No, we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive.

delicious blog » What’s Next for Delicious?

In some kind of weird founder solidarity, the slide was originally posted on Twitter by MyBlogLog founder Eric Marcoullier.

Listed under the ominous “Sunset” are: Delicious, Altavista, MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Bookmarks, Yahoo! Picks

Is Yahoo Shutting Down Del.icio.us? [Update: Yes] [[Update 2: No]]

I wish I was responding to a transcript not a paraphrase but this will have to do for now:

Wainstein said that WikiLeaks had shown itself to be fundamentally different [from the press] in three ways.

[1.] While traditional media outlets focus on publishing newsworthy information to educate the public, WikiLeaks focuses on obtaining and disclosing any official secrets.

I don't see how the other things that you do are legally relevant to the question of whether or not its legal for you to do THIS thing. That is sort of like saying "its OK for person A to commit this crime because he is wealthy and is otherwise an upstanding member of the community but person B is a "criminal" and only exists to commit this crime and therefore he is culpable for his actions." Frankly, thats fucking bullshit.

[2.] The media also gathers news about sensitive areas of government operations through investigative reporting, he said, while WikiLeaks uses encrypted digital drop boxes to encourage disclosures of sensitive government information and circumvent laws prohibiting such disclosures.

You can write "Steal This Book," wherein you explain how to commit crimes and advocate that people commit them. You cannot, however, provide a specific person with specific advice knowing or intending that the person commit a specific crime. The former is freedom of speech. The later is conspiracy. As far as I know Wikileaks is an example of the former not the later. If they did the later, they have committed a crime.

[3.] The media also typically limits disclosures only to sensitive information that specifically relates to a particular story deemed to be of public importance. WikiLeaks, however, releases troves of documents with little or no regard for their relevance.

Wikileaks thinks they are all relevant. I don't think this gets you very far. Its ok to publish leaks as long as you can establish that they are relevant?

In his written statement to the committee (.pdf), Wainstein also cited Assange’s oft-quoted remark that he “enjoy[s] crushing bastards” as evidence that his release of sensitive information is “more personal rather than simply a public-minded agenda.”

I don't know the context for this remark but find me a police officer who hasn't muttered something similar.

Furthermore, WikiLeaks’ distribution of an encrypted “insurance” file, containing secrets that would be revealed if anything happened to Assange, “reflects a willingness to use his leaked documents for extortion and personal protection rather than simply to advance the values of transparency and public awareness,” Wainstein argued.

This one really bugs me. You have senior politicians publicly calling for this guy to be killed and then you accuse him of "blackmail" for having an insurance file. Its like a school yard bully who complains to the teacher when his victim fights back. The fact that they would make this argument is just disgusting.

Congress Hears WikiLeaks is ‘Fundamentally Different’ From Media | Threat Level | Wired.com

One of the fascinating Fourth Amendment questions that courts have recently divided on is how the “search incident to arrest” exception applies to the search of a cell phone.

This discussion is closely related to the border search question - when someone is arrested can the police read all their email on their smart phone "incident to arrest." I think the answer is no but coming up with a workable rule that allows the kinds of searches that should be allowed will be very difficult.

The Volokh Conspiracy » Georgia Court of Appeals — Including “Feddie” — Weighs In On Search Incident to Arrest for Cell Phones

The Air Force is barring its personnel from using work computers to view the Web sites of The New York Times.

The non-sense needs to stop.

Air Force Blocks Sites That Posted Secret Cables - NYTimes.com

List: openbsd-tech
Subject: Allegations regarding OpenBSD IPSEC
From: Theo de Raadt
Date: 2010-12-14 22:24:39
Message-ID: 201012142224.oBEMOdWM031222 () cvs ! openbsd ! org [Download message RAW]

I have received a mail regarding the early development of the OpenBSD IPSEC stack. It is alleged that some ex-developers (and the company they worked for) accepted US government money to put backdoors into our network stack, in particular the IPSEC stack. Around 2000-2001.

One presumes this will prove to be false but its rather interesting.

'Allegations regarding OpenBSD IPSEC' - MARC

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was pleasing on many different levels. And stuff.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bad for Democracy: How the Presidency Undermines the Power of the People (2008)[2] is a non-fiction book written by Vanderbilt professor Dana D. Nelson. It is notable for criticism of excessive presidential power and for her call for substantive political reform.

Bad for Democracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What follows is a line of thinking that I think is pretty interesting but it fell on deaf ears in the first place I posted it. I'd like to know what MemeStreams readers think about these thoughts:

I think Libertarianism is broken - I feel like the vast majority of "Libertarians" are big-R Republicans who define themselves as Libertarian because they don't think the Republican party is radical enough. A lot of these people don't so much care about social or civil liberties as they are ambivalent about them. They just want a lower tax burden and they don't really care about anything else.

In Libertarian circles voting for a socially regressive Republican is acceptable as long as he plans to lower taxes, but voting for a Democrat in order to gain civil liberties is never acceptable if there is any risk that taxes might increase. A movement that was truly concerned with both economic and social liberty would be willing to make deals with both of these devils if either of them. The clear preference for one over the other sort of reveals the whole thing as dishonest. They are really just a part of the Republican tent.

At the heart of the modern Republican party is an allegiance between southern social conservatives and libertarians. This allegiance functions because both camps want to limit the power of the federal government, but its important to recognize that both camps have different reasons for desiring this. Libertarians seek a lower tax burden and less government interference in business, both at the federal and the state level, but the social conservatives want to empower the state governments as opposed to the federal government. They want more powerful state legislatures. This is precisely because they want to pass socially regressive policies that the federal government would seek to constrain and did constrain during the civil rights era.

When federalists show up offering projects that would limit the power of the federal government but not that of the states, the question one must ask is who is fooling who? Is it really about "limited government" across the board or is it about making the state governments more powerful at the expense of the federal government? Guys like Ron Paul don't believe in concepts like incorporation of civil liberties, for example.

What does left libertarianism mean? Hopefully not just a liberal mirror of the right libertarians - voting for social liberty with a cryptic ambivalence to economic issues. Is it possible to reconcile a social safety net with resistance to the unnecessary rent seeking that it often produces? Its not strictly about making government less powerful, but about limiting its power in specific ways while empowering it in others...

Perhaps a desirable concept would be the establishment of certain economic rights along side the civil liberties protected by the Constitution? Congress shall make no law interfering with an individual's right to practice his or her profession in a manner that does not bring harm to others?

So what are the black-clad youngsters so filled with hatred and so prone to destroy? They call themselves anarchists, but they are the embodiment of the statist principle: "do as I say--or else." The masked hordes rioting the streets calling for anarchy want power; they want the power to do as they please, and they want the power to separate action from responsibility. They want the freedom to act--without consequence. They demand respect from others in the sense of fear, obedience and subjection rather than appreciation and admiration; they want to be the state and control its powers.

Blame Anarchism? | Strike-The-Root: A Journal Of Liberty