Instpundit had a shocking post about Orrin Hatch's statement at a recent Congressional Hearing. Hatch supposedly said he was in favor of destroying the computers of people who illegally download music. Here is an excerpt from the Washington Post story:
"During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.
"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.
"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
What does it suggest? Apparently, Congress is concerned that "National Security Risks" are going to affect P2P file sharing. Yeah, right.
Well, the transcript of the "Dark Side" hearing is not online yet so we can't really tell what was discussed. Perhaps this is the hearing where Hatch's bizarre comments about breaking computers were uttered.
We don't have the complete hearing transcript so we don't know. But we do have Hatch's opening remarks to the "Dark Side" hearing, which are pretty loopy if you know anything about computers and P2P networks. He begins by describing the problems of P2P file-sharing in a statement that was undoubtedly prepared for him by one of his staffers:
"While the true scope of this [file-sharing] problem is still unknown, studies have shown that potentially malicious parties are searching P2P networks for personal emails and credit card numbers. This alone is disturbing, but in government agencies, employee use of P2P networks could also disclose sensitive government data to the enemies of this country. At this moment in history, the implications of this risk are troubling, to say the least.
I am also troubled that many P2P networks require their users to install so-called “spyware” or “adware” – programs that monitor, collect, and report information about the Internet “browsing” habits of a particular user. Such programs can collect and disseminate information about the Internet use and personal information of anyone using the computer on which a P2P networking program has been installed. The invasion of privacy and potential for identity theft inherent in such programs has already attracted justifiable attention from members of Congress and consumer advocates concerned about the privacy and security implications of such practices. In addition, some of these “spyware” or “adware” programs can also wreak havoc on a user’s computers by commandeering their browsers, creating conflicts with other software that can crash a user’s computer, and otherwise interfering with users’ control over their computers.
So he is concerned on the one hand with people using "spyware" to take control over people's computers and with credit card theft. But, on the other hand (according to the Washington Post article) he thinks that people who violate copyright laws should have their computers broken to teach them a lesson.
You know if I didn't know better I would think that our average member of Congress thinks that they can speak out of both sides of their mouth and no one will ever notice.
One last thing. His statement about the "P2P networks requiring people to install spyware" is a doozy. Uh, Mr. Senator, the P2P network you refer to is called "The Internet."
Oh, and what does any of this have to do with "National Security?"
Later: For a roundup of the blogosphere's reaction to Hatch's statement click here. And Instapundit has some more information that is worth reading. And yet more information here (including info about Senator Hatch's own copyright violations)
Jason Nemes has taken it upon himself to produce a weblog that focuses on the US Sixth Circuit, although he reserves the right to take up other matters. He is also interested in legal matters in the State of Kentucky. No RSS feed. If it becomes succesful, he'll probably want to get an RSS feed (and move away from Blogspot along with the other long lines of refugees).
1:53:50 PM
Here's something interesting. MSNBC's website has a column called "Blogspotting" that talks about blogs The latest article is about the importance of Google ranking, and it mentions Denise Howell (referred to as "a conference blogging star"). It also mentions this blog because of the nice article that Jerry Lawson wrote.
Bag and Baggage gives word that Richard Allan, an MP in the British Parliament, has a weblog. I love the announcement in the banner at the top of his blog:
" Welcome to the weblog of Richard Allan, Member of Parliament for the Sheffield Hallam constituency. This log contains occasional observations of a mainly political nature..."
With that simple introduction, given in a humble human voice, you get the impression that here is a fellow who wants to talk openly with the people that he represents.
In the past, before weblogs, his choice was to meet them in person (hard to do) or use the media (but subject to their editorial whim). Now, he has his own forum where he can speak to as many people as might be able to access his site (a geometrically growing number) without any editorial constraints.
Now, let's be realistic here. This blogging thing isn't for every politician. Some politicians have specialized handlers that control the press, or at least control it sufficiently to "get their message out." They don't worry if the press doesn't get into detail because there is no detail being given out. If you have a simplistic message, then you sure as hell don't want to post it on the web where people can see it for what it is.
Blogs are as interesting to those types of politicians as sunshine is to cockroaches.
If you don't know what News Aggregators are read this. OKay let's say you know that News Aggregators (or News Readers) can gather up your news feeds (i.e. sites with XML or RSS structure that you can subscribe to) and package them. What would it look like if you could "create a newspaper" with just today's legal news stories? Answer: it would look like this.
Now isn't this a cool way to browse the news? And, you can create a newspaper that lets you read just the sports feeds, or just the financial stuff etc. The secret to this is to use NewzCrawler (there may be other aggregators that let you do this, but I haven't investigated them so I can't say). NewzCrawler is free to try for 14 days and then it's about $25. Check it out. And if you wind up using it and want me to send you my "legal feeds" I can do that and you can just import them and have the folder structure intact for you to slice and dice as you please.
This may not make sense until you try it. But it is one of those things that is worth trying. Unless you like being overwhelmed with information.
