] "MIT recently received a subpoena from the Recording
] Industry Association of America that was issued under the
] terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The
] subpoena requests the name and address of the individual
] whose computer was, according to the RIAA, sending out
] copyrighted songs on the Internet.
]
] "A different federal law, the Family Education Rights and
] Privacy Act, prohibits colleges and universities from
] disclosing information about students except in certain
] situations.

MIT responds to RIAA subpoena

] Their legislation, introduced Wednesday, would punish an
] Internet user who shares even a single file without
] permission from a copyright holder with prison terms of
] up to five years and fines of up to $250,000.

Totally asinine.

House proposal targets file swappers | CNET News.com

zeugma wrote:
] 1984 turned inside out

I saw this link on slashdot the other day and all I can say is "it's about time!"

RE: Government Information Awareness

] The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee
] said Tuesday he favors developing new
] technology to remotely destroy the computers of people
] who illegally download music from the Internet.

] "I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging
] someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach
] somebody about copyrights."

] Kerr predicted it was "extremely unlikely" for Congress
] to approve a hacking exemption for copyright owners,
] partly because of risks of collateral damage when
] innocent users might be wrongly targeted.
]
] "It wouldn't work," Kerr said. "There's no way of
] limiting the damage."

Not too worried about this.. I can't see this happening. Not only for technical reasons, but straight out legal ones. The court system exists to mediate disputes between parties. Aggrieved parties are not allowed to take actions into their own hands, their only option is to take their dispute into the court system. If they do not, they are commiting a crime themselves. Its the basis of our legal system's existance. If congress passes a law allowing our media masters to destroy our computers, it would be admitting failure of the legal system to tackle these problems and set an extrememly dangerous precident. Granted, it is pretty shocking that this has been suggested as an option at all, by someone who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And then there is the whole collateral damage angle. It dose not have the signifigance of the above, but it will likely be the reason this idea gets aborted before it grows arms. It would give consumers what they need to bring the dispute back into the legal system, only with the upper hand and the ability to address the above in the courts, which the courts would most defintally agree with.

I'm not a lawyer, so my understanding of how the law works in this situation may be completely flawed.. But I am pretty sure that this is not something to worry about much.

Yahoo! News - Hatch Takes Aim at Illegal Downloading

With much appreciation to crankymessiah for sending me this:

From Defective Yeti:
Last night some friends and I were sitting around drinking beer and, it goes without saying, discussing the Washington State system of taxation. Here in Seattle we have a sales tax, which is a total pain in the ass because (a) you have to pay it (lame), and (b) it means that your average item in The Dollar Store costs some ridiculous amount like $1.31 and you can't figure out the real price of things without resorting to irrational numbers and you have to carry around your spare pennies instead of throwing them at children like you would do in other states. True fact: When 50 Cent was here in concert last week, he was legally obligated to perform under that name "67 Cent." (Whoa, that joke was even worse than I had anticipated.)

Anyhow, we were wondering how much of sales tax revenue goes to health care programs. More every year, we guessed, since, statistically, Americas are becoming ever more out-of-shape. But you got to figure that a lot of that revenue goes to administrative costs and middle-men, not to mention that health care tends to be reactive rather than preventive. We decided that there must be a better way.

That's we came up with this great idea for a General Health Tax: for every dollar you spend you must do a sit-up. Want the new No Doubt CD? No problem: fourteen bucks and two dozen sit-ups, please. Got a two pack-a-day cigarette habit? Well now you have a six sit-up-a-day habit as well. Just bought a brand new Ford Excursion? Fantastic. That will be 50,000 sit-ups over the next 10 years, plus 60 sit-ups every time you fill up the tank -- BET YOU WISH IT DIDN'T GET ONE MILE TO THE GALLON NOW DON'T YOU SUCKA?!

I think we should pilot this plan in Washington state, and then extend it to the entire United States. Conspicuous consumption would go way down, people would have a great incentive to save, and America would quickly come to dominate the United Nations Council On Killer Abs. Plus, what tax payer doesn't want the opportunity to check "no" to "Would you like to do three sit-ups for the Presidential Election Campaign Fund?"

A Great Tax Solution

] More than 50 House Democrats were holed up in a motel
] across the state line in Ardmore, Oklahoma, out of reach
] of state police

2 minutes for delay of game!

Texas House paralyzed by Democratic walkout - May. 13, 2003

Read how those defending your rights weren't allowed to speak in opposition to this bill.

How Sausage Is Made - House Judiciary Committee OK's HB0457!

OK. How did Hooters new airline get massive media coverage but *this* was overlooked?

Inaugural Nude Flight Heads to Cancun

] A federal judge in Los Angeles has handed a stunning
] court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast
] Networks and Grokster, dismissing much of the record
] industry and movie studios' lawsuit against the two
] companies.

] "Defendants distribute and support software, the
] users of which can and do choose to employ it for
] both lawful and unlawful ends," Wilson wrote in his
] opinion, released Friday. "Grokster and StreamCast
] are not significantly different from companies that
] sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of
] which can be and are used to infringe copyrights."

Wow! Good news!

Judge: File-swapping tools are legal | CNET News.com

] CCS International, a surveillance products company in New
] Rochelle, NY, estimates that ordinary Americans are
] buying surveillance devices, many of dubious legality, at
] a clip of $6 million a day. We have met the enemy of our
] privacy, and it is us.

a great article that talks about how loss of privacy is not inevitable.

Surveillance Nation Part Two