I’m a little behind in my daily news briefings, but in catching up I came across this tidbit:
http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/09/08/
Has anyone else been keeping up with the rulings against the internet community, creators, sites, outlaws?
Frightening stuff.
Interesting article. However…
I feel the author is being a bit shortsighted when he pins the blame on the power of lawyers. If you take a moment and read the specifics of each case, you’ll see that while the rulings didn’t match up with what a lot of us would consider common sense, they were still good rulings under the law. If there’s to be blame tossed around, it goes to the legislatures for writing ambiguous and moralistic laws concerning the internet.
I do agree that these rulings are somewhat frightening, but this sort of thing will continue until Congress wises up and changes the law to reflect the nature of electronic communication. Until then, I see no reason to specifically vilify lawyers in this instance.
I don’t know, but I’m figuring that won’t be until someone that has had a great depth of knowledge in electronics, the Internet, computers or the associated medium is in a real position of political power. I don’t see that happening for a while.
Though “good rulings under the law,” the rulings might be evidence that the law(s), as it is interpreted to affect today’s issues, is(are) not entirely appropriate. The rule of the land is a living thing, not set in stone. Some basic tenets will always be there, but specifics were and are meant to change.
Or, I could be wrong.