I cannot tell if Heronblade is trolling. I'd like to think that no human being can be that dense, but it does seem to be a common belief in the United States that we can point a dowsing rod at a person and determine whether or not he's innocent or guilty of copyright infringement.[footnote]...or whether a bit of content on YouTube is infringing and not fair use...[/footnote][footnote]...or whether a captive prisoner, or is guilty of terrorism, or of association with terrorists. And this is why we citizens of the US are (or should be) terrified of the National Defense Appropriations Act clause that labels US soil as a battlefield, because that means the military can capture and imprison any of us indefinitely, and without habeus corpus rights, we have no ability to respond or challenge this action. We're just fucked (probably literally, if we get extraordinarily rendered to a third party for enhanced interrogation).[/footnote]
It doesn't work that way. The justice system is the only way we have to discover the facts of a case. We don't know in advance whether or not someone is guilty. So far, we have exonerated 140 death-row inmates [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence] (sometimes posthumously, and largely due to the introduction of newer technologies) since 1973, so we're actually not very good at differentiating guilt from innocence. Few cases are so cut and dry, where there is a single obvious suspect, or even a closed circle, and the circumstances are clear in the evidence.
The other issue is that we cannot trust our legislative representatives to pass good laws. Nor does common sense[footnote]Remember that common sense tells us (for example) that people who are of strange colors or worship strange gods are abominations and should be summarily executed. Great for tiny bands of hunter-gatherers. Terrible for pluralist industrialized civilizations.[/footnote] differentiate well a good law from a bad one, especially when dealing with complex issues such as copyright and patent infringement. The current status quo facilitates a sizable industry focused entirely on using copyrights and patents bleed legitimate developers, which suppresses competition and innovation, which is diametrically opposed to the purpose of copyrights and patents in the first place. This has raised the question as to their usefulness at all, let alone the degree of maximalism that is pushed by the legacy lobby groups.
The Megaupload case provides an excellent example of runaway common sense. Heronblade claims we have reasonable belief that Dotcom committed the crime in question. Exactly what crime is that? The warrant expressed a shotgun of obtuse crimes such as EFF [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_%28crime%29] to suspend efforts to have the data just deleted, and rather to create a rescue operation to restore data to its legitimate owners. For sake of the world economy, ICE, the US DoJ (and thus American taxpayers) need to take a serious hit for such a blatant abuse of power. We need to demonstrate contrition enough to restore faith that US interests will not interfere again with cloud computing services unless we have sound evidence, good cause and are willing to take utmost care in preventing collateral damage. Not likely, granted.[/footnote], but also was providing an alternative way for recording artists to make money. That is, an alternative that would have been in direct competition with the record labels. So yeah, there's more going on than a crackdown on someone running a piracy ring.
It's interesting also that The Crucible was mentioned in this discussion. The MPAA's campaign based on Rogue Sites[footnote]A term that used to refer to phishing sites[/footnote] smacks strongly of HUAC [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee] and the Red Scare. Many internet sites have more use than copyright infringement yet are still regarded as rogue sites. The Pirate Bay, while yes, a featuring a library of peer-to-peer file shares that sometimes infringe on copyrights, is also host to a library of public-domain 3D printable objects, and creative commons scientific publications. So despite the badge (it waves proudly) of being legacy-content enemy #1, it is certainly providing service to the common good. The Pirate Bay is also a host for independent music groups trying to promote themselves outside the normal gateway of big labels.
Regarding people getting off on a technicality, a police officer is a representative of the state, so when he violates your rights during an investigation (illegal search) he represents the state violating your rights, so it is appropriate for any evidence so obtained, or obtained by following on that trail to be inadmissible. If the prosecution depends on that line of inquiry to prove guilt (beyond reasonable doubt in a felony case), then acquittal is appropriate. Any less, and the state (ergo the officer) is not compelled to respect the rights of the suspect, or of any of the citizenship. And then you end up with a police state like Nineteen Eighty Four [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four], in which people go to jail (or just get disappeared) for vague laws like conspiracy, treason ...or racketeering.
238U
It doesn't work that way. The justice system is the only way we have to discover the facts of a case. We don't know in advance whether or not someone is guilty. So far, we have exonerated 140 death-row inmates [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence] (sometimes posthumously, and largely due to the introduction of newer technologies) since 1973, so we're actually not very good at differentiating guilt from innocence. Few cases are so cut and dry, where there is a single obvious suspect, or even a closed circle, and the circumstances are clear in the evidence.
The other issue is that we cannot trust our legislative representatives to pass good laws. Nor does common sense[footnote]Remember that common sense tells us (for example) that people who are of strange colors or worship strange gods are abominations and should be summarily executed. Great for tiny bands of hunter-gatherers. Terrible for pluralist industrialized civilizations.[/footnote] differentiate well a good law from a bad one, especially when dealing with complex issues such as copyright and patent infringement. The current status quo facilitates a sizable industry focused entirely on using copyrights and patents bleed legitimate developers, which suppresses competition and innovation, which is diametrically opposed to the purpose of copyrights and patents in the first place. This has raised the question as to their usefulness at all, let alone the degree of maximalism that is pushed by the legacy lobby groups.
The Megaupload case provides an excellent example of runaway common sense. Heronblade claims we have reasonable belief that Dotcom committed the crime in question. Exactly what crime is that? The warrant expressed a shotgun of obtuse crimes such as EFF [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_%28crime%29] to suspend efforts to have the data just deleted, and rather to create a rescue operation to restore data to its legitimate owners. For sake of the world economy, ICE, the US DoJ (and thus American taxpayers) need to take a serious hit for such a blatant abuse of power. We need to demonstrate contrition enough to restore faith that US interests will not interfere again with cloud computing services unless we have sound evidence, good cause and are willing to take utmost care in preventing collateral damage. Not likely, granted.[/footnote], but also was providing an alternative way for recording artists to make money. That is, an alternative that would have been in direct competition with the record labels. So yeah, there's more going on than a crackdown on someone running a piracy ring.
It's interesting also that The Crucible was mentioned in this discussion. The MPAA's campaign based on Rogue Sites[footnote]A term that used to refer to phishing sites[/footnote] smacks strongly of HUAC [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee] and the Red Scare. Many internet sites have more use than copyright infringement yet are still regarded as rogue sites. The Pirate Bay, while yes, a featuring a library of peer-to-peer file shares that sometimes infringe on copyrights, is also host to a library of public-domain 3D printable objects, and creative commons scientific publications. So despite the badge (it waves proudly) of being legacy-content enemy #1, it is certainly providing service to the common good. The Pirate Bay is also a host for independent music groups trying to promote themselves outside the normal gateway of big labels.
Regarding people getting off on a technicality, a police officer is a representative of the state, so when he violates your rights during an investigation (illegal search) he represents the state violating your rights, so it is appropriate for any evidence so obtained, or obtained by following on that trail to be inadmissible. If the prosecution depends on that line of inquiry to prove guilt (beyond reasonable doubt in a felony case), then acquittal is appropriate. Any less, and the state (ergo the officer) is not compelled to respect the rights of the suspect, or of any of the citizenship. And then you end up with a police state like Nineteen Eighty Four [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four], in which people go to jail (or just get disappeared) for vague laws like conspiracy, treason ...or racketeering.
238U