I'm beginning to understand where the tea party is coming from
 

Not bad enough the new gate rape laws, now this from a part of TSA:

Homeland Security Presents 'Evidence' For Domain Seizures; Proves It Knows Little About The Internet - Or The Law

All under the unbiased hand of the MPAA, of course.

That case is sad. Most mind-boggling of all is that a judge signed off on the warrant. I wish there was a way that we could require judges to get some education about the internet.

Trevor

The word "recuse" comes to mind, Trevor. It seems to me that an ethical judge should refuse to rule on a case or sign off on a warrant they don't understand. There's no shame in not knowing everything.

By the way, I'm not sure what is true and what isn't in this case. Perhaps someone is spreading FUD, perhaps not. But there are several blogs now reporting that torrent-finder.com took down it's own web page and put up the "This domain name has been seized by ICE" graphic themselves to scam the web.

Torrent Finder Uses Homeland Security Site Seizures To Con The Web

Trevor

Well then, this: US IP Czar Gets Companies To Cut Off Unlicensed Online Pharmacies. What bothers me about both of these are two things: In the first case, what business is it of TSA's, and why do they just take the industry's word? In the second, while it's ostensibly a good thing to shut down unlicensed pharmaceuticals, they are doing so with absolutely no due process, and then persuading MasterCard, Visa, Paypal, etc. to join the fray. That's censorship, pure and simple. Right in there with Wikileaks. Further, see this: US Government Talks The Talk On Privacy & Civil Liberties, But Isn't Walking The Walk outlining 4th amendment abuses.

One thing that bothers me about this whole piracy kills jobs and steals money out of people's pocket philosophy is that no one ever actually realizes that a corporations amount of profits does not equal more jobs.

If a company can make 50 million dollars more a year with the same amount of employees it is going to do so, with out hiring more people. They will hire people as needed. It is sort of a logical fallacy to say that piracy costs all this money and jobs, when in reality if piracy did not exist over half the pirates out there would not buy the media they are referring to anyway.

It is the same logical fallacy of not reaching potential profits equals to loss of revenue. Several jobs ago I was in the private sector of IT services. We did mostly low level tech work (hardware repair, warranty, maintenance, custom builds, etc) and every company out there has their own grading system. They grade you on turn around time, proper diagnostics, first time fix, and so forth. Depending on your grade depends on how much you got paid for your warranty claim and it was a sliding scale. So, at the end of the month you subtract your overhead (salary, utilities, tools, rent, etc.) and then compare it to your total amount of money you took in. Well, lets say I (and they did individual tech reports) that I made 100 claims in one month. Out of those 100 claims 60% paid 100%, 30% paid 85%, and 10% paid 75%. Even though in my report it shows my salary for that month, my percentage of rent, utilities and all other overhead costs and then compares it to what my total of what I brought in for the company. These reports is what our bonus pay was based on since we did not get commission we got bonus pay instead. It would show that I did not net 100% in all my claims, therefore I lost the company $20,000 of potential profits (just tossing a number out there) however I still gained profit, and it was profit that paid for overhead and then some. However, the genius guy that ran our department saw that as a loss, of fake potential money. There were shops in the company that were 100s of thousands of dollars in debt, but actually still making profit, just not all the profit they could.

This is the same logical fallacy these companies use to describe online file sharing. If some 12 year old kid downloads 5,000 songs, his parents probably won't go out and buy him 500 CDs at $14 each, and since the kid is 12 they cannot afford it. Therefore, if online file sharing did not exist, those sales are a moot point because the user couldn't afford to buy them anyway.

Really, it is only not giving corporations as much money as they would like when you get down to it. Considering everyone else involved in Music/Movies/TV only gets fractions of a sale of a CD/DVD and the bulk of it goes to the publishing corporation they are the only ones not making that much money.

I honestly think that if these corporations worked harder at producing a better product it would sell more, period, instead of wasting time with online file sharing. If technology companies stopped worrying what the other guy is doing and concentrate on their own product they would not need to worry what they other guy is doing as much as they do.

I stopped carrying actual CDs in my car after it got broken into and 4 out-of-print un-replaceable CDs got stolen. I now only carry burned CDs. In fact, when I buy a CD I do 2 things with it. 1) rip it to my computer and 2) place it back in it's case and store it in a box in my closet.

Now add all of that on top of some total incompetence when it comes to both reality and technology and you get a mess like the link Nova posted.

Well, it's going to get worst. As we start to take away the 1st amendments rights of the citizens, we are allowing more first amendment rights of these same corporations. Alas, the supreme courts gives unlimited spending rights to corporations in an election year. So you see, we are slowly becoming an oligarchy. So for now, it's music but it will soon spread to books and anything else in a digital format. This is what MPAA, tech companies, internet companies are fighting for, to control the digital world. And to be frank, I'm not sure if there's anything we can do about it.

The shame of that is that throughout the industrial age we've had new technology slowly taken over by large corporations, often with government collusion, only to be broken up again when the inevitable abuses began. The telephone, for example, began as a bunch of regional companies that slowly converged into Ma Bell only to be broken up later. Radio was originally a free-for-all of small indies that were gradually (with FCC prompting) converged into NBC & CBS, later ABC (which had been owned by NBC). Television was a working technology long before we could see it -- we had to wait for RCA (the owners of NBC) to catch up. Now it's diverged into cable networks, satellite networks and broadcast networks who are all fighting over control of Internet video.

The Internet as we know it is the only medium in a long time to have remained "open" as long as it has, but we're already seeing Comcast and ATT (who own most of the backbone) starting to throttle the competition however much they deny it, particularly if they have a competing product. That's why network neutrality is so important in my view.

Late Addition: I guess we're not going to get net neutrality after all -- the FCC has caved -- Net neutrality plan has the votes at FCC to enact Julius Genachowski's toothless plan.

Time to write my representatives in government I suppose.

I do that on a regular basis. Bottom line, though, is if you want to have a voice you need to build an organization with lots of members who share your views, fund the organization, and hire your own lobbyist. Until your lobbyist can walk into the elected officials office backed by a significant voting block and be fully willing and able to donate, you/we don't have a chance.

Remember, most all elections are decided by a margin less than 5 percent..... you don't need millions of voters, you need a dedicated few who will vote and vote the organization's official line.

An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. (You need only appear to have the votes.):)

I actually looked at the stimulus packages out there for start up ISPs, the only problem is that they were for start up ISPs in small towns for wireless internet where broad band is not available and I am just not a small town person, and you cannot really run a start up company from miles and miles away from your business.

I actually have been thinking about starting up some sort of non for profit group, but it was going to be more tech and open source sort of thing, but maybe because of this, wikileaks, and giant content and telecom companies wanting to team together maybe I should try to shift my idea into something else.

Just as a point of order, the ignorance of judges in criminal cases is central to the American judicial system. The idea is that the judge should know nothing except what the prosecution and the defense tell them, this helps reduce judge bias, and allows individual parties to defend themselves in their own way.

That being said, warrants are not often subject to cross examination. I can't help but wonder if this practice needs to be changed, especially in cases like this where the subject can be difficult to understand.

It just keeps on coming..... Full Homeland Security Affidavit To Seize Domains Riddled With Technical & Legal Errors

Saw this shocking statistic today....
 

The TSA was "never intended to be an army of 67,000 employees"

Probably more.

I'm curious whether Canada will get the same reputation later on - or whether it already has :eek:

Doubtful. Internationally, Canada enjoys a fabulous reputation.

Trevor

You know, I'm starting to dislike flying. When I was a kid, I hated the plane itself - small, cramped and boring. Now I'm hating the security area even more. The story below expresses a part of why I don't enjoy flying.

This summer, I was only 13. I was scheduled for a 7:55 PM flight from Montréal to Paris Orly, and I was alone in the area. At that moment, the Boeing 747 that was supposed to take us from here to there broke down. We spent most of the night in the airport. To make matters worse, it was the weekend of the Montréal Grand Prix, so the hotels were almost all full. Finally, at 1 AM (I was exhausted), they announced that a faraway hotel was available. I asked for a room, in what turned out to be Château Vaudreuil, which was the only good part of my adventure, mainly because of the luxury and because Corsairfly paid for it. I only got 5 hours' sleep, as we had to leave around 6:30 AM for the airport to catch the flight. After the uneventful flight (except dirty movies), I arrived around 9:30 PM (French time) in Paris Orly. Needless to say, my whole schedule was sentenced to turmoil, as I'd missed the train to Normandy, and my hosts were getting worried. Finally, my dad's trip over and our trip back were uneventful, with the same dirty movies as last time and last year. Hence, my bad impression of flight.

That's not to say Canada is loose on security, Trevor. The second time I went through the gates on that fateful day (since I left the airport for the hotel), they instructed me to put my hands in my pocket, pull them out, and they would analyze a cloth they rubbed my hands with. I passed, because I'm no drug dealer, but still.

The last time I flew in the U.S. was March 2009 if I remember right. I flew between Syracuse and Houston. Now, TSA is freaking out because of Pantsbomber last Christmas.

It's not that I'm afraid of flying (besides the story above, which was on the ground), it's that I'm afraid of the security gates.

I've flown through Canada several times many years ago, but never recently. In recent years, my contact with Canadian border security has always been driving through the border. Canadian border guards, both at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and Windsor, Ontario, were fabulous: polite, helpful, welcoming. Driving back into the US, the border guards have been rude, unhelpful, and most definitely unwelcoming, especially in Detroit Michigan.

Trevor

I go through the border around the Thousand Islands and Ivy Lea bridge. The U.S. people are a little too systematic. Canadians, driving back in, have an odd quirk. My dad is from France, and his English, while good, isn't always the best. Therefore, he asks to speak in French to the border guards. Once in a while we strike lucky with a guard who knows little French and asks Votre passeport, s'il vous plaît and lets you go after rudimentaries. ;)

We had to stop over for security at the border by the U.S. in March 2010 because we were carrying 3 big boxes of bookracks (don't ask). We had to wait a good 15 minutes for them to finish inspecting the car. It was late at night, I was tired, and I tried to be as patient as possible to not be rude toward the guards, who were not at their most empathic.

If only the U.S. and Canada would mutually join each other… 1812 was not the same thing.

I cross the border by car at St. Stephen, New Brunswick / Calais, Maine twice per year in the Spring and Fall and have been doing so for about 20 years now (my wife and I prefer to travel when kids are in school and no, I don't hate kids, just other people's kids).

Unlike Trevor, I've found the treatment fairly equal. My wife and I have always had passports and only once do I recall what I considered an impertinent question entering the US. We were going to visit a daughter and the guy asked "What does your daughter do?". "She's the mother of three youngsters", I replied, but thought to myself "What business is that of yours?"

Returning, Canadian border folks, seeing a Nova Scotia license plate, never ask for any ID; they are much more interested in making certain that they collect the taxes owing on any amounts above the $1500 CDN we are allowed to bring back. Since we always owe some (we declare honestly), we have to stop and go in to pay. Recently, the young lady decided that she would add up our receipts and got a different number than we had. She was going to get shirty about that when I suggested that she add them up again. Second time around she got an answer much different from her first (and from ours), so we settled somewhere in the middle.

I'm not quite sure why, but this reminds me of Dan Aykroyd in Canadian Bacon.

Trevor