Incite

EFF Kicks Diebold's Ass

Diebold tried to use the DMCA to silence the people giving out details of it's faulty voting machines using information from company memos. The court said they were not violating Diebold's copyright and Diebold knew that, so they awarded the activists court costs and damages.

The DMCA is dangerous in itself, so it's good to see that it can't be used to stifle free speech.

In his decision, Judge Jeremy Fogel wrote, "No reasonable copyright holder could have believed that the portions of the email archive discussing possible technical problems with Diebold's voting machines were proteced by copyright . . . the Court concludes as a matter of law that Diebold knowingly materially misrepresented that Plaintiffs infringed Diebold's copyright interest."

Link: EFF kicks Diebold's ass

You Broke A Law, But We Can't Tell You What It Is

This is a pure Kafka. The question for me here is not whether Gilmore can be required to show ID or not - that's a separate issue. The question out of Kafka is how he can be required to cooperate with a law that, if it exists, is secret - so secret that it can only be discussed in a closed appeals court session WITHOUT his lawyers present?!?!?! So secret the government isn't even saying it exists.

His lawyers want this brought out into the light and have filed a motion:

The motion opposes the federal government's request to present its rebuttal of Gilmore's case to the court alone and in secret.

Justice Department lawyers made the request (.pdf) to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Friday, saying that if the requirement to demand ID exists, it would be in a security directive that is classified as "sensitive security information" that it could not reveal in open court. The government did say, however, it would also file a redacted version of its arguments publicly.

Gilmore first challenged the constitutionality of requiring airlines to ask passengers to show identification in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in July 2002, but the government refused to tell that court whether the rule existed.

However, the government acknowledged that if the requirement did exist, it would be in a secret security directive that would have to be challenged in an appeals court.

This would be funny if it weren't real.

Read more: Wired News: Flight ID Rules Fuel Fresh Furor

Senator Kennedy on "no-fly" list

This is from Boing Boing, one of my favorite blogs. I think it's hysterical, but at the same shows the state of the "no fly" lists - a mess!

"Senator Ted Kennedy says he was denied boarding on three shuttle flights in one month, because he's on the federal "no-fly" list of terrorist suspects.

His aides had to call Tom Ridge three times to get taken off the list. Imagine how hard it would be for one of us lesser human beings to get taken off the list.

A Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman's explanation makes me even more nervous about the way things are being run be the feds. She "insisted Kennedy 'is not on the list, not now or ever. His name was similar to someone else's alias.'" [italics mine] Is it supposed to make us feel better that innocent people can be denied boarding for having a similar name to a suspected terrorist's alias?"

Read more: Boing Boing: Senator Kennedy on "no-fly" list