🚀 go-pugleaf

In article ssatchell@BIX.com (ssatchell on BIX) writes:
>boursy@world.std.com (Stephen Boursy) writes:

>>	I've never cared much for the EFF even way back when they 
>>were in my hometown of Cambridge, Ma.  They always represented the
>>interests of the business owners (ISPs, etc.) first over the 
>>consumers of such.  That's not consumer advocacy at all.

>     I see a lot of ranting and raving about how the EFF isn't for consumer
>advocay, but what I don't see from you and others is any indication that you
>know the history of the creation of the EFF or it's original charter.
>You have conveniently forgotten who started the thing, too...[snip]
>
>...Again, EFF is more interested in the
>targets of oppressive Federal government law enforcement action -- and the
>consumers just aren't being arrested and their equipment seized for no good
>reason.


Overall, I agree with ssatchell on his reply to Stephen.  However, the above
quote about consumers not having their equipment seized for no good reason is
not wholly correct.

The recent ex parte search/seizures by Scientology, by their convincing three
different Federal judges it was necessary, has now been shown to have "no good
reason."  Both Kane and Brinkema, in preliminary rulings, cited that
Scientology overstepped their bounds and that it probably was unnecessary.
In addition, they alluded to possible unconstitutionality of the ex parte
search/seizure law itself.

In my opinion, these raids were unnecessary since the reason behind ex parte
search/seizure allowance of Copyright law is to prevent the unauthorized
dissemination of copyrighted materials, notably things which are tangible
like t-shirts and books, from being sold to the public.  But in the case of
electronic communications, the so-called infringing posts were already
distributed on the Internet!  The cows were already let out of the barn!  And
seizing the electronic copies on the defendant's hard-drives would not alone
have stopped them should they wanted to continue to repost the material since
they could easily have retrieved the copies over the Internet and reposted
them, probably anonymously.  The only legitimate course of action for the
courts would have been to order the defendents not to repost the materials
until the court could hear the suit.

When the first raid happened to Erlich, I notified EFF (Stanton) and the ACLU
(don't recall the name) of the danger these raids posed to net.freedom, that
they were unnecessary, unwise, and probably unconstitutional.  I told them
that CoS will continue to use these raids on others (which turned out to be
a correct prediction -- it happened again to Wollersheim, Penny and Lerma)
and urged them to go to Federal Court asking for a temporary injunction on
all ex parte raids until its Constitutionality can be ruled on.  But, EFF and
the ACLU did nothing (maybe they could not do anything, I don't know), with
the result that more of these jack-boot raids occured.  And the potential is
still there;  there's been no injunction or even education of the Federal
judges on this matter.

Thus, I again urge EFF and the ACLU to do something to stop these raids.  
Maybe go to court to have them stopped.  Or maybe put together a document to
send to all Federal judges (if this is allowable) informing them of the
nuances of the Internet (most judges have virtually no knowledge about
electronic networks and how they differ from the "real" world) and under what
situations ex parte search/seizures for alleged copyright infringement are
unwise, unnecessary and even unconstitutional.  We do have statements by
Judges Kane and Brinkema on this matter to use.

Jon Noring

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