In article ,
ryanm wrote:


"james" wrote in message
news:0p38c.875$Q45.512@fed1read02...

Yeah, you're missing my point. He likely had no involvement. I'm
firmly in the "well, he damned well SHOULD HAVE."

Except for you, no one else seems to relate this to the artists
themselves, but instead relate it directly to the publisher.

I regard the whole entertainment industry as a single corporate machine
which views me as its product. Further, this corporate machine behaves
as an arm of government, and chooses to treat me as its subject.
Because of these circumstances, I have a very narrow threshold beyond
which I will be a willing participant in the shenanigans.

A commercial enterprise bearing a person's name has lost my business. A
restaurant that gives me poor service might never know why I didn't
return. In this case, the artist has an advantage: I care enough to
air my grievance in a public forum.

As far as I'm concerned, the artist ought to be making some phone calls,
to say "hey, you guys are ****ing off my public and wrecking my
reputation, knock it off!" But I'm obviously the only one who cares
about this, and I'll bet I care more than anyone directly involved,
so all I can do is refrain from buying the record, and I've stated my
reasons why. You call it uninformed and misguided, I call it outraged
and insulted former customer.

"If you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?" is a
sentiment that seems to match very nicely with "We know they're
guilty. Why bother with a trial?"

Unfortunately, there seems to be a frightening willingness in America
these days to surrender basic human rights and privacy rights in the
name of achieving justice. While the ends are laudable, I think we
should be very careful what we consider to be acceptable means.


Arjan P wrote in message...
Oh yes, you're there yet. What about those alleged 'terrorists' from
Afghanistan that are locked away on Guantanamo Bay for more than two years
already, without even being indicted or charged?

ryanm wrote:
See, this is where the difference between being an American citizen and
a *subject* of someplace like Canada or Britain becomes obvious. I
expect and will demand my right to due process, by force if necessary.
They haven't managed to disarm us or stifle the free press yet, and as
long as that is true I have the means to get my due process. Foreigners
have no inalienable right to due process under US law.

The trick is though, that *because* they are on Guantanamo Bay, US law is
not upon them, not even military law. IIRC, the one American terrorist who
was arrested in Afghanistan in the same time period was sent to San
Francisco and had to be charged because of being on US territory. Had they
taken him to Guantanamo and treated him the same way, the domestic uproar
would've been way too heavy. Unfortunately, the Geneva Convention is not
the only international agreement that was breached by the Bush administration..

Luck, Arjan

--
----Real email: news then at then soundbyte then dot then nl----

In article writes:

warrant standards to conduct what amount to wiretaps. Our well crafted (see
Nixon/Watergate) law
is being eroded from all sides and presents a dangerous threat to our privacy.

Why worry about privacy if you're not doing anything you shouldn't be
doing? What are you afraid of?

I value privacy in ways like not hearing my neighbor's stereo blasting
when I'm trying to sleep, and I'm happy that the contents of my mail
is reasonably private to reduce the growing chance of identity theft.
But if I'm robbing a bank, I wouldn't a defense of violating my
constitutional right of privacy if I was caught on a security camera
would hold up. Anybody ever thought about that?


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

Heh, no... at least not yet. I can come in here and proclaim that I have
billions of songs on my hard drive that were downloaded illegally, but
that's not enough for a warrant to tap my phone or even subpoena my ISP's
records.

It probably isn't enough to tap your phone since it isn't likely that
you'd give them more to hang you on over the phone. I don't know what
"records" your ISP keeps of you. But if they could just hang a monitor
on to your internet connection, capture what you type and what data
you receive (I'm told by my security conscious friends that there are
people who can do that which is why I should never type my credit card
number, ever) I think that would be evidence that you were breaking
the law, and that would give them cause for a warrant.

My ISP doesn't keep records of what I have downloaded, so they
would actually have to either hack in to my computer or tap my phone line
(to monitor my internet traffic) to see what I have, both of which require a
warrant so they would have to show not only that it is probable that I am
using the phone to facilitate a crime, but also that they have exhausted all
other approaches.

If they saw a message on a newsgroups saying "I downloaded 5 new
albums last night" isn't that reason to believe that you have
something that they might find if they searched for it? Search
warrants give the authority to look for something that they reasonably
believe that you have. As to exhausting all other approaches, well I
suppose they could knock on your door and ask to look at the file
directories on your computer. You have a right to tell them to come
back with a warrant.

Not to mention copyright violation isn't a serious enough
offense to issue a tap warrant.

This is probaby true, but should it be? In the Brave New World, maybe
not. Is selling dope serious enough to issue a tap warrant? Is selling
military secrets? Where do you draw the line?

By the way, I have a friend who runs a record label and also is a
distributor. Back in the late '70's his phone was tapped because of
suspicion that he was selling drugs. (hey, he was kind of a shifty guy
back then) They heard him talking about "records" and assumed that was
a code name for drugs, broke in (with a warrant), searched his house,
and found a small amount of marajuana - his personal stash. He was
charged with a misdemeanor.

We're not there yet, but it sounds to me like you're in favor of such a
system. How about this scenario? Someone overhears you say "I'd *kill* that
guy..." in public, so the police are given a warrant to tap your phone,
subpoena your phone, electric, internet, etc. records, and hold you in jail
until they sort it out?

It could happen. On the other hand, there's a certain context that
would probably cause it to be ingnored most of the time. But if "that
guy" happened to be the president of the US speaking at a rally, and
that's where it was overheard, I'll bet the SS would be on him.

Is that what you want?

No, but I'd like to see this whole business of illegal downloading put
away. It would be much easier if it was simply regulated. We did that
with alcohol. There are still bootleggers, and bootleggers still get
caught when they get careless.

Of course I'm not equating downloading music with murder, but they're
both illegal and should be discouraged. If that means getting really
tough with a few until the rest get the idea, then so be it. I doubt
that there'd be 30 million people put in jail. After the first dozen
or so, the rest might get the idea that it could happen to them if
they get caught.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Uhh, I was with you until that statement. I'm not sure that it *is*
obvious. Or, at least your point isn't. What do you mean?


"ryanm" wrote...
See, this is where the difference between being an American citizen and
a *subject* of someplace like Canada or Britain becomes obvious.

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1080052050k@trad...

Why worry about privacy if you're not doing anything you shouldn't be
doing? What are you afraid of?

A government that can invade my privacy?

I value privacy in ways like not hearing my neighbor's stereo blasting
when I'm trying to sleep, and I'm happy that the contents of my mail
is reasonably private to reduce the growing chance of identity theft.
But if I'm robbing a bank, I wouldn't a defense of violating my
constitutional right of privacy if I was caught on a security camera
would hold up. Anybody ever thought about that?

There is a large difference between going into a public place and being
caught on camera and having someone listen in on your phone conversations,
and the law (appropriately) reflects that.

ryanm

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...

However, the US government has signed this contract in Geneva which
sets down the rules of war. It's not absolutely binding, but it is
a good thing to follow, because if you don't follow it, other countries
won't follow it when fighting you either.

We also have this problem in that we're trying to fight for freedom,
and taking prisoners in the general cause of freedom might be necessary,
but it's a difficult thing to explain and it's certainly a difficult
thing to justify. At the very least we should treat them under the
standard provisions for handling enemy prisoners.

The Red Cross has been to see them, and stated that the conditions were
acceptable, no?

ryanm

"Arjan P" wrote in message
...

would've been way too heavy. Unfortunately, the Geneva Convention is not
the only international agreement that was breached by the Bush
administration..

If you're going to make statements like that, I'm gonna have to ask you
to provide references. Which treaties, when, and at least one credible
source for each.

ryanm

"J. Roberts" wrote in message
om...
Uhh, I was with you until that statement. I'm not sure that it *is*
obvious. Or, at least your point isn't. What do you mean?

Exactly what I said. As an American citizen, I am a higher authority
than my government, it answers to me. As opposed to other places where the
people are subjects of the state. I can and will get my due process, even if
it requires the use of the press or gasp *firearms* to get it. To
translate directly, that means anyone, cops included, that pokes their head
in my door without my permission or without *first* providing a warrant
signed by a judge, gets the bullets first and the questions later.

ryanm

ryanm wrote:
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...

However, the US government has signed this contract in Geneva which
sets down the rules of war. It's not absolutely binding, but it is
a good thing to follow, because if you don't follow it, other countries
won't follow it when fighting you either.

We also have this problem in that we're trying to fight for freedom,
and taking prisoners in the general cause of freedom might be necessary,
but it's a difficult thing to explain and it's certainly a difficult
thing to justify. At the very least we should treat them under the
standard provisions for handling enemy prisoners.

The Red Cross has been to see them, and stated that the conditions were
acceptable, no?

Yes, which is a good thing. If they hadn't been, we'd be in real trouble.
But we're still trying to get out of some of the Geneva Convention provisions
by calling them "enemy combatants" and saying they aren't eligible for
protection, which is a bit of silliness that will come back to haunt us
some day when the same thing is done to our troops.

I gather the actual conditions they are being held under are actually very
good by their standards. Even so, holding folks incommunicado is probably
a bad thing.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1080052951k@trad...

It probably isn't enough to tap your phone since it isn't likely that
you'd give them more to hang you on over the phone. I don't know what
"records" your ISP keeps of you. But if they could just hang a monitor
on to your internet connection, capture what you type and what data
you receive (I'm told by my security conscious friends that there are
people who can do that which is why I should never type my credit card
number, ever) I think that would be evidence that you were breaking
the law, and that would give them cause for a warrant.

It *can* be done, but not legally. It requires the use of a trojan (a
virus of sorts) to get what's on my computer, and at present that's not
legal without a warrant very similar to a wire tap warrant. That being said,
*hackers* have these trojans all over the planet, possibly even on your
computer, so you do have to be careful.

If they saw a message on a newsgroups saying "I downloaded 5 new
albums last night" isn't that reason to believe that you have
something that they might find if they searched for it? Search
warrants give the authority to look for something that they reasonably
believe that you have.

Nope. Not enough. You see, in this country I'm still allowed to say
whatever I want without being arrested for it, regardless of who does or
doesn't approve of the content of my speech. Even if it were, downloading
isn't a serious enough crime to get anything more than *maybe* a search and
arrest warrant, which would allow them to search my house and confiscate my
computer (and myself). But no peeking at my stuff remotely, that requires a
much more difficult to aquire warrant.

As to exhausting all other approaches, well I
suppose they could knock on your door and ask to look at the file
directories on your computer. You have a right to tell them to come
back with a warrant.

Right. That's what it all comes down to. They need a warrant of some kind
unless they can physically see evidence of a crime in plain view.

This is probaby true, but should it be? In the Brave New World, maybe
not. Is selling dope serious enough to issue a tap warrant? Is selling
military secrets? Where do you draw the line?

There is no distinct line, which is both good and bad. What it comes
down to is a judge's discretion. That's good because it means that every
warrant is considered on it's own weight. It's bad because all you have to
do is find the right judge to get a warrant for anything. But that's our
justice system...

By the way, I have a friend who runs a record label and also is a
distributor. Back in the late '70's his phone was tapped because of
suspicion that he was selling drugs. (hey, he was kind of a shifty guy
back then) They heard him talking about "records" and assumed that was
a code name for drugs, broke in (with a warrant), searched his house,
and found a small amount of marajuana - his personal stash. He was
charged with a misdemeanor.

And in the 70's he probably couldn't have done anything about it. These
days I would have the whole incident in the public eye, on the news,
embarrasing everyone in the department until I got a formal apology and the
misdemeanor expunged. That **** wouldn't have flown even a couple decades
ago, though.

No, but I'd like to see this whole business of illegal downloading put
away. It would be much easier if it was simply regulated. We did that
with alcohol. There are still bootleggers, and bootleggers still get
caught when they get careless.

But, the point that you make nicely in that is that by offering a
viable, *legal* alternative, the bootleggers lose the vast majoprity of
their business and only the occasional left-over renegade is found
bootlegging.

Of course I'm not equating downloading music with murder, but they're
both illegal and should be discouraged. If that means getting really
tough with a few until the rest get the idea, then so be it. I doubt
that there'd be 30 million people put in jail. After the first dozen
or so, the rest might get the idea that it could happen to them if
they get caught.

For the moral (and monetary) equivalent of stealing a pack of gum? You
really think people should be getting put in jail for that? Even to set an
example? It still seem far too extreme to me.

ryanm

james wrote:

I regard the whole entertainment industry as a single corporate machine
which views me as its product.

How modest of you. In that case, will you please try to be more
entertaining?

--
ha

ryanm wrote:

As an American citizen, I am a higher authority
than my government, it answers to me.

This is idealistic fantasy.

--
ha

"hank alrich" wrote in message
.. .

As an American citizen, I am a higher authority
than my government, it answers to me.

This is idealistic fantasy.

Shame you feel that way about your constitution.

ryanm

ryanm wrote:

You see, in this country I'm still allowed to say
whatever I want without being arrested for it, regardless of who does or
doesn't approve of the content of my speech.

In the USA ?

Not so - the DMCA means you have comitted a crime, for example, by explaining
how to disable autorun on a PC if used to defeat the copy-protection method used
by some record companies that places a small executable on the 'CD' to play low
quality version of the tracks.

I can still tell this you legally since I'm in the UK. For the time being we
don't have a Euro-DMCA but I expect it's only time.

Funny how the record and film industry can wield such massive abusive power in
pursuit of selling an inferior / cobbled product !

I'm reminded on this general issue of a campaign in the UK years ago which ran
under the title 'Home taping is killing music' - with a matching pirate logo.
Well - it didn't - in fact I suspect it was of the few things that kept it alive
!

Real commercial ( large scale ) piracy is the villain today.

Also - the record industry releases fewer new titles each year now - surprised
that sales are falling ? Christ - they're dumb !


Graham

ryanm wrote:

"hank alrich" wrote

As an American citizen, I am a higher authority
than my government, it answers to me.

This is idealistic fantasy.

Shame you feel that way about your constitution.

You see no difference in what is written in that document and our
government's behavior towards its citizens?

(My own constitution if fine; it's right now processing pasta splattered
with jalapeno pesto.)

--
ha

Mike Rivers wrote:

I don't know what
"records" your ISP keeps of you. But if they could just hang a monitor
on to your internet connection, capture what you type and what data
you receive (I'm told by my security conscious friends that there are
people who can do that which is why I should never type my credit card
number, ever)

Don't worry about typing your credit card number into a secure web page for fear of having it sniffed. It's far, far more likely the number will be grabbed by an unscrupulous employee at the vendor or at your bank. This risk goes up when you read a number over the phone or eat at a restaurant, FWIW. The cost (in computer time & risk) of decrypting a single SSL session is not likely to be worth what is acquired (a single credit card number of unknown value.) Hacking into a server that stores a few thousand of them is much more interesting to the crooks.

Mike Rivers wrote:

In article writes:


warrant standards to conduct what amount to wiretaps. Our well crafted (see
Nixon/Watergate) law is being eroded from all sides and this
presents a dangerous threat to our privacy.


Why worry about privacy if you're not doing anything you shouldn't be
doing? What are you afraid of?

A government with too much surveillance technology and insufficient oversight/accountability.

For the record, I have less than a dozen MP3's on my hard drive, all legal--plus around 1500 CD's and maybe 2500 records that live on the shelves here. Oh, and a bunch of .WAV, .SHN, and .FLAC files of tracks, rough mixes, and mic experiments as well.

ryanm wrote:
"Arjan P" wrote in message
would've been way too heavy. Unfortunately, the Geneva Convention is
not the only international agreement that was breached by the Bush
administration..

If you're going to make statements like that, I'm gonna have to ask you
to provide references. Which treaties, when, and at least one credible
source for each.

Okay, here's one; The Kyoto Protocol (on global warming and reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions), signed by the US, abandoned by Bush:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/globalwarming/

Another one; The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreed by all NATO members
including the US, but no effort by the Bush administration to actually have
it ratified by the Senate: http://www.clw.org/pub/clw/coalition/briefv5n13.htm

Then there's the breach of the Anti Ballistic Missiles treaty with the
Soviets: http://www.clw.org/pub/clw/coalition/bushabm121301.htm

And I'm no politician or expert in this field, these are just a couple of
subjects I remembered off the top of my head from having read in the
papers. I'm sure an expert on the subject could name many more examples of
either breached treaties, or international treaties and agreements
disregarded by the US. The general feeling in Europe is, that under the
Bush jr. administration, the US are more and more going about their own
way, which is a country's right ofcourse. I think it's unfortunate though,
especially when in the field of fighting terrorism, joining forces is more
important then ever.

Luck, Arjan

--
----Real email: news then at then soundbyte then dot then nl----

"ryanm" wrote ...
Exactly what I said. As an American citizen, I am a higher authority
than my government, it answers to me. As opposed to other places where the
people are subjects of the state.

You know, it's this type of uninformed jingoism that gives us
Americans such a bad reputation worldwide. You really don't have a
clue, and want to make sure that everyone knows it.

...anyone, cops included, that pokes their head
in my door without my permission or without *first* providing a warrant
signed by a judge, gets the bullets first and the questions later.

Whatever you say, tough guy.

How on earth did a discussion about copy control technoloy devolve
into this kind of ignorant "rah rah America!" garbage?

"Arjan P" wrote in message
...

Okay, here's one; The Kyoto Protocol (on global warming and reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions), signed by the US, abandoned by Bush:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/globalwarming/

So offering an alternative is "breaching" a treaty?

Another one; The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreed by all NATO members
including the US, but no effort by the Bush administration to actually
have
it ratified by the Senate:
http://www.clw.org/pub/clw/coalition/briefv5n13.htm

How can you "breach" a treaty you never signed?

Then there's the breach of the Anti Ballistic Missiles treaty with the
Soviets: http://www.clw.org/pub/clw/coalition/bushabm121301.htm

There's one... but he came right out and said that he was withdrawing
from this one. Let me explain the difference, in case it isn't obvious.
"Breaching" a treaty means you did something that you said you wouldn't do
when you signed the treaty. We haven't done that, what we have done is
publicly state that we will withdraw from the treaty, *without* having
"breached" it for 30 years. You insinuated that there were a bunch of
treaties we had broken, but that's simply not the case. Bush withdrew from
*one* treaty in his term, that's it.

ryanm

"hank alrich" wrote in message
. ..

You see no difference in what is written in that document and our
government's behavior towards its citizens?

Sure, but that's our own responsibility. We have an obligation to change
our government if it is no longer serving us. And ousting Bush for Kerry
isn't going to cut it, we need something more drastic than that.

ryanm

"J. Roberts" wrote in message
om...

You know, it's this type of uninformed jingoism that gives us
Americans such a bad reputation worldwide. You really don't have a
clue, and want to make sure that everyone knows it.

Move to Canada, then, see how you like it.

How on earth did a discussion about copy control technoloy devolve
into this kind of ignorant "rah rah America!" garbage?

I don't know how you got "rah rah America!" out of that...

ryanm

I don't know how you got "rah rah America!" out of that...

Did you downlaod Horse With No Name?



---------------------------------------
"I know enough to know I don't know enough"

ryanm wrote:
"J. Roberts" wrote in message
. com...

You know, it's this type of uninformed jingoism that gives us
Americans such a bad reputation worldwide. You really don't have a
clue, and want to make sure that everyone knows it.

Move to Canada, then, see how you like it.

The weather is horrible, but the people are friendly, and they have unisex
restrooms, health care that mostly works, and other small signs of enlightened
society. As an American citizen, I find it easier to get through Canadian
customs than US customs. It's a good place to work for the three months of
the year when the weather is fit for humans.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article writes:

There is a large difference between going into a public place and being
caught on camera and having someone listen in on your phone conversations,
and the law (appropriately) reflects that.

Isn't posting in a newsgroup or publicly accessable forum in essesnce
"going into a public place?"




--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

It *can* be done, but not legally. It requires the use of a trojan (a
virus of sorts) to get what's on my computer, and at present that's not
legal without a warrant very similar to a wire tap warrant. That being said,
*hackers* have these trojans all over the planet, possibly even on your
computer, so you do have to be careful.

This is a bit like the laws not having caught up with technology
(which is really what we're talking about here in the original
thread). If someone can get a warrant for a wiretap, why not a warrant
for the computer equivalent - a trojan on the computer? Or why not
just put a couple of clip leads on the phone line or cable TV
connection going into the suspect's house? Or listen in on a wireless
network connection? Once you have reasonable cause for a tap, how you
actually get that tap is really immaterial.

If they saw a message on a newsgroups saying "I downloaded 5 new
albums last night" isn't that reason to believe that you have
something that they might find if they searched for it?

Nope. Not enough. You see, in this country I'm still allowed to say
whatever I want without being arrested for it, regardless of who does or
doesn't approve of the content of my speech.

Your right to free speech is something different. Here you're saying
to anyone listening that you committed a crime. Is that not reason
enough for those whose job is investigating crimes to see if there's
anything worth worrying about there?

Even if it were, downloading
isn't a serious enough crime to get anything more than *maybe* a search and
arrest warrant, which would allow them to search my house and confiscate my
computer (and myself).

How do you know that? It may be your opinion, but to someone who is
trying to prove that you are contributing to what might be a sizeable
theft, it could be very serious business. Is it not worth worrying
that an employee of a bank takes $10 a week out of the till? How about
if 50 employees do the same thing because they see that the first one
didn't get caught.

There is no distinct line, which is both good and bad. What it comes
down to is a judge's discretion.

Fine. So let a judge decide. I'm hoping that there's a judge that will
take this crime more seriously than you do.

But, the point that you make nicely in that is that by offering a
viable, *legal* alternative, the bootleggers lose the vast majoprity of
their business and only the occasional left-over renegade is found
bootlegging.

OK, so we have iTunes and a few other legal alternatives. Has that
stopped free downloading from illegal sources? Or even substantially
reduced it? I don't think so, but I'm not privy to the data. But then
neither are you.

For the moral (and monetary) equivalent of stealing a pack of gum? You
really think people should be getting put in jail for that?

Not one pack of gum, no. But 1000 packs of gum, and doing it because
they're sure they'll never get caught, yes. I think that if someone
searched your computer, found two or three MP3 files and you could
justify them because you've been collaborating with another musician,
they'd say "sorry, go back to your studio." But I doubt that they'd be
easily be convinced that you were collaborating with Britney Spears
which is why you have five of her albums on your computer.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article ,
Pooh Bear wrote:

He thinks that the USA doesn't have any laws stopping him doing stuff he wants
to. He obviously isn't familiar with the DMCA which is far more restrictive -
absurd IMHO - than any related legislation anywhere in the world.

Nonetheless, the EU is going ahead with the even worse IP Enforcement
Directive. The USA definitely doesn't have a monopoly on stupid laws
(or fat slobs.)

As for shooting home intruders, I've lived in several states which
actually do allow you to use deadly force against anyone who forces
entry into your residence, and there is no special exemption for law
enforcement personnel. Military men are doubly-enjoined thanks to
strict interpretations of the quartering amendment.

You *really* don't want to do this though, unless you are damned sure
youre life is threatened. You will have to deal with the grand jury
and bargain for the no-bill, and it's not gonna happen if you had a
motive to kill the intruder or if it was a cop...

Programmers ( I forget the deatails of one notorious case )

Dmitri Skylarov. Arrested on a complaint by Adobe. He was *required*
to do what he did under Russian law, even though it made him a criminal
under US law.

In article znr1080141405k@trad, Mike Rivers wrote:

Isn't posting in a newsgroup or publicly accessable forum in essesnce
"going into a public place?"

It's much more like broadcasting on an unlicensed radio freq, although
nowhere near as clear-cut even. (No Internet FCC, thank God).

You might say it's like pinning a note on the laundromat bulletin board,
but only if the laundromat is not privately owned property.

In article writes:

Don't worry about typing your credit card number into a secure web page for
fear of having it sniffed. It's far, far more likely the number will be
grabbed by an unscrupulous employee at the vendor or at your bank.

I once had a credit card number stolen. Best I can tell, it was by an
unscrupulous employee at the Micro Center store. I had returned
something that I boutght with a credit card, and a few weeks later, I
call a call from the bank that handles that card asking if I had
ordered about $3,000 worth of computer parts and accessories, and had
them shipped to someplace in Arizona. That sounded fishy to them (and
me, too). Of course they cancelled the charge, cancelled the card, and
sent me a new one. I've never had a problem with an on-line purchase
(yet).



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article ,
(Scott Dorsey) wrote:

ryanm wrote:
"J. Roberts" wrote in message
.com...

You know, it's this type of uninformed jingoism that gives us
Americans such a bad reputation worldwide. You really don't have a
clue, and want to make sure that everyone knows it.

Move to Canada, then, see how you like it.

The weather is horrible, but the people are friendly, and they have unisex
restrooms, health care that mostly works, and other small signs of enlightened
society. As an American citizen, I find it easier to get through Canadian
customs than US customs. It's a good place to work for the three months of
the year when the weather is fit for humans.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

And if you live on the left coast of Canada, you can get more than three
months of good weather.

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1080141405k@trad...

Isn't posting in a newsgroup or publicly accessable forum in essesnce
"going into a public place?"

Essentially, yes. The cops don't need warrants or any kind of permission
to gather your old newsgroup postings and use them against you. But the same
rules apply as to speaking in public. You can still say, for example, "I
want to kill the president" in public and not get arrested for it. Same goes
for usenet.

ryanm

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...

The weather is horrible, but the people are friendly, and they have unisex
restrooms, health care that mostly works, and other small signs of
enlightened
society. As an American citizen, I find it easier to get through Canadian
customs than US customs. It's a good place to work for the three months
of
the year when the weather is fit for humans.

Hey, I never said I didn't like to visit. Great scenery, and I even like
cold weather and snow (when I'm on vacation and not on my way to work, in
traffic). I just don't want to live there.

ryanm

"Pooh Bear" wrote in message
...

A few yrs back I saw some US tourists on the Lodon Underground. You could
tell
they were US since the women were chronically obese and had really bad
dress
sense. I just thought to myself 'oh please don't say anything'. Needless
to say
they did - to criticise the UK and comment how it was so unreasonable that
ppl
here have to *walk* up stairs ! I bit my toungue and avoided commenting
on
their obesity. Sigh !

Just imagine what the Arabs think !

We are definately the fattest country on the planet, all of us could
afford to walk more and drive less. Not only would we be healthier, but we
wouldn't have nearly the pollution and the gas prices would be more
reasonable.

He thinks that the USA doesn't have any laws stopping him doing stuff he
wants
to. He obviously isn't familiar with the DMCA which is far more
restrictive -
absurd IMHO - than any related legislation anywhere in the world.

Programmers ( I forget the deatails of one notorious case ) have been
arrested
under the DMCA when 'violating' US soil for daring to say / do things that
are
legal elsewhere but illegal in the US !

Unfortunately, I'm well aware of the DMCA, I was one of the mirrors for
the deCSS code when that whole debacle was going on. I support the EFF with
donations, but beyond that there's nothing much I can do about the DMCA
except disregard it as any good citizen should. Again, they can try to come
arrest me for telling someone how to disable autorun or for giving away the
deCSS code, but they had better have a warrant when they get here.

ryanm

"james" wrote in message
news:YSq8c.1583$Q45.1220@fed1read02...

Nonetheless, the EU is going ahead with the even worse IP Enforcement
Directive. The USA definitely doesn't have a monopoly on stupid laws
(or fat slobs.)

I think it's contagous.

As for shooting home intruders, I've lived in several states which
actually do allow you to use deadly force against anyone who forces
entry into your residence, and there is no special exemption for law
enforcement personnel. Military men are doubly-enjoined thanks to
strict interpretations of the quartering amendment.

You *really* don't want to do this though, unless you are damned sure
youre life is threatened. You will have to deal with the grand jury
and bargain for the no-bill, and it's not gonna happen if you had a
motive to kill the intruder or if it was a cop...

Not in Texas. Here, several years ago, a man shot someone who was
outside his house, going through his trash cans, and he shot him from the
2nd floor. He was arrested but never charged, because in Texas comitting
criminal mischief (which includes tresspassing) after dark is grounds for
lethal force. In the state of Texas, lethal force is permitted if a
*reasonable person* would believe that your life, property, or the life or
property of a 3rd party is being threatened. Some people stumble on the
property part of that, but the way it reads in the statute is that if you
can reasonably believe that allowing a thief to get away with your property
would result in the property being unrecoverable, you can use lethal force
to retain it. When you read about people shooting an intruder outside and
then dragging them into the house so they won't get in trouble, it didn't
happen in Texas. Here you can shoot them coming in, going out, running down
the street with your property, or even if you think they might come back and
hurt you, your family, or your neighbors.

ryanm

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1080142138k@trad...

This is a bit like the laws not having caught up with technology
(which is really what we're talking about here in the original
thread). If someone can get a warrant for a wiretap, why not a warrant
for the computer equivalent - a trojan on the computer? Or why not
just put a couple of clip leads on the phone line or cable TV
connection going into the suspect's house? Or listen in on a wireless
network connection? Once you have reasonable cause for a tap, how you
actually get that tap is really immaterial.

No, they *can* do that. What I was saying was that it requires a warrant
that is essentially the same as a phone tap warrant, and those (even these
days) are hard to get.

Your right to free speech is something different. Here you're saying
to anyone listening that you committed a crime. Is that not reason
enough for those whose job is investigating crimes to see if there's
anything worth worrying about there?

Sure, but it's not enough for them to get a warrant to tap my phone.
They can investigate me for the things I say, but they can't detain me
without probable cause and they can't tap my phone or my computer without PC
*and* exhaustion *and* a judge's signature. They don't need anything more
than a gut feeling to investigate someone, but they are limited in their
means of investigation unless they can provide cause.

How do you know that?

It's the law.

It may be your opinion, but to someone who is
trying to prove that you are contributing to what might be a sizeable
theft, it could be very serious business.

No, I'm not contributing to anything, I'm an individual who is not
connected with the other people who may be committing a similar crime,
otherwise it would be an organized crime case, which is a whole different
game. The problem is, the RIAA wants to lump all downloading into a single
offense and call it a loss of millions, when in fact it is a large number of
individual offenses, each of which is not of enough value to constitute a
felony, and they have to be investigated and prosecuted that way.

Is it not worth worrying
that an employee of a bank takes $10 a week out of the till? How about
if 50 employees do the same thing because they see that the first one
didn't get caught.

That's the rub, unless they can show conclusively that I've stolen
enough to constitute a felony, they can't do much about it. Besides,
hopefully the bank had the employee sign a waiver and has them under
surveilance anytime they're around the money.

Fine. So let a judge decide. I'm hoping that there's a judge that will
take this crime more seriously than you do.

More seriously than what? It's not even a misdemeanor!

OK, so we have iTunes and a few other legal alternatives. Has that
stopped free downloading from illegal sources? Or even substantially
reduced it? I don't think so, but I'm not privy to the data. But then
neither are you.

Well, they just started, it's too early to tell. I'm guessing that it
will, in fact, drastically reduce the amount of illegal downloading,
although it obviously won't eliminate it completely. The thing to keep in
mind is that there was substantial file trading before P2P sharing became
popular, and a lot of people moved from newsgroups, chat rooms, and web
sites to using P2P because it was convenient. These aren't *new* pirates,
they're the same old pirates using a new medium. So you can't just say
"before Napster there was 0 file trading, and now there are hundreds of
thousands of people doing it", because there were at least tens of thousands
of people doing it before.

Not one pack of gum, no. But 1000 packs of gum,

But you won't go to prison for stealing 1000 packs of gum one at a time,
unless you get caught each and every time, and only then because after the,
ooohhh... 50th offense the judge will call you an idiot and put you away for
as long as the law would allow. That's the point, downloading a file may
actually (although not necessarily) be depriving an artist of his 7 cents,
and the label of it's $1.37, but actually stealing a physical product of the
same value doesn't get you prison time, like you seem to be advocating here.
And that's a physical product that someone paid to manufacture, ship, stock,
and display, which you physically took from them, constituting an actual
loss, as opposed to an IP violation with a maximum percieved value of
something like $1 (and that's debateable). The fact is, it's just not as
serious an offense as, say, shoplifting candy from the grocery store. What
makes it serious to the labels is the *volume* at which it is being done.
But you can't change the law to allow them to prosecute every downloader
like they're part of some conspiracy, because it's simply not true. They are
individual offenses, which must be considered on it's own merits. So if I've
"stolen" $17.50 worth of music, that's about enough to get me a $200 fine
and maybe some community service if the judge is in a bad mood, but only if
I'm caught in the act.

I think that if someone
searched your computer, found two or three MP3 files and you could
justify them because you've been collaborating with another musician,

I think that, in America, they should never get the chance to search my
computer unless they have probable cause and can convince a judge to sign a
warrant. And I'm glad it's my way instead of yours, because I'd like to keep
as much of what little freedom and personal liberty we have left as
possible.

ryanm

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1080179689k@trad...

I once had a credit card number stolen. Best I can tell, it was by an
unscrupulous employee at the Micro Center store. I had returned
something that I boutght with a credit card, and a few weeks later, I
call a call from the bank that handles that card asking if I had
ordered about $3,000 worth of computer parts and accessories, and had
them shipped to someplace in Arizona. That sounded fishy to them (and
me, too). Of course they cancelled the charge, cancelled the card, and
sent me a new one. I've never had a problem with an on-line purchase
(yet).

The big scam right now is hardware "virus". People are attaching little
boxes to the ATM, over the slot where you insert your card. These boxes look
like they're part of the ATM, and have the little sticker that say "insert
card", and sometimes even have the directions on them. You put your ATM card
in, and the ATM works just like you would expect it to, except that when you
put your card in, the thief's little box read your card number also. So now
they have your card data, all they need is your PIN. For that they attach a
little plastic brochure dispenser with a camera mounted in the bottom, which
watches as you punch in your pin. They leave it on there all day and come
back at night to collect it, then they go home with everyone's account
number and PIN who used that ATM that day.

ryanm

ryanm wrote:
"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1080141405k@trad...

Isn't posting in a newsgroup or publicly accessable forum in essesnce
"going into a public place?"

Essentially, yes. The cops don't need warrants or any kind of permission
to gather your old newsgroup postings and use them against you. But the same
rules apply as to speaking in public. You can still say, for example, "I
want to kill the president" in public and not get arrested for it. Same goes
for usenet.

The difference is that Usenet is permanent, rather like writing in the
newspaper, and correspondingly it's read by a huge number of people.
If the editor of the New York times advocated killing the president, he
would almost certainly receive a visit from the federales.

What that government is asking for, though, is a better and more efficient
way to read private e-mail, rather than public web or usenet traffic.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

ryanm wrote:

Unfortunately, I'm well aware of the DMCA, I was one of the mirrors for
the deCSS code when that whole debacle was going on. I support the EFF with
donations, but beyond that there's nothing much I can do about the DMCA
except disregard it as any good citizen should. Again, they can try to come
arrest me for telling someone how to disable autorun or for giving away the
deCSS code, but they had better have a warrant when they get here.

The problem is that bad and unenforceable laws sitting on the books
weaken the rest of the legal system.

And this goes double for the ECPA, which makes it illegal to listen to FM
radio in stereo.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."