralyzed by beurocracy.
That argument is off topic. Obeying the law 100%, is not the same thing as operating 100% by the law. No one said police should act like robots, and only do exactly what they are told. However, where rules and regulations exist, a cop, just like everybody else, must obey them, or else the cop is violating the law. If there is no law governing the particular situtation, he can do whatever his little heart desires to get his job done.
Cops are the enforcement arm of the states power over individuals. Cops aren't on the job to have fun, or to spread joy. By definition, Cops, impose the might of the state into the private sector.
If the state is not governed by rules and regulations which they write themselves, how can the state morally punish individuals (criminals in your nomenclature) for violating those rules and regulations.
You have a double standard. You would gladly support any cops decision to prosecute anyone for a law which you agree with, and to break the law to investigate or stop activities which you dont like, but when people stand up and ask, "why are cops breaking the law?", you defend the criminal. Who in such a case would be the cop.
Police should *try their best* to uphold and enforce the law and be required to KNOW THE LAW, just as citizens and immigrants alike, are all expected to know the law.
The police are not a modern day equivalent to feudal knights or samurai. Police have no powers to judge or punish.
Violating the law, is not upholding. It is showing contempt.
It is the responsibility of the people to elect good politicians to write good laws. The cops are not out there to make their own laws because they disagree with the ones created by the people.
That is fine in a police state. Not a free democracy.
Shutting down a shitty little colo where there was strong evidence the colo was heavily involved in a serious crime (breaking into thousands of computers, stealing network resources, extortion, etc) is not a bad idea.
Who says the evidence is strong? The Cops? The complainant? Both these parties are biased. What if the evidence was weak? This is why cops don't write themselves their own search warrants.
If you are just looking for efficiency, why not just ask the suspect? I'm sure he would claim nothing wrong was going on. This would be most efficient.
So what means are justified in this situation? What could the FBI have done that would have satisfied you?
It would have satisfied me, if the FBI were open and forthright with a judge and obtained a proper warrant on reasonable grounds, based on reasonable and credible evidence, and based on reasonable grounds that seizure of all the computers in question was the only means of securing the evidence, and the grounds for believing in that evidence was also reasonable and presently openly and honestly to that judge in addidavit. If the judge came to that conclusion, and ordered the seizure. Then I would be happy if the FBI executed that order to the best of their ability with the minimum possible additional hardship on the parties involved.
I would be happy if the warrant did not leave the FBI with any discretion as to whether or not to seize the material. That should be for a judge to decide. Not a cop. The cops are not trained or expected to be unbiased. I would be happy if it was a judge who ordered such an infringement and not a cop.
Tell us how YOU would have approached this situation, knowing now that the suspects WERE doing something bad. How could the FBI have done anything or found evidence that could link them to the crime, without the bad guys erasing everything they had?
I would have put everything I knew about the situtation into an affidavit, and presented it to a judge. If the judge ordered me to seize the computers, I would have obeyed the order.
What is known post facto is irrelevant to the conduct the police should have used prior to and during the seizure.
Police should be polite. They should respect and obey the law. Especially the constitution, which is the highest law. They should not get personal about the situation, and they should absolutely remember COPS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR PUNISHMENT OR MAKING A FINDING OF GUILT.
I always see people talking about the government overstepping their bounds, yet offer no real solution that can actually catch bad guys red-handed. I mean, I kinda agree with you...I don't want the FBI breaking down someones door and taking away everything for no reason or because they "think" illegal activity may be going on. But I look at it from their point of view also, how are they going to catch people that don't play by the rules?
Check it out. lawmakers, are responsible for making sure cops have the necessary legal tools for enforcing the law that the lawmakers make.
Cops only need to follow the law, and use the legal tools lawmakers set up. NOTHING MORE.
Cops are not vigilantees. No one is above the law. Society can not distinguish between cops which break the law for personal gain and cops which break the law because they are trying to do good. Moreover, cops which play by the rules should be rewarded promotions.
Lawmakers must be able to craft good laws.
This is called "seperation of powers" and this is one of the things which keeps a democracy from turning into a tyranny.
Lawmakers don't enforce the law. Lawmakers don't interpret the law. Judges interpret law but do not make law. Cops obey law and enforce law but do not make law or interpret. Lawmakers make law, but do not interpret or judge or enforce.
If we gives cops the authority to unilaterally decide whose rights to violate, without a requirement to answer justify such violation, we are living in dangerous times.
I dont know the facts in the situation, so speculating on whether or not the FBI properly seized the computers is pointless. Since we still have a right to a fair trial (at least on paper), hopefully this can be explored at that time.
People are well justified in getting scared when they see the seperation of powers threatened.
My question is, will we now see a number of apologies from everybody who posted to the last article with Big Brother complaints and privacy concerns?
Just because someone commited an actual crime, you are suggesting Big Brother complaints are unwarranted?
I'm not sure which is the "last article" you referred to. So I can only comment generically.
Are you suggesting that this type of crime would have been impossible to investigate prior to Patriot Act (ect) removing judicial oversight and giving broad discretionary (read: arbitrary) powers to law enforcement. Or did the FBI abuse its power and happen to actually arrest someone by luck.
Or perhaps you are operating under the premise that prosecuting a handful of criminals is all that is necessary to justify the absolute infringment of the rights of all of society?
Here's an example of the FBI doing its damn job and doing it well, shutting down a major example of a new type of crime. Maybe we should give the FBI a little fucking credit sometimes, man. I mean, sometimes it's more than Hoover spreading rumors of homosexuality and harassing Black Panthers. Sometimes, they stop ACTUAL crimes, too.
Did the FBI shutdown an actual crime based on probable cause? Because this is absolutely nothing new to law enforcement. Probable cause has been the traditional standard required for an arrest/warrant or just about anything for years and years.
Or did the FBI shutdown a operation on the basis of a mere possibility. or out of plain malice. This is certainly worth criticism, and just because something turns out to be a crime after the fact does not and can not justify the original intrusion.
At least.. not without hypocracy in a country which purports to be free.
The FBI is not the only law enforcement agency which sometimes stops "actual" crimes. That is no reason to turn the entire country into a police state.
If you could post a link to the "last article" you were concerned about, that would be good.
In any event. before breaking out the champaign, it would be reasonable to wait for a conviction. For all we know the FBI are yet arresting another innocent person.
I'm sorry, I don't follow. How does MS asking you to mention their patent in your source cause any problem for the GPL? The GPL is quite clear that individual users must not need to apply for a patent license; that license must be royalty-free and transferable to anyone who uses the GPL'd code. Period. Microsoft's patent license appears to be royalty-free and transferable. They want their patent license in close proximity to your software license -- that's OK by the GPL, just bundle the two text files with your source, as you today bundle the GPL text file with your source.
You can't bundle GPL with your source and distribute it, unless you are distributing under the terms of the GPL and no other restrictions are imposed.
In order to derive software from Microsoft patent, Microsfot requires you to give them reciprocal rights on certain of your patents. You can not impose such a requirement on software if you are deriving it from other copyrighted material you are using under the GPL license.
The copyright holder expressly forbids it.
The GPL says:
You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
The microsoft software is not transferable to all third parties with no charge under the terms of the GPL. Only to a subset of third parties, namely people who agree to abide by specific additional stipulations of the microsoft license. Consequently the GPL would would not enable them to use the software unless they agreed to the additional microsoft terms. The GPL specifically does not allow you to add additional restrictions to the use of the software. The fact that those restrictions are from microsoft is not at all relevant.
If you want to add additional restrictions you have exceeded the license granted to you by the GPL, and you must obtain permission to derive from the authors, just like you would need to obtain permission in the case of any copyrighted work.
You may not revoke from the recipients of your GPL derived work, any rights the GPL granted to you, because the GPL only gave you license to distribute if you license as a whole the entire work under the GPL. The requirements of Microsofts license do not give all the same rights as those of the GPL and thus you can't impose microsofts license onto GPL work, and then use a GPL license to justify, what would be, copyright infringment against the copyright holders of the GPL software you are deriving from.
putting a sticker on a WMD or vial of SmallPox virus that says, "Not suitable for illegal purposes" doesn't make them any more legal. Simply because the manufacturer (or coder in our case) makes such a statement doesn't make it true, nor waive them of culpability for creation of such an item.
Agreed.
I was a lame attempt on my part to make fun of EULAs and their suitability disclaimers.
However, since you bring up the point, I'll bite: WMD's and Smallpox are things which are already defined in law to be illegal, irrespective of their suitibility to any particular purpose.
Software on the other hand, must be found suitable for illegal purposes by the courts before it would in fact be "illegal software" under the proposed law. And an explicit declaration of non suitibility would be evidence that the software experts who wrote the software, wrote it intentionally to be non-suitible for illegal purposes. At that point the software vendors can claim that if anyone managed to break a law using their software, they were using the software in a way they never intended the software to be used.
And by carefully reading the EULA, one would see that the authors did not actually *intend* the software to be used at all. Because a typical EULA makes it quite clear the software is not suitible for any particular purpose.
This INDUCE act, or even the DON'T INDUCE act, seems tantamount to censorship. Software has already been deemed to be literary expression.
"You've obviously never lived with a cat. They live in full 3d space, as apposed to dogs who live only on the ground plane. Just because there is more room for the cat and you to coexist doesn't mean your paths cross less often and all your glassware will stay in one piece."
Well, I live with both cat and dog. And my path crosses the cat less often than the dog. In fact sometimes I can't even find the cat.
And for that matter.. The dog has broken more glassware.
It would be interesting to see if this kind of action buys good will from the IBM shareholders towards the current IBM management.
I believe these actions do buy good will from customers. However, I think, it would be very bad publicity if IBM admitted any wrongdoing, so I don't think the action is a publicity stunt just to garner good will. I believe the consequences of losing will be very bad for IBM's reputation.
I think the point of the article, that parents should know how to use the computer and be aware of bullying by way of electronic communication was perfectly fair. Those experiences could be very miserable for children.
I am not talking about the long term consequences such teasing may have or may not have on children when they grow up. I'm talking about the suffering taking place in the present tense.
Parents who know how to use their computers could presumably impose the "ignore" feature against other children who are harassing their own.
I am not sure this is any worse than the traditional gossip mongering and name calling that took place back in the days when only nerds had computers.
However, just because the current bullying isn't worse, it doesn't mean that it isn't bad. I think many slashdotters may know what it was like to be bullied as a child.
But it would seem to me that with computer based communication it should be easier to track down and hold the bullies responsible for their bullying.
I still think back in the old days when bullies would physically beat up their victims, the victims had it worse, and there was often no real proof of what happened. And bully's are often great lyers as well.
The physical evidence this type of bullying leaves, provides of opportunity for intervention by parents and teachers.
"No, I think the Don't Induce act treats programming like it treats the creation of tangible goods. If there is no purpose served by the creation of an item but to break the law, then there is no reason to create *and* distribute it unless your intent is to either break the law yourself, or aid in the breaking of the law. Like it is not legal to manufacture smallpox in my basement, it should not be legal to create (particularly to distribute) software that can serve no legal purpose."
Couldn't software makers get around this by putting in the EULA a clause which stipulates that the software is not suitable for any illegal purpose?
Seems to have worked to disclaim responsibility for any legal purposes.
"The producer doesn't make any money from U.S. sales, but makes at least enough to pay for the film on foriegn distribution. Regional DVD's were most likely developed to keep the distributer from competing with the producer. Thus, if you buy a region free DVD player, you're stealing from the producer, not the big bad distributer everyone is complaining about. "
Your logic is backwards.
By your logic, you are stealing from the producer if you buy a legal NTSC 1 region encoded DVD. Either way the, the producer gets no money.
Likewise, if what you say it correct, then using a region free DVD player and then buying an international version of the movie is, rather than being "theft", the only way to send money to the producers of the movie.
for the record: I'm opposed to region encoding. Consumers have the legal right to import a copy of a DVD for personal use, and the region encoding deprives certain regions from the ability to ever get their hands on certain movies.
Students studying foreign languages, can't get access to versions of the movie dubbed into that foreign language. Tell me about fair use.
Slashdot Mirror
I will grant you that. There is nothing morally drastically different from 1 moment to the next during the development of the fetus (except for an increasing likely hood that the fetus will get to the point of actually appreciating its own existence). However that doesn't mean that a potential person has the same moral value as an actual person. And the moral calculus can not rest there.
I do not assign a moral value of 0 to potential people. They do have moral value.
I do not suggest that prior to a specific point in time, abortion is flat out a good thing.
There is an issue of weighing the harm caused to the woman by governmental imposition of child birth, and to all people in general by the fear of prosecution and fear of pregnancy which such a severe regime would cause, and the harm caused to the potential human being by abortion, and the harm caused to future potential human beings which are displaced by the birth of the non-aborted human being (who was saved by state prohibition of abortion).
We must also weigh the potential benefit of abortion to the life of the woman in question, and the benefit the abortion of 1 fetus, brings to the life of future potential children that woman will choose to bear (if the abortion is permitted), but will not bear if child birth is imposed.
we also must measure the value of allowing women to PLAN their families rather than having LUCK (and the strong arm of the law) impose a family decision on the woman involuntarily.
Anti-abortionists typically use a presumption that the number of pregnancies a woman will have in her life is fixed. When most women actually plan their life by a count of children rather than pregnancies.
That is, more woman plan to have X number of kids, rather than X number of pregnancies.
If you presume that a woman will get pregnant 3 times in her life *period* then any abortion is tantamount to murder. However, if you presume that a woman is actually more likely to have 3 children in her life *period*, then abortion is almost a non-event.
Since it is only the specific woman who knows which calculus she uses, only *she* is in a position to know which case is correct and whether abortion is "murder" for her.
We may be able to safe a specific fetus by banning abortion. But where does that leave the mother, and future not as yet conceived fetuses. Do you assign them a moral value of "0"?
As far as rape/incest being the extreme argument.
What of it.
You must still consider the moral weight of situation when formulating a conclusion.
And if the government wants to get involved in this moral calculation, then we must weigh how much harm the invasion of privacy will cause compared to the benefit. Would the government be in a better position to perform the moral calculus? That is very questionable. However I dont think anyone is seriously doubting that the invasion of privacy would be harmful.
My opinion is:
The act of abortion is somewhat wrong. But not wrong enough to warrant government prohibition.
To ban abortion in all cases you must be able to show that in the harm caused by lawful abortion and the benefit of prohibiting it outweigh the harm to women, and society and the potential benefit to the women and society by allowing them to make their own choice in private.
I wonder, how many women have an abortion and then go on to never have a child for the remainder of their life compared to how many women have at least 1 abortion and then later go on to carry a child to term willingly.
You are saying that a fetus is a baby because in a "natural" environment the fetus would become a baby. And I asked what relevance does naturality have, and you responded:
This is an answer to the idiotic statement a preborn baby is no different than a skin cell
And I'm still wondering what is the relevance of naturality?
You are putting that forward as a "moral difference" between an embryo and another "living" cell of the human body.
I didn't ask WHY you raise the issue of naturality, I challenged you to show the relevance, because my position is that "naturality" is not morally relevant.
With cloning, it would be possible to produce a human being from a living cell (you chose skin cell). If the cell has potential what difference does it make that it is a natural or an artificial process. The resultant "BABY" is still a baby.
Do you believe that cloned baby's are not human beings? Do you believe that cloned babies would not be happy to be alive and would wish they were dead or aborted?
And in 99.9999% of abortions a baby was put into the womb by the actions of said woman. I know this is a slight inconvenience but killing the baby is
not right for that reason.
So you concede then that killing babies who were conceived by the act of rape is morally correct?
And if killing a fetus (or baby as you like to call it) conceived by rape is correct, then this goes back to your issue of naturality. It also begs the questions.. if killing a fetus conceived by rape is correct, and you draw no distinction between a fetus and a child, then is it wrong to kill children conceived by rape *after* they are born?
Isn't an embryo conceived by rape still just as likely to become a baby in its "natural" environment?
And if you are raising the issue of the "Actions of said woman", I must ask you, why you are raising that issue? So what if the woman had sex. Does it matter? Why does that mean the woman has an obligation to a fetus that would otherwise never have existed? Would the fetus have preferred never to have been conceived in the first place?
Take an embryo put it in its natural environment what does it become?
what do you mean "natural environment"? And what relevence does naturality have?
The womb is a privately owned environment and it belongs to a particular female and no one else. The fact that the environment is natural or artificial does not change the fact that it is HER WOMB. It is her body.
I repeat: The womb is not a public space.
I said: Fetuses do not have a right to life because nothing in law gives fetuses a right to life.
you said:
Great circular logic, I think they used that for slavery. Slavery is ok because nothing in the law makes a slave a person.
I do believe the constitution needed to be ammended to make slavery illegal in America. (I'm not sure on that point. I'm not american) I dont know how it is a "circular" argument. The constitution is the legal document which lays out your rights is it not?
I was putting that forward for those who tried to use a purely constitutional and legal argument to justify their dream of a prohibition on abortion.
As far as the law is concerned. It is an accurate statement. I do believe it was the reason the supreme court upheld slavery. I don't think it was really the commonly used justification for slavery.
But so what?
Slaves did not live inside the wombs of their owners.
And mothers don't OWN the fetus.
The more generic question is, do you think that a fetus is alive? ...
Does a pinworm begin to be a separate life only when you pull it out of your body? My point is two fold. One, pinworms are killed mostly for self-defense. But at the same time, humans place much less worth on a pinworm than a human child.
A human child is not a fetus, and a fetus is not a human child. And if you are discussing a moral rights issue, then it really doesn't matter what "worth" anyone puts on the fetus or the pinworm. The pinworm has just as much moral right to live as a fetus. Your rights do not derive from what "worth" others place on you.
yes. I do think a fetus is alive. And so is a pinworm.
This is mostly because except in rare exception (rape), human conception is the intentional act of two people with the outcome being a desirable result (this from the biological, not necessarily sociological/logical sense).
How do you know the result was "desirable" in the specific case where abortion is the wish of the female. I would infer the probable conclusion that if the female wants an abortion, then pregnancy was probably NOT the desired result of the original sex.
If it was desired she would probably not want an abortion.
The last issue, rape, is by far the most troubling.
rape is most troubling. Most troubling to your hypothesis.
However, the fetus has the same rights regardless of whether or not it was rape. Because the fetus did not commit the rape.
As for the mothers rights. I do not see how the mother has diminished rights to her own body simply because sex was consentual. The mother has a right to have sex.
If the mother has a right to have sex, then she need not waive any other rights in order to exercise her sexual rights.
So the question is: Does a woman have a right to have sex?
I suggest from a strictly moral rights analysis, abortion should either be outlawed even in the case of rape, or it should be allowed even in the case of consentual sex.
I dont really see the argument being made to explain how it is OK to abort a rape induced fetus, if it is not OK to abort a fetus induced by other means.
It is certainly unfair on the victim for their genetic material to be stolen and their bodily possibly used for growth (men can be raped, which removes the latter; it's still conceivably a question of granting abortion, given the genetic code was stolen). But, it's not the government that is raping the woman/man, so it's not they who are violating the man/woman's body, so it doesn't seem like the government has the right to impose some choice on the interaction of two individuals. The only reasoning I can gather is the government could force the removal on the grounds of "ill-gotten gains". But, I truly can't morally resolve this disturbing issue. I am only glad that this is the exception rather than the rule.
1) No pro-choicers are arguing that the government or anyone has a right to impose an abortion on a woman.
The debate is whether or not to let women choose to have an abortion or whether to impose pregnancy and child birth on the woman.
Actually the debate is over. The woman does have such a right. It is the pro-lifers who keep trying to bring the debate back to life.
2) It is very commendable of you to admit you can't resolve that particular moral question (abortion in cases of rape). However, it does behoove lawmakers to account for it, before trying to revoke a womans rights on her own body.
But if your moral hypothesis leads to a contradiction or a problem in a particular case, this is a strong hint that your moral hypothesis itself is questionable or wrong.
I suggest that the essential question is not merely "Is a fetus alive?".
You still didn't answer my question.
When does "personhood" start?
Unless you're a person who thinks that it happens when a baby is taken out of it's mother (which would seem to be awfully arbitrary), you are forced to the conclusion that it happens sometime in the womb. At what point does that happen?
You are right. I didn't answer that question.
I did however state that:
"even if a fetus has a right to life. That right is not absolute and does not outweigh the rights of the mother. "
In another message I submitted that even if a fetus was a person, that would not automatically decide that abortion is immoral.
As for your question. When does personhood start?
In so far as it is not a decisive factor to the issue of abortion, I am not unwilling to admit, I dont know if I can answer that question right now.
But I have a feeling it is sometime after the time the fetus would survive if it was removed from the mother's body.
And the removal of that fetus with the mothers consent, should not be illegal. (before or after that time).
Both the fetus and the mother have rights.
But to the question of who has rights on the mothers own body. I believe everyone has more rights on their own body than any other person does.
I think killing is wrong. But if you must kill to defend yourself you have the right to do so.
It's not obvious where yo draw the line.
Agreed. Although "law" is filled with arbitrary points. You must be 18 to vote, 21 to drink(some places), 35 to be president.
An arbitrary point can be chosen based on some scientific/legal rational. At that point a fetus can be granted "human" or "person" status. However, at that point, the mother still should not automatically relenquish all rights to her body.
There is a weighing of harm, just as in all other cases where the rights of 2 people infringe on one another. The unborn "person" (if personhood is defined to occur at some time prior to birth) does not have absolute rights. There are 2 parties involved.
I do not think most pro-choicers advocate that abortion should be legal up until moment the umbilical cord is cut.
I would argue against that position.
But I also argue against the position that a fetus has a right to life which outweighs the mothers right to self-defend from the instant of conception.
I also do not think a fetus is automatically a human being just because of its potential to be born.
Any more than I think a living person is a corpse (just because they have the potential to become a corpse).
Okay then. When does "personhood" start? Does a human who's been reduced to a parapalegic vegetable count as a person? They contribute less to society than a fetus because the fetus at least has potential. Would it be murder to walk into the nearest hospital and yank the plug on some permanently comatose person? Of course it would.
Actually it would not.
In most places it is not murder to turn off life support of a person in such a state as you describe. This may or may not be contingent on whether you were the one who put them on life support in the first place. It is probably a crime to go into a hospital and arbitrarily interfere with someones else's life support system. But "yanking the plug" can be done, and it *IS DONE* every day in the United States and other countries.
Likewise, there is no legal obligation to put such a sick person on life support in the first place. It is not murder to refuse to provide treatment.
The fact that they are a vegetable or not, is not relevant. Yanking the plug on a healthy person, or a person who is unaware is not murder, unless the act of yanking was somehow the cause of death.
You are raising an unrelated issue. A "person" who has been reduced to a parapalegic vegetable is still a person until they are legally dead. And until they are legally deceased, they continue to be a person in law.
Personhood has nothing to do with your contribution to society. If contributing to society was a requirement, then we would be able to simply "Abort" many millions of people world wide who we deem to be not contributing.
I just do not see how someone can do "moral math" and come out with any sort of justification for this. I would argue that a fetus has just as much right to life as you, I, or anyone else.
Anyone else or anything else?
If a fetus is not a person, then your statement does not apply to fetuses.
If you apply your statement to non people then you must apply it individually to each and every single cell in your entire body, as well as to plants, animals and perhaps fungus. Otherwise you would need to justify why a fetus has more right to life than a fungus.
Or you would need to argue a fetus is a person, and explain why you hold this position. (you haven't explained).
It is a commonly held belief that murderers and terrorists have a reduced right to life.
Many anti-abortionists are also pro-capital punishment.
Rights are granted by law. Fetuses do not have the right to life. Because the law does not recognize fetuses as persons. Be this wrong or right it is the law.
However, even if a fetus has a right to life. That right is not absolute and does not outweigh the rights of the mother. Unless the fetuses rights are superior to human rights, in which case a fetus must not be a human.
You just have to accept that the right to defend ones own life surpasses the rights of any other person to impose harm or misery on you. And if the only possible means to end the harm or misery is to end the relationship with that other person then you can try to end that relationship. If you can accept that is being possibly moral, then you have to come to the table and admit in certain cases abortion is morally correct.
The death of the fetus should not be the goal of abortion. (and where death is the goal, that would be immoral). However the discontinuation of the harmful relationship seems like a legitimate goal of self defense.
If the fetus can be saved, and someone is willing to pay for it then the fetus should be saved. However, the obligation to save the fetus after aborting the pregnancy is a whole seperate issue for discussion.
Denying that means that you have to justify what makes one life more meaningful than another and *THAT* is a slipperly slope if I've ever heard of one.
I never said a person needs to justify their right to life. The fact of being a person gives them that right by la
When does life start exactly?
I dont think pro choicers are arguing that fetuses are not alive. It isn't so simple.
If the fetuses was an alien infection implanted via airborn spores, would you say abortion is wrong?
The question should be "when does human life start?".
Or more in legal terms, at what point does a fetus become a person? But even that is a trivialization.
Seeing as there is no scientific argument to extend the point of becoming a person all the back to the moment of conception, banning abortion is a religious issue.
If you argue that a person is created at conception on some type of scientific grounds, then it is only a matter of lack of technology that we dont classify every single cell of the human body to be a person. Having a biopsy would be murder.
Does a fetus have the right to life? Does that right to life include the right to infringe on the mothers right to life, liberty, privacy and security of person (including self defence). How much infringement is permissible?
Fetuses do not have a right to life because nothing in law gives fetuses a right to life. Mothers do have a well established right to self defence.
If fetuses are persons, they could still be aborted out of self defence. But even if fetuses are granted a right to life, that does not automatically mean abortion must be prohibited.
The bottom line is that a fetus causes harm to the mother. If a human being has a right to protect themselves from harm why should that right be abrogated when the source of harm is a fetus?
And if the fetus was the result of rape or incest, as opposed to consentual sex. Why does *rape/incest* caused fetus have fewer rights than the fetus resulting from consentual sex. Neither fetus was a party to the original rape or sex and neither fetus is more or less blaimworthy.
Or do you feel the woman is more blaimworthy if she consents to sex?
We know that sex is immoral. They told us so in church.
Just like many other crimes, to be guilty of perjury, a person must typically have willful intent or at a bare minimum, knowledge.
Good faith belief is a higher standard than mere belief. So if the DMCA requires good faith, this is a good thing. (that is to say the words "good faith" didn't lower the standard themselves).
It is not enough to simply claim good faith, for good faith to exist. good faith must be based on some kind objective reasons and you are not simply choosing to believe something because you have a vested interest in believing your competition is violating your copyright and accusing them of doing so.
Without a good faith requirement, then someone could simply 'choose' to believe as an act of free will, and claim whatever the hell they want.
I was under the impression that historically a defence against any charge of perjury has always been 'belief' or 'good faith belief'. In fact I was under the impression that perjury was knowingly making a false statement under oath.
Does the DMCA lower the standards of perjury?
let me tell you, "good faith" is a pretty loose standanrd.
"good faith belief" is pretty loose. But it is less loose than "bad faith belief". We all have the right to believe whatever we want to, but that doesn't make any belief automatically 'good faith'.
I believe that "good faith belief" does put some burden on the believer to at least consider any information they have which should lead them to question or doubt their belief, and have an excuse prepared as to why they disregarded it. Whereas simple belief allows the believer to arbitrarily disregard out of hand anything which doesn't agree with their belief just because they didn't believe it.
'belief' is not proof.
Perhaps the DMCA should require proof rather than belief, but changing the definition of perjury (just for the DMCA) would be a mistake.
Just to be clear: I am opposed to the DMCA.
Microsoft has no authority or power to punish its customers. Microsoft can punish itself by alienating its customers.
As for raising licensing fees. (going back to the original issue):
It is as you said. Microsoft is a business. Customers can leave if they want to (without moral justification). And Microsoft can raise licensing fees unilaterally without any moral justification. Very few customers who actually are in position to spend money ask for a moral justification for a price because they know better. They know that in a market based economy 'moral justification of product price' is just bullshit and spin.
Price is whatever the market is willing to pay.
And that is influenced by the price and availability competing products, as well as the demand for the product in question.
Microsoft has a practical monopoly in its market. It only needs to compete against older versions of Windows. And with the introduction of new DRM based hardware, Microsoft appears to be hoping that old versions of windows will not have any hardware to run on, and will thus have 0 availability. Which will in turn allow microsoft to increase the price of the current generation of software.
Microsoft isn't holding back. Losing a lawsuit will not cause the price of software to increase. It will merely reduce the profit margin of a monopoly, guilty of violating anti-trust laws.
I always felt that if the government continued to pursue their case against MSFT they would only pay for it in higher licensing fees later.
What would be the reason that licensing fees would go up? (as opposed to if the government didn't pursue their case against MSFT)
Do you mean to say you believe that software licensing fees are somehow proportionate to cost?
As an alternative resolution, we would find it acceptable if the pending patents were granted to a non-profit organization such as ISOC and licensed under sufficiently open
terms.
This, OTOH, is a valid option and should be exercised but I highly doubt it will be for obvious reasons.
It still wouldn't enable the license to be compatible with the GPL.
I know this because I know the admin of the place through a friend, and he also had his personal server taken by the FBI as part of the raid. It was later returned to him, but at the time we were all angry because we thought it was unjustified.
What caused you to change your mind?
Have you examined the original information used to obtain the warrant?
The fact was we didnt have all the information(which later it was told to me they were investigating DDoS attacks, which turned out to be true).
What they were investigation in and of itself doesn't justify a seizure. Only the information (reasonable grounds) they were acting on can justify it.
And you don't know what that is without looking at the original affidavits.
And if you have never examined the affidavits, then your current believe is more of a matter of faith rather than an objective conclusion.
With that said.. I'll say it again. I'm not saying anything wrong was done.
Just curious... what was improper about their warrant? When your business is literally shut down by a DDOS extortion racket.. what do you want the police to do? Nothing?
I didn't say anything was improper about their warrant. However, if the police intentionally went beyond what was authorized and ordered, or misrepresented the evidence in obtaining their warrant *that would be wrong*.
As to your second question. I want the police to obey and enforce the law to the best of their abilities.
What was it about their original method that was illegal?
I never said it was. I just said that *if* it was, it really doesn't matter after the fact that they happened to find something. It was wrong for the police to break the law. (if they did).
Nobody is above the law.. except criminals, who operate outside the law to begin with.
Where the did you pull that from? We put criminals in jail... why? THE LAW SAYS SO.
Or are you saying that the correct way for cops to enforce the law,is to become criminals themselves?
If we operate 100% by a set of rules and regulations, and leave nothing open to individual decision or responsibility, we end up paralyzed by beurocracy.
That argument is off topic. Obeying the law 100%, is not the same thing as operating 100% by the law.
No one said police should act like robots, and only do exactly what they are told. However, where rules and regulations exist, a cop, just like everybody else, must obey them, or else the cop is violating the law. If there is no law governing the particular situtation, he can do whatever his little heart desires to get his job done.
Cops are the enforcement arm of the states power over individuals. Cops aren't on the job to have fun, or to spread joy. By definition, Cops, impose the might of the state into the private sector.
If the state is not governed by rules and regulations which they write themselves, how can the state morally punish individuals (criminals in your nomenclature) for violating those rules and regulations.
You have a double standard. You would gladly support any cops decision to prosecute anyone for a law which you agree with, and to break the law to investigate or stop activities which you dont like, but when people stand up and ask, "why are cops breaking the law?", you defend the criminal.
Who in such a case would be the cop.
Police should *try their best* to uphold and enforce the law and be required to KNOW THE LAW, just as citizens and immigrants alike, are all expected to know the law.
The police are not a modern day equivalent to feudal knights or samurai. Police have no powers to judge or punish.
Violating the law, is not upholding. It is showing contempt.
It is the responsibility of the people to elect good politicians to write good laws. The cops are not out there to make their own laws because they disagree with the ones created by the people.
That is fine in a police state. Not a free democracy.
Shutting down a shitty little colo where there was strong evidence the colo was heavily involved in a serious crime (breaking into thousands of computers, stealing network resources, extortion, etc) is not a bad idea.
Who says the evidence is strong? The Cops? The complainant? Both these parties are biased.
What if the evidence was weak? This is why cops don't write themselves their own search warrants.
If you are just looking for efficiency, why not just ask the suspect? I'm sure he would claim nothing wrong was going on. This would be most efficient.
So what means are justified in this situation? What could the FBI have done that would have satisfied you?
It would have satisfied me, if the FBI were open and forthright with a judge and obtained a proper warrant on reasonable grounds, based on reasonable and credible evidence, and based on reasonable grounds that seizure of all the computers in question was the only means of securing the evidence, and the grounds for believing in that evidence was also reasonable and presently openly and honestly to that judge in addidavit. If the judge came to that conclusion, and ordered the seizure. Then I would be happy if the FBI executed that order to the best of their ability with the minimum possible additional hardship on the parties involved.
I would be happy if the warrant did not leave the FBI with any discretion as to whether or not to seize the material. That should be for a judge to decide. Not a cop. The cops are not trained or expected to be unbiased. I would be happy if it was a judge who ordered such an infringement and not a cop.
Tell us how YOU would have approached this situation, knowing now that the suspects WERE doing something bad. How could the FBI have done anything or found evidence that could link them to the crime, without the bad guys erasing everything they had?
I would have put everything I knew about the situtation into an affidavit, and presented it to a judge. If the judge ordered me to seize the computers, I would have obeyed the order.
What is known post facto is irrelevant to the conduct the police should have used prior to and during the seizure.
Police should be polite. They should respect and obey the law. Especially the constitution, which is the highest law. They should not get personal about the situation, and they should absolutely remember COPS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR PUNISHMENT OR MAKING A FINDING OF GUILT.
I always see people talking about the government overstepping their bounds, yet offer no real solution that can actually catch bad guys red-handed. I mean, I kinda agree with you...I don't want the FBI breaking down someones door and taking away everything for no reason or because they "think" illegal activity may be going on. But I look at it from their point of view also, how are they going to catch people that don't play by the rules?
Check it out. lawmakers, are responsible for making sure cops have the necessary legal tools for enforcing the law that the lawmakers make.
Cops only need to follow the law, and use the legal tools lawmakers set up. NOTHING MORE.
Cops are not vigilantees. No one is above the law. Society can not distinguish between cops which break the law for personal gain and cops which break the law because they are trying to do good. Moreover, cops which play by the rules should be rewarded promotions.
Lawmakers must be able to craft good laws.
This is called "seperation of powers" and this is one of the things which keeps a democracy from turning into a tyranny.
Lawmakers don't enforce the law. Lawmakers don't interpret the law. Judges interpret law but do not make law. Cops obey law and enforce law but do not make law or interpret. Lawmakers make law, but do not interpret or judge or enforce.
If we gives cops the authority to unilaterally decide whose rights to violate, without a requirement to answer justify such violation, we are living in dangerous times.
I dont know the facts in the situation, so speculating on whether or not the FBI properly seized the computers is pointless. Since we still have a right to a fair trial (at least on paper), hopefully this can be explored at that time.
People are well justified in getting scared when they see the seperation of powers threatened.
"just following orders"
is usually considered to be a mitigating circumstance, even where it is not considered a full defence.
My question is, will we now see a number of apologies from everybody who posted to the last article with Big Brother complaints and privacy concerns?
Just because someone commited an actual crime, you are suggesting Big Brother complaints are unwarranted?
I'm not sure which is the "last article" you referred to. So I can only comment generically.
Are you suggesting that this type of crime would have been impossible to investigate prior to Patriot Act (ect) removing judicial oversight and giving broad discretionary (read: arbitrary) powers to law enforcement. Or did the FBI abuse its power and happen to actually arrest someone by luck.
Or perhaps you are operating under the premise that prosecuting a handful of criminals is all that is necessary to justify the absolute infringment of the rights of all of society?
Here's an example of the FBI doing its damn job and doing it well, shutting down a major example of a new type of crime. Maybe we should give the FBI a little fucking credit sometimes, man. I mean, sometimes it's more than Hoover spreading rumors of homosexuality and harassing Black Panthers. Sometimes, they stop ACTUAL crimes, too.
Did the FBI shutdown an actual crime based on probable cause? Because this is absolutely nothing new to law enforcement. Probable cause has been the traditional standard required for an arrest/warrant or just about anything for years and years.
Or did the FBI shutdown a operation on the basis of a mere possibility. or out of plain malice. This is certainly worth criticism, and just because something turns out to be a crime after the fact does not and can not justify the original intrusion.
At least.. not without hypocracy in a country which purports to be free.
The FBI is not the only law enforcement agency which sometimes stops "actual" crimes. That is no reason to turn the entire country into a police state.
If you could post a link to the "last article" you were concerned about, that would be good.
In any event. before breaking out the champaign, it would be reasonable to wait for a conviction.
For all we know the FBI are yet arresting another innocent person.
I'm sorry, I don't follow. How does MS asking you to mention their patent in your source cause any problem for the GPL? The GPL is quite clear that individual users must not need to apply for a patent license; that license must be royalty-free and transferable to anyone who uses the GPL'd code. Period. Microsoft's patent license appears to be royalty-free and transferable. They want their patent license in close proximity to your software license -- that's OK by the GPL, just bundle the two text files with your source, as you today bundle the GPL text file with your source.
You can't bundle GPL with your source and distribute it, unless you are distributing under the terms of the GPL and no other restrictions are imposed.
In order to derive software from Microsoft patent, Microsfot requires you to give them reciprocal rights on certain of your patents. You can not impose such a requirement on software if you are deriving it from other copyrighted material you are using under the GPL license.
The copyright holder expressly forbids it.
The GPL says:
You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
The microsoft software is not transferable to all third parties with no charge under the terms of the GPL. Only to a subset of third parties, namely people who agree to abide by specific additional stipulations of the microsoft license. Consequently the GPL would would not enable them to use the software unless they agreed to the additional microsoft terms. The GPL specifically does not allow you to add additional restrictions to the use of the software. The fact that those restrictions are from microsoft is not at all relevant.
If you want to add additional restrictions you have exceeded the license granted to you by the GPL, and you must obtain permission to derive from the authors, just like you would need to obtain permission in the case of any copyrighted work.
You may not revoke from the recipients of your GPL derived work, any rights the GPL granted to you, because the GPL only gave you license to distribute if you license as a whole the entire work under the GPL. The requirements of Microsofts license do not give all the same rights as those of the GPL and thus you can't impose microsofts license onto GPL work, and then use a GPL license to justify, what would be, copyright infringment against the copyright holders of the GPL software you are deriving from.
putting a sticker on a WMD or vial of SmallPox virus that says, "Not suitable for illegal purposes" doesn't make them any more legal. Simply because the manufacturer (or coder in our case) makes such a statement doesn't make it true, nor waive them of culpability for creation of such an item.
Agreed.
I was a lame attempt on my part to make fun of EULAs and their suitability disclaimers.
However, since you bring up the point, I'll bite:
WMD's and Smallpox are things which are already defined in law to be illegal, irrespective of their suitibility to any particular purpose.
Software on the other hand, must be found suitable for illegal purposes by the courts before it would in fact be "illegal software" under the proposed law. And an explicit declaration of non suitibility would be evidence that the software experts who wrote the software, wrote it intentionally to be non-suitible for illegal purposes. At that point the software vendors can claim that if anyone managed to break a law using their software, they were using the software in a way they never intended the software to be used.
And by carefully reading the EULA, one would see that the authors did not actually *intend* the software to be used at all. Because a typical EULA makes it quite clear the software is not suitible for any particular purpose.
This INDUCE act, or even the DON'T INDUCE act, seems tantamount to censorship. Software has already been deemed to be literary expression.
If it doesn't drive on a highway, why are we calling it a flying "car"?
It isn't a car. Its an aircraft.
Calling it a "car" isn't going to make it any more likely to sell, nor will it change the licensing requirements to operate it.
"You've obviously never lived with a cat. They live in full 3d space, as apposed to dogs who live only on the ground plane. Just because there is more room for the cat and you to coexist doesn't mean your paths cross less often and all your glassware will stay in one piece."
Well, I live with both cat and dog. And my path crosses the cat less often than the dog. In fact sometimes I can't even find the cat.
And for that matter.. The dog has broken more glassware.
What does any of that prove about flying cars?
It would be interesting to see if this kind of action buys good will from the IBM shareholders towards the current IBM management.
I believe these actions do buy good will from customers. However, I think, it would be very bad publicity if IBM admitted any wrongdoing, so I don't think the action is a publicity stunt just to garner good will. I believe the consequences of losing will be very bad for IBM's reputation.
I think the point of the article, that parents should know how to use the computer and be aware of bullying by way of electronic communication was perfectly fair. Those experiences could be very miserable for children.
I am not talking about the long term consequences such teasing may have or may not have on children when they grow up. I'm talking about the suffering taking place in the present tense.
Parents who know how to use their computers could presumably impose the "ignore" feature against other children who are harassing their own.
I am not sure this is any worse than the traditional gossip mongering and name calling that took place back in the days when only nerds had computers.
However, just because the current bullying isn't worse, it doesn't mean that it isn't bad. I think many slashdotters may know what it was like to be bullied as a child.
But it would seem to me that with computer based communication it should be easier to track down and hold the bullies responsible for their bullying.
I still think back in the old days when bullies would physically beat up their victims, the victims had it worse, and there was often no real proof of what happened. And bully's are often great lyers as well.
The physical evidence this type of bullying leaves, provides of opportunity for intervention by parents and teachers.
Anyway... the article was pretty fair. IMHO
"No, I think the Don't Induce act treats programming like it treats the creation of tangible goods. If there is no purpose served by the creation of an item but to break the law, then there is no reason to create *and* distribute it unless your intent is to either break the law yourself, or aid in the breaking of the law. Like it is not legal to manufacture smallpox in my basement, it should not be legal to create (particularly to distribute) software that can serve no legal purpose."
Couldn't software makers get around this by putting in the EULA a clause which stipulates that the software is not suitable for any illegal purpose?
Seems to have worked to disclaim responsibility for any legal purposes.
"The producer doesn't make any money from U.S. sales, but makes at least enough to pay for the film on foriegn distribution. Regional DVD's were most likely developed to keep the distributer from competing with the producer. Thus, if you buy a region free DVD player, you're stealing from the producer, not the big bad distributer everyone is complaining about. "
Your logic is backwards.
By your logic, you are stealing from the producer if you buy a legal NTSC 1 region encoded DVD. Either way the, the producer gets no money.
Likewise, if what you say it correct, then using a region free DVD player and then buying an international version of the movie is, rather than being "theft", the only way to send money to the producers of the movie.
for the record: I'm opposed to region encoding. Consumers have the legal right to import a copy of a DVD for personal use, and the region encoding deprives certain regions from the ability to ever get their hands on certain movies.
Students studying foreign languages, can't get access to versions of the movie dubbed into that foreign language. Tell me about fair use.