Let's grant for a second that there are honerable, intelligent and well intentioned people whose calling is to be responsiblle each day and each second for the actual physical security of the the commonwealth.
So, why would such people, with full access to their best faculties, propose a Bill like CISPA, stuffed as is now widely known with the most adverse implications imaginable for the Constitutional Rights of every American?
If one is to take CISPA in isolation, one might say, "OOOOps! Must have been an oversight or some unintended consequences! Perhaps, an afterthought; or two."
But isn't this the same Political Establishment that produced PIPA, SOPA, and ACTA? And didn't those laws suffer from the same articulated abreviations of Constitutional Rights as CISPA? Isn't that EXACTLY why enraged Americans rejected those laws?
Is it impossible to believe that American National Security Proffessionals could not draft a narrowly taylord protocol granting the reasonable rights needed to address cybersecuriy risks of essential National Security assets?
Our problem is not CISPA or PIPA or SOPA or ACTA; but rather, our problem is with what lies behind the recurring totality of these laws: An American political class that tells Americans more clearly each day with each new legislative proposal, that they must accept some nullification of their Constitutional Rights in the interest of protecting existing pecuniary previledges of Intellectual Property distributors under current Copyright Law.
Regretably, everywhere that citizens function as customers, they are being stripped of their most fundamental constititional rights under the guise of "informed" waiver by contractual consent.
The thus far unresolved question is how constitutional rights of Free Speech, Access to Appellette Courts, Freedom from unauthorized searches, or confiscation of private property without prior judicial review, became waivable under commercial Terms of Service (TOSs.)
The even more immediate question is why the burden is perpetually on Private Individual citizens to overcome anew a seemingly infinite iteration of impairment to their constitutional rights. After all, the factual distinction between price, or product quality or delivery date, functionality or use, are a KNOWN qualitative order of magnitude DIFFERENT from the constitutional rights of private citizens. The inclusion of Consttutional perogatives in Corporate Terms of Service, like the resulting damage to civil liberties CANNOT be an afterthought.
The News is proof enough: Ten or twenty or thirty ISPs (regulated public monopolies no less) enter into private agreement for the benefit of third party private entities (not their customers) called a Six Strike program under which the ISPs agree to present their millions of customers with imposed shared terms under which the ISPs presume to possess essentially ALL the powers and rights as private parties (including Immunity from liability) which enraged citizens sent into the legislative toilet bowl with their rejections of PIPA, SOPA, ACTA, and CISPA.
What is the legal basis for these presumptions in the aftermath of the defeat of PIPA, SOPA, ACTA and CISPA? Those millions of customers can find their "rights" defined exclusively within the framework of the ISPs Terms of Service. The mere fact that those Terms of Service effectively nullify the constitutional righs of customers falls into the realm of convenient afterthought: Want independent Appellette review of the fact that the ISP invades your right to privacy and due process by inspecting your personal files without prior judicial process? Have you been falsely accused and wish to sue your accuser in court for damages?
For millions of American citizens the answer to those questions are no longer found in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, but in their ISPs Terms of Service.
Where in the terms of Service? Look for your right to Due Process under "Arbitration Clause".
It is not that the same public anger that defeated PIPA and SOPA and ACTA and CISPA can't find expression yet again on behalf of civil liberties; but, the infinite repetiveness of these insults must be addressed, or we might discover ultimatelty that we won a million battles for civil liberties, but lost the war,
The issue here is not immediately whether MegaUpload could've, would've, or should've been using alternative backup servers outside the reach of U.S. prosecuters.
The issue is whether an American Federal prosecutor can constitutionally process a criminal indictment to conclusion in which that prosecutor is complicit in the selective destruction of exculpatory evidence within the reach of his control and custody.
Guilty verdict? Guaranteed! But that's not constitutional Due Process. Why? Under Due Process the responsibility for preserving confiscated evidence and maintaining a legal chain of custody falls on the prosecuting and police authority who can control that evidence and not the accused who has been dispossesed.
The real disgrace here, is that in America today (in regards to copyright law) it can be considered unremarkable for the DOJ to move its criminal caseload through the Federal Courts as a militant political partisan against any and all counterparties of corporate copyright holders to
include willful disregard and violation of the constitutional and civl liberties of average citizens.
It would seem that clear standards of Prosecutorial discretion would inform ANY federal criminal prosecutor that the provision of due process to the accused is the FIRST priority, even ahead of achieving a guilty verdict.
If these priorities have become so unclear, then we must all be in mortal terror of our civil and criminal prosecutors. Why? Because that procecutor can show up at any of our doors and the fact that we are innocent will be no excuse.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by ThumbsUpThumbsDown.
Are the pecuniary interests of current Copyright Holders immediate National Security Interests?
Let's grant for a second that there are honerable, intelligent and well intentioned people whose calling is to be responsiblle each day and each second for the actual physical security of the the commonwealth.
So, why would such people, with full access to their best faculties, propose a Bill like CISPA, stuffed as is now widely known with the most adverse implications imaginable for the Constitutional Rights of every American?
If one is to take CISPA in isolation, one might say, "OOOOps! Must have been an oversight or some unintended consequences! Perhaps, an afterthought; or two."
But isn't this the same Political Establishment that produced PIPA, SOPA, and ACTA? And didn't those laws suffer from the same articulated abreviations of Constitutional Rights as CISPA? Isn't that EXACTLY why enraged Americans rejected those laws?
Is it impossible to believe that American National Security Proffessionals could not draft a narrowly taylord protocol granting the reasonable rights needed to address cybersecuriy risks of essential National Security assets?
Our problem is not CISPA or PIPA or SOPA or ACTA; but rather, our problem is with what lies behind the recurring totality of these laws: An American political class that tells Americans more clearly each day with each new legislative proposal, that they must accept some nullification of their Constitutional Rights in the interest of protecting existing pecuniary previledges of Intellectual Property distributors under current Copyright Law.
waiver of civil liberties or denial of civll liberties?
Regretably, everywhere that citizens function as customers, they are being stripped of their most fundamental constititional rights under the guise of "informed" waiver by contractual consent.
The thus far unresolved question is how constitutional rights of Free Speech, Access to Appellette Courts, Freedom from unauthorized searches, or confiscation of private property without prior judicial review, became waivable under commercial Terms of Service (TOSs.)
The even more immediate question is why the burden is perpetually on Private Individual citizens to overcome anew a seemingly infinite iteration of impairment to their constitutional rights. After all, the factual distinction between price, or product quality or delivery date, functionality or use, are a KNOWN qualitative order of magnitude DIFFERENT from the constitutional rights of private citizens. The inclusion of Consttutional perogatives in Corporate Terms of Service, like the resulting damage to civil liberties CANNOT be an afterthought.
The News is proof enough: Ten or twenty or thirty ISPs (regulated public monopolies no less) enter into private agreement for the benefit of third party private entities (not their customers) called a Six Strike program under which the ISPs agree to present their millions of customers with imposed shared terms under which the ISPs presume to possess essentially ALL the powers and rights as private parties (including Immunity from liability) which enraged citizens sent into the legislative toilet bowl with their rejections of PIPA, SOPA, ACTA, and CISPA.
What is the legal basis for these presumptions in the aftermath of the defeat of PIPA, SOPA, ACTA and CISPA? Those millions of customers can find their "rights" defined exclusively within the framework of the ISPs Terms of Service. The mere fact that those Terms of Service effectively nullify the constitutional righs of customers falls into the realm of convenient afterthought: Want independent Appellette review of the fact that the ISP invades your right to privacy and due process by inspecting your personal files without prior judicial process? Have you been falsely accused and wish to sue your accuser in court for damages?
For millions of American citizens the answer to those questions are no longer found in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, but in their ISPs Terms of Service.
Where in the terms of Service? Look for your right to Due Process under "Arbitration Clause".
It is not that the same public anger that defeated PIPA and SOPA and ACTA and CISPA can't find expression yet again on behalf of civil liberties; but, the infinite repetiveness of these insults must be addressed, or we might discover ultimatelty that we won a million battles for civil liberties, but lost the war,
retention of MegaUpload servers
The issue here is not immediately whether MegaUpload could've, would've, or should've been using alternative backup servers outside the reach of U.S. prosecuters.
The issue is whether an American Federal prosecutor can constitutionally process a criminal indictment to conclusion in which that prosecutor is complicit in the selective destruction of exculpatory evidence within the reach of his control and custody.
Guilty verdict? Guaranteed! But that's not constitutional Due Process. Why? Under Due Process the responsibility for preserving confiscated evidence and maintaining a legal chain of custody falls on the prosecuting and police authority who can control that evidence and not the accused who has been dispossesed.
The real disgrace here, is that in America today (in regards to copyright law) it can be considered unremarkable for the DOJ to move its criminal caseload through the Federal Courts as a militant political partisan against any and all counterparties of corporate copyright holders to
include willful disregard and violation of the constitutional and civl liberties of average citizens.
It would seem that clear standards of Prosecutorial discretion would inform ANY federal criminal prosecutor that the provision of due process to the accused is the FIRST priority, even ahead of achieving a guilty verdict.
If these priorities have become so unclear, then we must all be in mortal terror of our civil and criminal prosecutors. Why? Because that procecutor can show up at any of our doors and the fact that we are innocent will be no excuse.