Politics

Lessig responds to Dave (original). Dave fails to get it (original). There’s a marked difference between supporting copyright for software in a modified form, and not supporting it at all, Dave.

Declan McCullagh is on some strange Californian “let’s just relax” vibe lately; first it was his suggestion that geeks should ignore politics (original), and then his suggestion that the DMCA isn’t so bad (original). The first one, OK, I can see the argument that geeks are better suited to create social change by writing code… although his example is flawed, since Zimmerman went through a ton of political process to avoid being arrested. Declan also forgets the sad case of anon.penet.fi, which was effectively shut down by political pressures. It’s a shame Julf Helsingius didn’t worry more about the politics, no? ...

The BBC had an article about interesting multi-region DVD players, which perhaps holds clues about the inevitable clash between the people who make content and the people who make devices to display that content. If DVD manufacturers can’t hold the multi-region line, what are the chances that computer makers will care long-term about Hollywood’s digital rights management demands?

Tammy Baldwin appears to be fairly sensible for a politician.

Wired does an admirable job of covering the laws regarding air travel and government ID. In short, it appears to be the case that the airlines must request a valid form of ID, but it is not the case that the airlines must turn away a passenger who does not present a valid form of ID. Airlines can, of course, refuse to allow passengers to board for any reason.

The kind of person who browses weblogs has already heard about Lawrence Lessig’s brilliant copyright presentation, but sometimes you want to make really sure the meme has spread widely. This is important. It’s an eight gigabyte Flash animation and it will take half an hour of your day but it actually contains information and concepts you want to hear about. Cure for the common complacency, you know?

Delaware Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden; Wisconsin Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner; Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott; Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers; North Carolina Republican Rep. Howard Coble; and California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. What do they have in common? Those are the Congressmen who signed a letter asking the Justice Department to aggressively prosecute people who download copyrighted music files. Cause jail time for MP3 downloading is so very appropriate.

Very cool blog covering appellate litigation. Quite informative. Covers all kinds of interesting legal cases so much better than I ever could.

While I’m on the subject, Judge Kessler’s decision is now available from FindLaw. It’s a PDF document. It warms my heart: “Difficult times such as these have always tested our fidelity to the core democratic values of openness, government accountability, and the rule of law. The Court fully understands and appreciates that the first priority of the executive branch in a time of crisis is to ensure the physical security of its citizens. By the same token, the first priority of the judicial branch must be to ensure that our Government always operates within the statutory and constitutional constraints which distinguish a democracy from a dictatorship.” ...

The U.S. government is, of course, unhappy about naming the 9/11-related detainees (original). For some reason, admitting who’s been arrested would impair the course of justice. This sort of thing has been a habit for the government this week. (Previous post on this subject here.)