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Network Associates/PGP Security plans to release a detailed, formal advisory about this issue in the near future.
Scott Berinato of eWeek via ZDNet - The next era for Internet security: Another RSA patent expiration story. Claims that encryption products should become cheaper and better. [faisal]
Lisa M. Bowman at ZDNet - Tech groups bash anti-Napster ruling: groups on both sides of the issue are filing court briefs. A group including Real Networks, AOL, and Yahoo is claiming that Judge Patel's ruling, if it becomes precedent, would prevent creation of any product that could be used to infringe copyrights. My take is that this is another case just like the cigarette and gun lawsuits. Legitimate businesses are being harmed because of the illegitemate use of their product by consumers. The real news in this article is a reiteration of the fact that Napster is actually boosting CD sales. Wake up music industry! Napster is your friend. [xray]
Meanwhile, despite record industry predictions of doom due to Napster, CD shipments to music stores were at an all-time high for the first six months of the year, according to the RIAA.About 420 million units were shipped, a 6 percent increase from the same period in 1999, the RIAA said. Nearly 86 percent of all music shipped to record stores was on compact discs. DVD shipments also rose by about 71 percent.
The RIAA has said that Napster and other file-swapping programs have hurt record sales. But a Jupiter Communications study concluded that Napster users are actually boosting record sales.
Ken Knelly at The State - Pregame prayer gets standing ovation: The Lexington, South Carolina school district voted to allow students to address football games as they pleased. Kimi Boozer chose to say a prayer at Panther stadium. This may be in violation of a recent supreme court ruling. The ACLU will sue. I don't understand the big deal here. I thought a big reason lots of people originally came to America was so they could worship in whatever wierd way they wanted. Saying a prayer before a football game is not "establishment of religion". Another good argument for complete separation of school and state. [unknown]
bob lonsberry - Hurray for Prayer at Football Games: a good essay on why Ms. Boozer was right to say her prayer, even if she was breaking the law.
The perverted argument that freedom of religion can be turned to freedom from religion is intellectually bankrupt. Its day has passed. The bitter, hateful and oppressive nature of its proponents must be rejected.
bob lonsberry - Why I Hate Being Ticked Off: beautiful piece about the value of forgiveness. Wish bob and I were better at it.
It is not wisdom to gain advantage over your enemies. It is wisdom to realize you don't have any.
Nancy Lofholm at the Denver Post via Cannabis News - Libertarian Sheriff Just Says No To The Drug War: a story about Bill Masters, fifth term sheriff of Teluride, Colorado. He doesn't waste his deputies' time on the war on drugs. They have real work to do. [unknown]
In a "message from the sheriff" printed on the back of a victims' rights pamphlet, Masters tells citizens of his county: "It is your responsibility to protect yourself and your family from criminals. If you rely on the government for protection, you are going to be at least disappointed and at worst injured or killed."
Eric Boehlert at Salon - Four little words: Last November, a small amendment attached to an omnibus spending bill was signed into law by Komrade Klinton. It reclassified sound recordings as "work made for hire", effectively giving ownership of recorded works to the recording companies, not the artists, for the 95 year life of their copyright. Before this change, even if an artist signs away his rights, (s)he could reclaim them after 35 years. This amendment will likely be removed soon, thanks in large part to Bill Holland at Billboard magazine. More land mine legislation. [script]
There's a new issue of The Libertarian Enterprise:
- The Zeroth Amendment by L. Neil Smith - I pointed at this one over at kaba a little while back. If you haven't read it yet, do.
- Letter from Derek A. Benner - proposes creating Libertarian TV shows to capture the minds of the "beer-swilling masses".
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Letter from Nadja Adolf: Why I call myself a "Law and Order"
Libertarian - open immigration only after eliminating
welfare. Free trade, but use "tit for tat plus one more" against
protectionist countries that abuse that freedom.
I refer to my strategy as "Law And Order" Libertarianism -- the goal being to repeal as many laws as possible in the correct order.
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I've Got a Little List ... by James J. Odle - Does Minority Mike
one better. Skewers Klinton, Spielberg, Gore, Danforth, Lieberman,
Hanks-Streisand-Williams-Keillor-O'Donnell.
We will, however, step back and examine the Nazi political agenda. Subtract out all the racism and look at what's left. I ask you, what is the difference between the Nazi political agenda sans the racism and much of the agenda of the liberal wing of the Democrat Party?
The Nazis looked upon the Germany as represented by the government as 'The Fatherland.' Modern day liberalism, being the wussy, cry-baby philosophy of spoiled brats(6) that it is, desires a government whose functions it is to provide all the necessities of life. From education -- to health care -- to social security -- to a job [even if it is a make-work, useless government job] -- to personal safety and security. This also includes forbidding the private ownership of arms. In short, they want a government whose function it is, is to run around and treat everyone as if they are helpless children. In the process of which, they desire to micromanage everyone's life so as to produce the pre-approved results.
- I Haven't Killed Anyone Today by Jeffrey Schwartz - Makes a sensible moral argument for the right to keep and bear arms.
H. Millard at Sierra Times - Raise Your Arms and Go to Jail: Thirteen British soccer fans got drunk in Germany and raised their arms in the Nazi salute. 20 or 30 police officers in riot gear rushed in and arrested them. Why this is really bad news. [sierra]
Germany never seems to learn from its past mistakes and just keeps repeating them with current variations. The old repressive mentality of the past isn't gone, it's just changed targets. Repression is repression and restrictions on free expression are restrictions on free expression. Not only can't people raise their arms in certain ways in Germany, they also can't read certain books or say certain things. What's changed in Germany in the year 2000 from the year 1938? Apparently, not much....
The answers that are given for such repression are as predictable as they are stupid. They are the stock rationalizations that petty dictators always use to justify their repression. In every repressive regime where individual freedoms are abridged, the petty dictators always claim the same thing but with minor local variations. These rationalizations always revolve around some claim that the thoughts, the words, the books, the actions are a "danger to the state." In the case of Germany, the "danger to the state" that is cited for raising your arm the wrong way is a revival of Nazism. And what was one of the problems with Nazism that the present day Germans want to prevent? Why, under Nazism, the German government prevented people from exercising their human individual rights. So, to prevent the abuse of individual human rights, the present day German government prevents the exercise of individual human rights.
...
No, this isn't an Orwellian world--this is straight out of a very dark and evil version of Alice in Wonderland. Unfortunately, it's not just happening in Germany, it's started happening in the U.S. where the state is now working with various private "anti-hate" organizations--that usually have a religious, social or political agenda-- and this state/private anti-hate organization combine is defining down hate to mean any political speech that the state/private anti-hate organizations don't like.
trib.com - Laramie man gets driver's license without Social Security number: one man changed Wyoming policy by refusing to give a social security number to renew his driving license. Good for him. Good for them. [sierra]
Wendy McElroy at LewRockwell.com - Climate Control: A New Phase in PC Feminism: The politically correct police are at it again at the University of Wisconsin. Now they're focusing on "campus climate", initially just from an investigatory vantage point, but you can bet they'll make some new law out of it, or not, if the anti-PC forces have their way. [lew]
Steve Chapman at TownHall.com - Is the first amendment null and void: Harrassment laws have trumped the first amendment, most recently at an Alcoa plant in North Carolina, where a lawsuit caused Alcoa to ban the display of the confederate flag in any form on company property, even on the state-issued license plates for descendents of veterans of the war of northern aggression. [lew]
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once wrote that liberty means not just "free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate." Our harassment laws say: Not anymore, it doesn't.
