The couple who is leading the legal fight for the freedom of the internet in Canadian courts was recently interviewed on the ‘Just Right’ radio program.
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The most lucid examination of the gun control issue to date
March 1, 2013 — xanthippaC0nc0rdance is a scientist who often appears on The Magic Sandwich Show, which I sometimes watch. And while I do not agree with all the views expressed on that show, I do like the level and manner at which the discussion occurs.
So, when C0nc0rdance put out a video on the topic of the 2nd Amendment and the whole gun control issue, I expected a well thought out, well supported position.
Having heard C0nc0rdance’s views on individual vs. collective rights, I also expected that his conclusion will not be the same as mine.
I was not disappointed – on either count.
I was, however, surprised how long into the video I agreed with each and every word he said. His conclusion and mine hinge on one very important distinction in how we perceive ‘rights’….
It is my core belief that the only way for a society to function is to recognize the inalienable rights of each and every individual within that society. The very concept of ‘collective rights’ is anathema to our civilization, where all rights derive from the individual. It is therefore not possible for any group to have different rights than those the individuals within that group have….because if it did, then those individuals within these privileged groups would have greater rights than other individuals in society and we would no longer have equality before the law.
In other words, in order to ensure that each citizen is treated equally by the courts and the law, we are limited to only legally recognizing individual rights. This makes any argument based on ‘group rights’ invalid.
Despite this insurmountable difference of opinion in individual vs. collective rights which makes C0nc0rdance arrive at a different conclusion than I, I think his argument is very good and well worth listening to.
January 18th is ‘Freedom of the Internet’ day: remember Aaron Swartz
January 18, 2013 — xanthippaUnless you are plugged in to the ‘geek’ community, chances are you have never heard of the brilliant Aaron Swartz, his activism or how he was hounded to death by malicious US prosecutors who wielded the power of the broken US justice system as a club.
I have been racking my brains for days how to write this story, because it is an important one and it needs to get out. But, I also wanted to make sure that I connected all the dots that, in my never-humble-opinion, need connecting. I still don’t know how…so I’ll take the brutally honest approach, simply sketching out the ‘skeleton’ and then supplying the links to flesh it out, because otherwise, this post would be a book, not a post…
1.
When you ‘steal’ something, you deprive its rightful owner of its use. As in, if someone steals your car, you can no longer use it for transportation. But, if you make a copy of something, you are not depriving anyone else of the use of the original. Sure, you may potentially limit their ability to monetize it in the future and laws covering that may be necessary. But, it is not the same action and must not be treated as equivalent.
2.
In the past, the way a person monetized their ideas was by charging for the ‘vessels’ or ‘containers’ which were the only means of distributing the ideas themselves. As in, a person would not be paying for the ideas themselves but for purchasing the book in which these ideas were contained. In the digital world, this system is not functional and it is unreasonable to attempt to cripple the internet in order to superimpose the outdated means of monetizing ideas onto it.
3.
It is my philosophical position that ideas are not ‘owned’ by anyone – that their existence is independent of us and that to ascribe ‘ownership’ to them in any manner is immoral. As such, I think that all – yes, all – copyright and the very concept of ‘intellectual property’ are fundamentally wrong and any laws on this very subject are immoral and must be fought against. Yes, I suspect I am more extreme in my position on this than most people and am rather in line with the ideas of the Church of Kopymism.
Aside: Not finding what religions are ‘officially recognized as religions’ in Canada on our government’s website, I’ve called around to the relevant government departments and talked to many of the civil servants in the ‘appropriate’ departments. I know they were the ‘appropriate’ departments because the other civil servants bounced me there… And, the most informed civil servants on this issue have told me that the Canadian Government does not itself ‘officially recognize’ individual religions: rather, if something is officially recognized as a religion anywhere on Earth, it is automatically recognized as a religion in Canada. That means that since Sweden has recognized ‘The Church of Kopymism’ as an official religion, it is legally recognized as a religion in Canada. This means, of course, in no uncertain terms, that all Canadian laws that restrict the free sharing of information are in direct conflict with our freedom of religion laws.
Why?
This position may seem extreme, but it has taken me many years and much thinking to arrive at it…and the ‘why’ is, perhaps, the most important reason for me taking such an extreme position…
So – why?!?!?
Because it is precisely by the use of laws – any laws – which assign ‘ownership’ to ideas, by enacting and then protecting these laws that our freedom of speech will be limited in the age where most of our communications are internet-enabled.
Please, think about it – I will not go further into this because I consider it self-evident.
In other words, I consider freedom of speech to be a necessary pre-condition (not the only pre-condition, but an essential one) for a free society.
Societies are built through communication.
The most powerful tool of communication ever build is the internet.
Therefore, communication over the internet MUST be free.
It is a pre-condition for us to live is a free society.
Which brings me back to Aaron Swartz.
I think that most people truly and honestly do not understand the salient point he was attempting to make…
Please, bear with me because I think this is very important.
Older scientific papers were in the public domain: that means that the information they contained was ‘public’ and no longer copyrighted. Spreading the information contained in these articles was 100% legal.
The problem was that this information was contained in physical journals – the ‘vessels’ I ranted on above. So, a company decided to digitize them. Perfectly legal. They digitized them, housed them on their servers and made them searchable, so that the information contained therein would be easily accessible. All this work of digitizing and storing and managing the ‘free information’ costs money – and so that company charged money to access their database of this ‘free information’.
They charged different organizations different amounts: so, an educational institution in Africa would have free access while universities and colleges in richer countries would have to pay. But, once the college or university paid the fee, all its students and staff would automatically be lawfully allowed to access this information for free.
Aaron Swartz was one such person: he had full free access to all these articles, because he was affiliated with an educational institution that subscribed to this database. So, he had full, lawful access to this database and all the information in it.
So, he accessed it.
But NOT through the ‘regular’ path.
Instead, he went to a different educational institution, one which also had prepaid access to this database, and downloaded the articles through them.
Consider the implications: a person who has legal access to public domain information downloaded it through an organization that had legal access to this public domain information – he just did not do it through the organization he belonged to. (Important point – once an organization paid for access, they no longer had to pay ‘per article’ – so nobody was monetarily disadvantaged by this action.)
This, apparently, is a crime so severe, the prosecutors were seeking to put him in jail for 35 years!!!
This is not a joke!
The company that had digitized the information and from whom Aaron Swartz downloaded it did not want to press charges: they may have been annoyed, but they did not think any crime had occurred.
Yet, this apparently merited longer jail sentence than rape, murder and terrorism would have earned him.
And people wonder why hactivists are trying to bring attention to just how misguided our laws are?!?!?
Also, if you take the time to read the links below, note not just what is being reported, but how…
OK – that was the ‘skeleton: here are links to some of the articles about Aaron Swartz.
Federal justice and Aaron Swartz’s death
Aaron Swartz: Idealist, Innovator—And Now Victim
Aaron Swartz’s reckless activism
I conceal my identity the same way Aaron was indicted for
Law Professor James Grimmelmann Explains How He Probably Violated The Same Laws As Aaron Swartz
There’s more, much more….
So, today, on what OpenMedia terms ‘Freedom of the Internet’ day, please, do take a moment and think about it all..
UPDATE: US Senator Cornyn Questions Holder Over Death of Reddit Co-Founder Aaron Swartz
CATO Institute: The Second Amendment in 2013 (David B. Kopel)
January 12, 2013 — xanthippa
A few points…
I do not think placing armed guards in school is a good idea – I believe each and every teacher has the responsibility to protect the children we entrust to them. Therefore, each and every teacher MUST be fully trained and qualified in the use of guns and be armed at all times while on school property. Loose your gun certification, loose your teaching job, just like a cop.
My reasons for this is threefold.
First, the teachers are already supervising the children. There is no need to have a second person in each classroom to protect them from potential gun violence: this is wasteful and unnecessarily raises the anxiety level of the students. Simply put, it would be costly, inefficient and fear-mongering.
Second, people tend to fear that which they do not understand. Currently, the vast majority of the teachers I have encountered have never handled a gun in their lives…especially urban teachers. And, these are the same people who tend to be unreasonably afraid of guns. (I do not mean that all fear of guns is unreasonable – simply that some peoples’ fear of guns goes beyond what it should reasonably be.) Urban teachers tend to come from social circles where anti-gun hysteria is at its shrillest: and this prevents them from reacting reasonably should they find themselves facing a gun. Forcing teachers to become familiar with guns would go a long way towards minimizing their unreasonable fear, educate them how to behave under threat, and thus would lead to a more constructive reaction should they ever be in the unfortunate position of having to face an armed assailant.
Third, and perhaps most important, is the lesson of self-reliance this would teach the students. Yes, the police is there to help solve crimes and catch criminals, but once you become an adult, you are not a ward of the state but a sovereign human being responsible for your well being and for the well being of your dependents. While it is good to accept help when you need it, it is YOU – and you alone – who bears responsibility for yourself.
This third reason would be completely reversed if the people who carried arms in school were special armed guards and/or extra police officers. Rather than teaching students – from a young age and by example rather than through flowery speeches – independence and self reliance, putting armed guards into schools will only further deepen the chasm between ‘armed people’ and ‘the rest of us’.
Putting armed guards in schools will teach children that only those who represent ‘the authorities’ are permitted to be armed and the rest of us must cower in fear. It will normalize the dangerous notion that carrying gun is a job in and of itself and that it is wrong for ‘normal people’ to be self reliant.
And that, in my never-humble-opinion, is a lesson each and every tyrant would like its populace to be taught from a very young age!
It is not a coincidence that prior to every major government-purpotrated massacre or genocide or pogrom, gun control laws were enacted and private arms were widely confiscated. Learn from the mistakes of others or perish, like they did…
I’ll go even further than that: I have very grave reservations about licensing and registering guns at all. If the government and/or ‘authorities (or even unscrupulous civil servants – remember, weakest link, human failings and all that) know who owns guns and where they are kept, they have the ability to overpower and disarm these citizens – one at a time. Having lived under a totalitarian system where this very thing happened, I deeply believe this is not a risk worth taking.
EFF Patent Project Gets Half-Million-Dollar Boost from Mark Cuban and ‘Notch’
December 19, 2012 — xanthippaFrom the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
‘
San Francisco – America’s broken patent system needs major reform to protect innovators and the public. Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is announcing a major new boost to its patent work: a half-million dollars in funding from entrepreneur Mark Cuban and game developer Markus “Notch” Persson.
“The current state of patents and patent litigation in this country is shameful,” said Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. “Silly patent lawsuits force prices to go up while competition and innovation suffer. That’s bad for consumers and bad for business. It’s time to fix our broken system, and EFF can help. So that’s why part of my donation funds a new title for EFF Staff Attorney Julie Samuels: ‘The Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents’.”
Cuban’s $250,000 donation also funds the hire of a new attorney experienced in patent reform and high profile patent litigation: Daniel Nazer, who will join EFF in January as a Staff Attorney. The rest of EFF’s seasoned intellectual property team includes Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry, Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl, and Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz. The team is also assisted by EFF fellows Michael Barclay and Jason Schultz.
Persson’s separate donation of $250,000 cements EFF’s ability to tackle the systemic problems with software patents. With a blend of lawyers, technologists, and activists, EFF will push for reform in the courts, through activism campaigns, and by educating the public and politicians about what is wrong with software patents and what needs to change.’
Read the rest here.
Michael Geist: CETA Update, Part Two: ACTA Provisions Are Still Very Much Alive
August 13, 2012 — xanthippaMichael Geist warns that despite its rejection, ACTA provisions are still very much alive and may be imposed through other mechanisms…
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 