Posted 9:52 AM by Gerald Klaas
The story of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) suing individual file sharers has taken an ironic turn as Sharman Networks, the creators or KaZaa, are suing RIAA for violations of their software copyright. It is the same misguided Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) that allows RIAA to subpoena ISP's which also makes the reverse engineering of copyrighted software illegal. The funny part about this is that the alleged viloation is caught on video tape in a congressional hearing, and is a much clearer violation of the DCMA than what the individual file sharers do. One word comes to my mind...... touché !

Posted 10:18 PM by Gerald Klaas
California Governor Gray Davis this week signed an anti-Spam bill that will allow Californians, their ISP's, or the State Attorney General to sue spammers OR their advertisers in civil court for damages of up to $1,000 per offending e-mail. As a Californian who receives about 150 SPAM messages per day, I look forward to the opportunity to fight back. Not that I expect that I, or anyone else, will ever collect that $1,000, it'd just be satisfying to have that outlet.

Posted 9:07 PM by Gerald Klaas
Other than the author arriving at the conclusion that a flat tax is the way out of the current unconstitutional income tax, it's a very nice article

In large part, this is because the rules are rigged against taxpayers. We have to
provide information to the IRS, even though the Bill of Rights supposedly protects
us from self-incrimination. We’re guilty until we prove ourselves innocent, even
though our Constitution -- at least, in theory -- guarantees the presumption of
innocence.

Posted 5:13 PM by Gerald Klaas
I believe that the next public policy battle of personal liberty is very likely to take the form of product liability lawsuits against restaurants, especially fast food restaurants. Today I enjoyed the political statement made by a Seattle eatery making customers sign a liability release form before ordering their "Bulge" sundae. Good politics. Good humor (pun intended).