Entries about laws and legal matters.
It’s about time someone called corporations on this type of self-serving rule change. As a business owner, I can’t blame them for trying to limit their liability. I’d probably do the same thing in their shoes (though I hope I’d find a way to be more fair about it). But as a consumer it always …
Continue reading ‘“Sony sued over PlayStation Network no-suing rules”’ »
It wasn’t just Tumblr users, either. Demand Progress delivered over seven hundred thousand e-mails as well, including mine. Sorry, music and movie industries. The people won’t stand for such draconian and heavy-handed attempts at censorship to protect your outdated business models. You’re going to have to do what every industry eventually does: adapt or die. …
Continue reading ‘“Tumblr users fight SOPA with 87,834 calls to Congress”’ »
This had better become required by law, and soon, if the government wants people to trust electronic voting machines. Every security expert who’s even glanced at them has been appalled at how easily they can be manipulated. Related and possibly-interesting note: a significant part of one of the Stainless Steel Rat books — written long …
Continue reading ‘“Researchers propose simple fix to thwart e-voting attack”’ »
The Internet is good for a lot of things… not all of them good. (Via Schneier on Security)
When we tell kids that they have to be careful what they share on FaceBook, that it can affect them in the future, it seems that even we don’t realize all the possible implications.
Um… this is a matter of excessive authoritarian zeal, personal opinion, or dollar signs (imagine all the people driving through their town that they could ticket for having these). Whichever it is, these people should be publicly slapped down for abusing the law. Leaving aside the obvious First Amendment issue, consider this: if testicles are …
Continue reading ‘“Truck nuts swing onto US freedom of speech agenda”’ »
I try to keep this blog away from politics, but for issues of sufficient magnitude and importance, I have to bend that rule on occasion. If you’re American (and maybe even if you’re not), you’ve probably heard by now about the Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which ruled that money was …
Continue reading ‘“Move to Amend: coalition to abolish corporate personhood”’ »
Legalize the giving, but not the receiving, of bribes, giving the briber every incentive to report the bribee — including getting his bribe money back. I have to admire the guy who came up with this. The only reason to criminalize the giving of a bribe is moralistic outrage, a system like this would be …
Continue reading ‘“Reducing Bribery by Legalizing the Giving of Bribes”’ »
I recently saw this, and having seen several of these disclaimers in the last decade or so, thought it would make a good blog topic. When I first started communicating with BigCo, they had a policy that required an eleven-line legal disclaimer at the end of all e-mails. I know bits are cheap, but these …
There’s a growing movement to “do something” about the massive inequality of wealth in the US, but no one seems to know what to do, or even what can be done. The obscenely wealthy essentially control the politicians (if you don’t believe me, just look at the rhetoric of “tax cuts for the wealthy!” that …
Continue reading ‘“Stiglitz: wealth concentration will be America’s downfall”’ »