Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
- Another win for gun rights. This time, the California Court of Appeals has struck down San Francisco’s ban on handguns.
- Good feature in Rolling Stone looking into the possibility that federal anti-terrorism law enforcement officials may be creating terrorists in order to arrest them.
- Speaking of Cato, here’s a nice profile of Ed Crane in the D.C. Examiner. Cato haters might take note of what Crane says is the single most important issue at the moment.
- RIAA just gets greedier and greedier. They’re pushing a new bill in Congress that would slap a $1.5 million fine on anyone who illegally copies a compilation CD. And don’t forget, under RIAA’s interpretation of copyright law, you needn’t sell or even share the copy. Just ripping the songs onto your computer makes you a criminal.
- Canada gets its own version of Dr. Steven Hayne.
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TheAgitator.com
If the informant (or CS, as he’s known) is being paid by the FBI and he actually talks someone into “becoming” a terrorist, isn’t that considered entrapment?
That interpretation of the RIAA’s stance on CD ripping is a little broad. I’m no fan of the RIAA (believe me, they blow) but that last bit of paperwork that referred to “unauthorized” copying said just that… the copying was unauthorized, but that doesn’t mean the same thing as illegal. You could declare that Matt Moore is not authorized to read this website, but I doubt you could get me arrested for doing it.
They did claim that copying into a shared folder was illegal, whether someone downloads the songs or not, which makes their burden of proof much easier. That’s probably a bad enough precedent in and of itself.
If you think the RIAA is goofy, check out what’s being proposed in Canada, via Greg Kot’s blog:
http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2008/01/digital-tax-cou.html
On a side note, I love Greg Kot the music critic (and co-host of the excellent “Sound Opinions” radio show/podcast), but Greg Kot the policymaker could use some work.
That Canadian guy’s not quite Dr. Hayne… he’s actually owning up to his errors.
>Just ripping the songs onto your computer makes you a criminal.
As much as I hate to defend the RIAA, the Washington Post story that the RIAA was going after personal use was false: RIAA shreds Washington Post story in debate
From the Rolling Stone article about the FBIs Joint Terrorism creation Task Force:
That seems pretty accurate…
Jeff - He’s owning up to it, but only after at least 10 years of fraudulent practice and only after he’s been called to the carpet to answer for it.
Steven Hayne hasn’t yet been subjected to accusation in any official capacity. He hasn’t been forced to explain himself.
I think I would like Ed Crane quite a bit but he and a lot of other people need to figure out that anti-illegal immigration does not mean anti-immigration. Immigration policy should benefit the host country as much as it does the immigrant. Ours seem to discriminate against educated people in favor of the poor. I have buddy that just retired from the British Military and wanted to stay here. In perfect health, educated, has a pension and a job waiting for him so the US Government denies him a visa and makes him leave. I have another friend that married a Russian Woman with a masters degree in marine biology. It took him 4 years to get the State Dept. to allow her into the country despite being married to an American citizen and having a job waiting for her. She wouldn’t be here now without congressional intervention. Yet the Indian guy at the Stop’N'Shop down the road says he had little trouble getting here despite having no job, no sponsor and no family here. It doesn’t make sense.
The illegal in immigration often is fairly arbitrary or just flat out protectionist. It’s sad that educated people who can support themselves can’t get through the system. “Anti-illegal immigration” people are often just anti-immigration people that use “it’s the law!” to support their position. However, there are people that are pro-immigration/anti-illegal immigration/so-let’s-reform immigration. I suspect INS does fairly little in the ‘protect us from terrorists posing as immigrants’ department and more in the ‘keep immigrants out of the country so I can keep my job or demand higher wages’ department. I wonder if we would be just as safe (or even safer?) if INS was really just Customs or such - check people at the border to make sure they aren’t sneaking in a nuclear bomb and then let them in.
Just because you criticize the Cato Institute doesn’t mean you are a “Cato-hater”. Just like if you criticize the President doesn’t make you an “America-hater”.
Incidentally, Ed Crane’s biggest issue is a “humble” foreign policy, that we should stop barging in and “spreading democracy”. If he still thinks invading Iraq had ANYTHING to do with spreading democracy, I have a bridge he may like to buy to go along with odious piece of horseshit.
Divadab,
I think you misinterpreted quotes about what the government says is happening as compared to what Mr Crane actually believes. I don’t know anyone who has not heard the “spreading democracy” excuse and already has discounted it! The warmongers just put our soldiers in the enemies’ sights, mostly for religious reasons, on the Iraqi’s part!! They are getting paid for their oil, aren’t they?