Bill Shatzer wrote:
>> By the way, if I was the McCain/Palin campaign I'd get some lawyers to
>> start working on the possibility of major litigation against the
>> websites that display the material because it's stolen intellectual
>> property.
>
> What would they get from that? An order to take the information down?
A fairly punishing payback in legal fees alone.
> The horse is already out of that barn.
Paparazzi media ethics. It's sort of like chasing around celebrities.
Sure they're public figures, and out in public.
> And it's not as if the "intellectual property" is worth anything.
We don't know anything about what's there.
> And these things have appeared on, what, hundreds of websites by now.
It's amazing what subpoenas can accomplish. Hammer one and see what
happens. It is not my opinion that information that is gained by
intrusion or theft should be protected from severe legal retribution if
it's published on the internet. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those
websites go down in flames over it.
> Perhaps, but the sourcecode has value far beyond nominal damages.
So does official Alaska state business.
> And, of course, the copyright for intellectual property created in the
> course of employment belongs to the employer, not the employee.
If I hacked your e-mail account and published your private e-mails on
the internet, what would you do? Is nothing safe?
So maybe the state will go after them rather than the campaign. That
would be even better.
In any case, if America tolerates intrusion into personal e-mail
accounts AND excuses bloggers who say that as long as somebody ELSE
committed the crime it ought to be protected free speech, things are
going to get nasty.
Consider: What's wrong with hiring a company who hijacks mailservers or
infects computers with malware to send out hundreds of millions of
pieces of junkmail with forged headers and bogus reply-to messages (so
third parties get flooded with mailer-daemon messages they can't
explain")? There's MONEY in hiring megaspammers to distribute Cialis
and penis enlargement or porn spam? According to the government circa
1999, it's "free speech."
-c
