Net Neutrality and Democracy

I've been studying the concept of network neutrality since June. I do know one thing to be a relative certainty: net neutrality is inherently linked to free speech, not to mention the other things like commerce and politics. And I support net neutrality, not because it's what my political choice demands, or because someone else has somehow misinformed me, but because it simply and undeniably makes logical sense.

Common sense dictates that network neutrality is going to mean government regulation. That part is pretty much a given. And while I'm generally against regulations that are imprudent, this is a major case of consumer protection versus corporate interests. When given a choice like that, I'm forced to choose consumer protection almost every time (except in some cases, where it's clear that consumer protection would have minimal impact on consumers while inexorably damaging corporate ability to do business... and there are even exceptions to that, as well).

Regulations about network neutrality would limit corporate abilities to control traffic that didn't originate within their own networks. The Supreme Court in June of 2007 already ruled that companies may control their own network traffic, but specifically excluded traffic outside their network from being throttled or controlled. This was essentially what was already happening, but Comcast began throttling P2P traffic such as BitTorrent or Gnutella, and I actually know some of the people who first reported the story (and no, it wasn't the Associated Press reporters who blew the story wide open). And it's wrong, in spite of their aims.

This is non-neutrality, because it's preventing a type of legitimate traffic from being used. I've been trying to get the Ubuntu CD for over a month, and downloaded a few documentaries (one called "Route Irish," which was a good primer on what not to do during a protest), and because I believe in law, I don't like the idea of stealing the work of others, so I don't trade the RIAA's MP3s or Hollywood's movies (not that I would want to anyway... my tastes are much more refined than that). But I have a friend who told me he found and downloaded the entire "Transformers" movie in about two hours flat, only to find that it was mislabelled and home-produced gay porn. He and I are in the same neighborhood. If he can download his porn file which looked to be a copyrighted file from the outside, why can't I get my legal downloads to work? That's one drawback to net neutrality: trusting the gatekeepers.

So what's the big deal? Why is there so much hype about it? The answer is: corporate interest. The facts of the matter are that the corporations have generally been led to believe (quite incorrectly, I might add) that a neutral network means that so-called "smart" switches would not be permitted. However, the pro-neutrality people are in favor of "smart" switches, so long as they don't give favoritism to traffic based on financial considerations to or from the target site. If it was a radio station, it would already be considered illegal to do this, because this is the definition of payola in the radio system (which, admittedly, is a different medium).

However, the same logic should hold true: paying an ISP (as an example) to either throttle your competition or to not throttle your own connection with them, in addition to charging consumers to access the internet. This is precisely the kind of logic that many media industries employ in their rabid enforcement of copyright: when you take from both ends of the equation, you become rich. Except that we have a word for that. It's called exploitation.

Neutral networks mean that there is no censorship of the "slowing down traffic" kind on the net. Unlike print media, the internet requires neutrality in order to operate correctly. Simply slowing down traffic has the effect of discouraging the dissemination of information and can also be used by people such as your own political adversaries. Network neutrality requires that the flow of traffic be determined only by the limitations of the network, not the chosen limitation of commerce. However, companies do need to be able to "shape" traffic in order to manage a large network.

Oddly, this is not against network neutrality. A "smart" network is a happy network. Managed switches used ethically for the purposes of creating a network that flows smoothly and efficiently is within the interests of network neutrality, as well as corporate interests. It's when this shaping of networks becomes an excuse for limiting traffic to or from a site in the name of forcing profits that the shaping even becomes an issue. Net neutrality is about ethics reform, not about limiting the ability to ethically prioritize traffic in order to assist or increase network functionality. The concept is neutral, not anarchic.

The proponents of neutrality are sometimes criticized for not having a grip on the situation. I was trained at ITT Technical Institute (though I didn't graduate) and my last course of study was network administration. I can assure everyone: I have a very solid grip on the situation, the issue, and the consequences of both choices. And I choose neutrality because it simply makes better logical sense to protect against barriers to entry, and to promote a sound economic development of healthy competitive practices. Raising a required fee to every ISP in the world in order to ensure connectivity of one company's web site would only further the gap between the wealthy and poor companies of the world, rather than assisting in competitive practice.

To date, I have read some 400 documents about network neutrality, both for and against. Early on, I was against neutral networks because I understood that the argument was to be one of "smart" versus "unmanaged" networks. However, that argument is not, and has never been, the issue at all, in spite of the anti-neutrality folks' arguments to the contrary.

The issue of net neutrality is also not simply about consumer protection. It's about censorship. And censorship is contrary to our First Amendment. If we are to embrace democracy for our republic instead of allowing it to devolve into a despotic or fascist state, we must vigilantly protect the traditional rights our Founding Fathers laid out, with the intent in which these rights were specified.

Democracy, Dissent, and Free Speech

Enter our contest!

I've been in court this week on a matter involving my son, so until that's done, the posts here are likely to be sporadic. Apologies to those who have elected to read.

Speaking with a dissenting voice is a sure sign that democracy is alive. Let's face it: nobody likes to be told they're doing a poor job, but there isn't a better test of democracy than the public expression of discontentment. Shame is a powerful motivator to create positive change, particularly where that shame is considered by the public at large.

Shame in my own life has been a powerful motivator for change, particularly where I've been concerned about the opinions of those around me. I've done some things I'm definitely not proud of, but with my set of experiences, the end result has been positive. The problem is that there needs to be accountability for wrongdoing, and in corporate America, there is little accountability because of the power of money to bring lobbies to bear on Congress, limiting their effectiveness by creating the impression of a large amount of support or opposition. However, the issue is that lobbies often misrepresent the issues at hand, because the lobbyists only know what they are told, and often they are not told a complete set of facts.

Two items of shame that I to point out include the secrecy with which our country's current administration operates, excluding people from the operation of government because (as some insiders have stated openly) they have "operations that wouldn't stand up to sunlight". This untenable practice cannot be tolerated in a democracy.

The other item of shame is the blind adherence of the top political contender for being our next president, Barack Obama, to the draconian system of copyright that pervades our country and which threatens to undermine not only the democratic processes that make us great, but also our economy. This system of copyright is not democratic, and expanding on it is absolutely counter to the Constitutional mandate of protecting the creative works and processes that make our nation great.

And where Obama is concerned, this is about the only spot I really disagree with at a basic level. I can understand his pro-consumer stance, but I also believe that his entire campaign is undermined by his stance of expanding on copyright.

Most Americans who care don't want copyright expanded. In fact, what we need is a complete reform of the current laws in order to return us to the traditional value of artist protection. You see, the large studios don't want artists to be protected; they want their own rights as producers to trump the rights of artists, who often are not even allowed to perform their own works because of transfer agreements, which the studios essentially force out of these artists in order to ensure that they have their bottom lines maintained.

Another point to consider: the WGA strike that continues. Writers are essential to the business of entertainment. Writers feel they should be taking a larger share. And studio execs continue to take the lion's share of the proceeds. Not the artists. Not the writers who create the works. It's their creativity that makes Hollywood. Actors, in spite of their vitality, can be trained and acting talent can be taught. Writing talent requires a "feel" for the written word. This fact alone means that most writers could be actors, if they merely looked nicer. But writers are concentrating on what they write, often sacrificing their own sanity in certain moments and under certain conditions in order to really get into the minds of the characters for which they write. Hollywood, and especially the MPAA, promotes their own well-being, and doesn't support the art.

The entire idea that the MPAA, RIAA, and their ilk is doing anything that protects artists' rights is against the idea of common sense, simply because those industries at the base of their practice are exploitative. They not only exploit artists, but also consumers.

I am not in favor of doing away with copyright; that would not only be unconstitutional, it would be disastrous. What we need is to rebalance the idea of copyright with the idea that creative derivatives are not infringement. I'm not talking about the idea of "piracy" where there is a huge gap between those who want to expand and those who want to abolish. There must be a balance to the approach; a necessary retention of some parts of copyright, while eliminating others. We need a "common sense" approach to copyright, where consumers are not the enemy of copyright holders and artists are permitted access to their own works.

It is unreasonable to believe that by eliminating the access to one copyrighted work, artists are somehow motivated to produce another. Creativity doesn't work like that. Creativity is not motivated. Creativity is inspired. Creativity is an innate response to emotional stimuli. Creativity is not an emotional response to logical pressures. Creativity resides in the right, creative side to the brain. It is not rational. It doesn't operate by a strict set of rules. But on the flip side of things, neither is creativity entirely unpredictable. Only greatness in creativity is unpredictable. Creative genius does not know borders of culture, society, gender, sexuality, political status, income level, or religion. It is a part of the human soul.

But for creative genius to exist, creativity itself must not be stifled. In this sense, democracy is the ultimate crucible in which creativity can be produced. This fact of history is due in large part to the freedoms of speech and expression that we enjoy in this country, and the current regime of copyright holders want to exercise control over the very thing that proves that we are democratic and free. This is not an acceptable state of affairs.

I would invite Obama to send me his research which supports the idea that copyright should be expanded upon. I will submit only two papers, neither of which was produced here in the United States, but instead in England, where the copyright regime's controls are all but absolute at this point, and which essentially do nothing but create a rift between consumer and industry to the point that the industry itself is starting to be bypassed completely.

These two studies show their methodology, explain their reasoning completely, and leave very little to the imagination. They don't contain the leaps in logic that are required for reading the studies sponsored by the MPAA and RIAA. They really do not require the enormous profits they claim, nor is online piracy really the bugbear that these organizations claim. It's really not killing the industry. What's killing the industry is the insistence that consumers are the main enemy and must be controlled at all costs. I reject the notion on grounds of logic and reason.

We need someone like Obama, who is the most decent candidate we have right now, with regard to the front-running candidates, to really take a close look at copyright and how it really affects us, and to do the common-sense thing, since that's one of his primary position-toppers (the other candidates lack any semblance of common sense). And even though I like Obama, I'm not really ready to vote for him yet, simply because of the copyright issue and its importance to the smooth functioning of our democracy. Not to mention, I'm not a democrat.

I just hope Senator Obama can appreciate that. Because if he wants me to not write in a vote for "abstain" again this year, I'm going to have to hear him publicly say that the current system needs reform, and that he supports such reforms in order to prevent a complete meltdown of the entertainment industry and to sap the strength of the extremist views which are unnecessarily promoted and escalated by the often vindictive method which we now employ. I would support him entirely, had he not opted for openly stating that he wanted to strengthen our copyright overseas, and to increase the WTO. This is against my principles, and so I am hoping I won't have another write-in vote this year.

My biggest problem right now with the whole "intellectual property" debate is that it very much erodes the rights of creative individuals while preserving the rights of large companies. Individual rights of one should never outweigh another. Both rights must be upheld.

And so the right to dissent must also be upheld. The strength of a democracy is in the fact that we are not all one voice, nor one vision, but we all have the same goal: the well-being of our society. When we are fighting to preserve such a high aim, we must always listen to even the dissenting voices of the minority, because there is no idea that can be called worthless, excepting that is calls for violent action where violence is unnecessary. Dissent is not dissidence. Dissent is disagreeing with a policy or one idea. Dissidence is calling for the entire dismantling of an existing structure. Abolition of copyright is dissidence, in my opinion. But dismantling copyright can still occur by the rabid enforcement of such by the powers that be. Such rabid enforcement spawns the opposing extreme, and it's patently a mistake to promote it. It does not preserve the right of artists and inventors to profit from their works if the population at large doesn't support it.

Dissent is inherently linked to free speech, and as a foundation to democracy, it must be upheld to be inalienable. So when we criticize the government's operations, we're not doing anything against the government. Instead we are exercising the right which our Founding Fathers believed was God-Given: the right to freely express belief. If our beliefs are controlled, then what we have is not a democracy at all. Democracy means that the entire population rules. Democracy means that the government invests its power into the population. But those in power hate that idea. They don't like the idea that the public knows what's best for it. They don't enjoy the concept that popular control is asserted by the population itself. It's not a particularly comfortable idea to those who stand to benefit from positions of power.

But in the end, the power of democracy asserts itself in ways that can only be called beneficial to the long-term. Democracy requires a certain amount of honor be invested back to the people, who tend to be dishonorable and selfish in emulation of what they see at the head of our country. If we want a responsible people, then our leaders must also accept responsibility unshirkingly for errors in judgment. Such errors are magnified by public office, and so when the people in office don't know what their own principles are, these errors will proliferate.

And often, what's right is not what's popular. But in general, the population does know. We have the ability to offer instantaneous feedback for all options which are on the table, and yet we consistently remove this ability by failing to demand it. We don't dissent enough, because we fear rocking the boat and being viewed as unbalanced even as we call for a balance. Dissent is hard, but the preservation of the right to dissent is so utterly important to democracy that I can't imagine what our country would be like without it.

An Essay On Privacy in the USA

Yes, this is a long post. But, I hope, worth it.

The claim that privacy is not a Constitutionally-guaranteed right is a valid one, since the word "privacy" is not used anywhere in any of the documents our Founding Fathers used as the basis for the Constitution. But the facts of the matter are that we are still guaranteed a level of privacy in that the government isn't supposed to be able to snoop into any kind of private affairs without both due process and a warrant. This raises the question of warrantless wiretapping and creates an issue of Constitutionality. Yet our president maintains that we're not afforded a right to privacy under the United States Constitution. I happen to disagree, and here's why:

The definition of privacy in the Constitutional context is to be free from intrusion, interference, or influence of government in our personal spaces. This includes communications, and the sovereignty of a person within their home. However, a warrant can be issued that temporarily suspends that right if there is a probable cause or provable belief that something illegal is happening. Thus, the government's ace-in-the-pocket is to have a warrant before they invade what is essentially sovereign space. We need an oath or affirmation that they believe something is happening, and that's the only purpose they can be there for.

For example, if a police officer believes that there is a drug dealer living in a certain apartment, that officer can swear out a warrant for the property which covers drugs, drug residues, drug paraphernalia, weapons, and the drug dealer himself. The officer then typically knocks politely on the door (and occasionally uses a battering ram for knocking not-so-politely when they require the element of surprise to prevent the stashing of drugs), and enters the property. But let's say that instead of drugs, they find an illegal gambling operation instead. The officer didn't specify any gambling equipment, and his discovery precludes him from being able to use what he sees as evidence against the occupants in a legal case. In spite of the fact that he sees illegal activity, he cannot place anyone under arrest, and he has to disregard anything he sees that isn't contained in the warrant.

But in recent years, officers have received expanded power that allow them to "camp" on the spot and obtain another warrant for the new criminal activity while they wait. So it's not drugs, but the occupant of the property is still likely going to jail for breaking the law, this time on a somewhat lesser charge, in the eyes of most citizens.

The original intent was that officers should obtain solid proof before the fact. They should have enough of an idea of what's happening that such a mistake isn't made in the first place. The fact that there was a lot of traffic in and out of the property is a sign that something is happening, it's true, but the real question is whether or not that the something is illegal activity, such as drugs. Officers are no longer allowed to use their own judgment under the law, because the people have learned that police forces can be sued. What this means is that there is an "us versus them" mentality, and one which should not be acceptable. Officers should respect the dignity and sanctity of a person's home enough to get all of the facts before they enter.

Governmental intrusion into a person's home is still relatively rare here in the United States. In other countries, where there is no protection, officers may walk in at will. England is the only country in the world where individual privacy has been held to a higher standard than ours, and still has a long way to go in order to afford a level of autonomy that allowed democracy to take root. You see, privacy is so fundamental and so basic a need for democracy that any encroachment on individual privacy from government intrusion at any level, or by anyone in a position of power should be considered an assault on democracy as a whole. By removing the ability of people to be private in their own homes, we effectively prevent the very thing that creates democracy: free thought.

Knowing that the police cannot simply barge in on you for no reason is a comfort that only those in a democracy can know. Such relaxation allows individuals to arrive at thoughts they would not normally be able to have. Having lived in an area where privacy was not permitted to this extent, I can say that it alters one's ability to think clearly and rationally about things. But on the flip side of that coin, it also enhances some kinds of neuroses, so too much sanctity probably isn't a good thing. However, people who live in a home should not expect privacy from one another, because of the nature of living together. The expectation should be that those in power cannot intrude at will, be they landlords, employers, businesses, or government. The sanctity of the home has been upheld numerous times and in numerous ways, and yet the Bush Administration persists in its insistence that there's nothing wrong with warrant-less wiretapping. The expectation has been set, they say, that our private communications are now forfeit. Such intrusion is against the Constitution.

The Fourth Amendment reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

This is essentially the entire scope of the right to privacy in the United States. But we need to look at the original intent in order to really understand what they meant.

First and foremost, the security of a person against unreasonable search and seizure means that unless officers have a clear idea that a person is carrying something illegal, they cannot simply search that person. They must first obtain a warrant to go through someone's pockets. I see this provision violated all the time on television cop shows, though it's justified because officers were looking for weapons instead of the drugs they found. Well, no warrant, no arrest. They can confiscate the drugs as contraban, but the real issue here is that unless they had reasonable suspicion that someone was actually carrying the drugs, the drugs should be inadmissible in court. As detrimental to society as that sounds to some people, the price of democracy is that right to be free from unreasonable search or seizure. Please note that it does not say "government" anywhere in the Fourth Amendment: this implies that the freedom is inalienable, and applies to pretty much anyone.

The right to be secure in their houses against unreasonable search and seizure means that nobody (government or otherwise) can intrude on a person's home. Police seem to believe that if an individual citizen makes a discovery, that's admissible in court. In general, I tend to agree. However, if someone enters a property with the intent of informing the police or other authority about anything in there, then they are acting in the capacity of infringing upon a person's privacy. A person's home should be inviolate, and this intent that I mentioned means that they are acting on the authority of those in power. It means this shouldn't be admissible in court, period.

The right to be secure in one's papers means that personal items, identity documents, correspondence, and other items that aren't really anyone else's business should be kept away from the eyes of those who don't really have a compelling need. The real sinker here is the implication of correspondence. In my estimation, all communications have the right to be free from interference and intrusion by those in power. You can't operate a business if nothing you do is private. You can't operate a political party if your competition is in power, particularly if you want to prevent those in power from overrunning the freedoms you enjoy. If you have a secret that you want to hold until an opportune time, it should be allowed under the Fourth Amendment, if you're one of the people to which the rights are ascribed.

The last part, the right to be secure in one's effects, is intended to be a catch-all. Today, personal effects include computer data, which could also be construed as being one's papers. The Founding Fathers wanted to ensure that people could pass along information freely. They also wanted to ensure that someone's personal effects couldn't be seized. With the USA-PATRIOT Act in full swing, seizures of small personal effects (like granny's nail clippers at an airport) became the norm. I suspect that in spite of that fact, the seizures in such cases are unreasonable.

An interesting quote to round some of the point up and link it to the next bit is given to us by Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers, in 1787 (this would be 11 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and shortly after the ratification of the US Constitution), in a letter to William Smith: "[W]hat country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?"

In order to secure a free democracy, privacy is (as I've already said) fundamental. The government is worried about home-grown terrorists and those plotting against the administration in violent ways, it says, but the fact of the matter is that the more we impede individual rights to privacy, the more people find ways to circumvent any system put into place that violate it. By preserving the right to privacy in the first place, we effectively deny any refuge to those plotting violence for any time, except if they start acting secretively. The difference between maintaining privacy and being secretive is a semantic one, to be sure, but one which bears attention. I'll use the 9/11 attacks as an example of this principle.

On the morning on September 11th, 2001, six journalists approached President Bush's hotel in Florida. It was six in the morning, well before any of the attacks later in the day occurred. Nobody was aware that anything special was about to occur. These journalists claimed to have scheduled a poolside interview with President Bush, but they did not appear on the schedule for that day (nor any other). The journalists were denied access on that basis. The Secret Service, in protecting the privacy of the president from the media (who is very much in power, in spite of some opinions to the contrary), they ultimately saved his life. You see, these six journalists were all of Middle-Eastern descent, and they matched the descriptions of people who, only days before, has succeeded in assassinating a leader in Pakistan (if memory serves... I could be wrong on this, and I didn't look up my facts, because the location isn't really important to the point).

Later that day, 3,300 people died. This does not include the 200 who died in one embassy bombing a few years before, nor the 2,000 who died in airline terrorism in the previous decade, or the nearly-100 soldiers who had died in the line of duty, or any of the countless other civilians who have died for the cause of furthering terror in our homeland, or who were US citizen... and this doesn't include those who were citizens of other countries either. I'll put the number on it of 10,000 Americans dying by the directives of one terrorist leader. By comparison, Bush is indirectly responsible for the deaths of some 35,000 civilians, most of whom were killed accidentally because they didn't conform to rules we'd tried to notify everyone about. Our soldiers are fighting a war that had nothing to do with terrorism until we got involved.

But I digress. In the weeks and months that followed, it became clear that our very way of life is offensive to these people. They attacked us because their leader uses an unpopular religious philosophy to justify political activity. In the 1700's, we called such acts piracy, and the thought of the day was that we would simply pay them off and they'd leave us along. Except that they didn't. So, in 1799, we wiped out the Barbary Pirates. We didn't declare war. We didn't tell anyone or brag about it. We expressed sorrow that we had to do it, in fact. We didn't invoke any kind of rights or make any new laws. Congress didn't really get involved. President Jefferson simply declared them enemies of the state, and we went and sank their ships. Every one. We didn't stop to discuss terms of surrender. To this day, our policy is that we don't negotiate with terrorists. Terrorists only understand one language: terror. We kill terrorists, rather than negotiate. That's been the policy for 208 years as of this writing, and always has. The war we've been waging in the Middle East is a mockery of not only this policy, but of the entire system of democracy.

The only accomplishment of Bush's administration, really, is the significant erosion of civil rights by bullying his way through the courts and Congress to get his way. People just don't think that it's true, until they are personally affected. Bush did exactly what good old Ben Franklin warned us about: he traded our civil liberties for temporary measures designed to increase security. Today, our civil liberties are diminished, and the security promised by the USA-PATRIOT Act has yet to surface. We're at a constantly-high state of alert in our country. The real threat is not from al-Qaeda or even domestic terrorism: it's the man occupying the office of President of the United States. The Presidential office is one I respect and even uphold in my daily conversations with people. But I've lost significant respect for the person in that office. Shame on you, George!

If Bush had really been looking out for the security of our country, he would have given us measures to protect ourselves. He would not have decreased the ability of our population to speak to one another, but would instead have armed us with correct information about what was really happening. He was not interested in upholding democracy; he was interested only in his own bottom line.

There's another organization that operates like this: the RIAA. Their recent activities with Jammie Thomas show that they not only are really concerned with controlling the popular tastes. They aren't interested in truth, or justice, or even money. What they want is power. And powerful they are: they recently assisted in a bid to try to cut radio at the knees. Combined with an overabundant consolidation of radio networks, we're really at kind of a loss as to how to keep radio going unless we protect it. And radio stations are actually the basis of our telecommunications infrastructure, so their importance cannot be understated. But that's for another post.

The RIAA uses techniques that invade privacy. Cary Sherman, the president of the RIAA, claims that any idea that using software to intercept communications which are then used to secretly obtain the names of people who may never be notified so that they can prepare an adequate defense and preserve their own evidence, is "bizarre" (and that's a direct quote). The RIAA is in power. Heck, it's even on the right side of the law. But the one thing that they are lacking is a sense of ethical and dignified treatment of people. Their aggressive tactics only alienate them, and people already know that what they do isn't defending the artists' rights, because the companies associated with the RIAA typically take all rights to any work that the artist produces in exchange for marketing that to the public. And as we all know, the artists' main venue (the main way for artists to make money) is with public performance. If I see someone performing music or dance (or both) and I'm in a position to give them something of value, I give it. If it's a penny or a dollar, it doesn't matter: every little bit helps. I think I've given a twenty to a performing artist before.

But many people don't want performance. They want digitally-enhanced music that they aren't able to play without a license, to the point that if they're playing a car stereo too loudly they can be sued for public performance. Or if another artist has a take on the song, it cannot be performed publicly, because the song is copyrighted. Every time we sing "Happy Birthday," we infringe copyright. Such a standard inhibits our innovation through derivative works. It stifles our cultural pride. It reduces us. It is a direct threat on our freedom of thought and belief, and an attack on the Constitutionally-mandated Congressional duty to promote innovation. True, they are supposed to protect these works, but not at the cost of innovation.

But the most offensive portion of all is that if someone is playing a song too loudly on the stereo (a song, I might add, being broadcast freely by a radio station), then that person is also considered a copyright infringer. The sanctity of the home no longer exists under this new copyright regime. We come up short every time we try to fight it. Well, no more. Groups like the Pirate Party of the United States and the rapidly-growing media piracy movement have had enough. Many of us are also fighting back individually. People like Jammie Thomas are likely going to prove to be the rule and not the exception.

Pirates in history did evil things, like murder, rape, kidnapping, pillaging, plundering, ransoming, and enslaving people. Now pirates do even worse things, like copyright infringement.

Gimme a fucking break.

It's time for a mutiny. But unlike mutinies of the past, where people often got the idea of killing or dumping off the captain of the ship somewhere, this mutiny is one of democracy. And it takes votes. If you're not a registered voter, you're unwittingly working for the likes of the RIAA and the others in the copyright regime. Voter registration isn't hard. It's also not expensive, since a postage stamp is less than half a dollar to mail in a voter registration form to anywhere in the country. State voter registration is where this fight can and will be won. And it's the only way. We can't simply raid the RIAA's headquarters. We're not that kind of pirates.

We're computer geeks. We're artists. We're scholars. We're inventors. We use these things to keep ourselves separate. But in the end, the only thing linking us is the fact that we're sick to death of not being able to maintain the sanctity of our home and the privacy of our communications. If we don't exercise our rights within the law, then we shall find ourselves outlawed. The right of the people to be safe needs to exist again. And unless we hold the threat of removing those in power from those very comfortable and lofty seats, we are powerless to stop them.