Re: <nettime> openly denied digest [hwang, byfield, cramer]

[Are Flagan <areflagan@transcodex.net>]

That's all well, but the arguments that "so few are affected by it, it can
be bypassed, it's barely enforced" and so are part of the hibernation period
I thought we were emerging from. The same went for all bit-parts of P2P for
the longest, in Internet years, time and Australia just got it's first
_criminal_ online piracy case. (Read the reports; they claim heavy organized
crime, the mob that is, has muscled in on the online market in B. Spears.)
Anyways, no more oops, I did it again. One may say these things are
unrelated to crypto, but the pattern of people doing as they please with an
understanding that the "law" does not apply because it is not widely applied
can be very unfortunate. Ask Sherman Austin who just got a year in the
slammer for a link to a recipe for Molotov Cocktails or the frantic
I-am_heading-for-Mexico Xmule developer who just got subpoenaed. In Austin's
case, the judge overrode the existing plea agreement and gave him 12 months
instead of 4. Both defendants display a healthy sense of disbelief at what
is happening to them, but were arguably lulled into a habit of common,
global, hacker, above-the-law Internet sense, rather than strict adherence
to that lovely Ashcroftian craft. It's likely, of course, that such
restrictions stem directly from and remain associated with "trading with the
enemy" acts, and, as should be noted here, that definition suddenly got very
loose and unpredictable. No? If you go to the Adobe online store, you'll see
the same export warning prominently posted. It may look medieval in terms of
cartography, but it also, as a posting, looks a lot like the signs once so
prominent in the South -- those for segregation.

Another interesting thing is the geographical limitation on certain Internet
sites. Maybe it's a bandwidth thing, restricting information that is only
deemed relevant within a certain locale? When I tried to read the blurb on
that 9/11 turkey on Showtime, I was denied access "from outside the US." I
understand why they would rather keep that film secret to prevent national
ridicule (Bush is very seriously played by the very guy who mocked him in
the short lived Comedy Central gig "That's My Bush"), but it's perhaps a
taste of enforced borders to come on and around the Internet.

-af   
   
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