Posts Tagged ‘Megaupload’

Megaupload Details Raise Significant Concerns About What DOJ Considers Evidence Of Criminal Behavior | Techdirt

January 25, 2012

A friend in a forum of one of my subscriptions posted this link and a quote from it:

Megaupload Details Raise Significant Concerns About What DOJ Considers Evidence Of Criminal Behavior | Techdirt:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/00373617487/megaupload-details-raise-significant-concerns-about-what-doj-considers-evidence-criminal-behavior.shtml http://tinyurl.com/7exdahn

Comment: “Mega is no Saint that is for sure but I worry that this is only the beginning.I have no trust and pretty much zero approval of this Government and this Government has shown itself to be liars,hypocrites,and money takers.If you ask me I will state that Washington is full of worse crooks than Megaupload…”

I think maybe the author doesn’t quite get a finger on the essence of what is really bothering him.

It used to be that it was just specific actions that were said to be illegal, and you did it or you didn’t. Now there are “intentions” that are illegal. Certain patterns of bank withdrawals that are around say $9,000, was used as “proof” that somebody was avoiding the reporting requirement that forces banks to report any withdrawal of amounts exceeding $10,000. The pattern itself was defined in court as proof enough, by itself, of the crime of intentionally withdrawing less than $10,000.  This should be no business of the government.

but with some of the legislation of recent decades especially, ambiguity rules and too much power is given to enforcers this way. Too many petty mini-dictatorships with too many little government fiefdoms that arbitrarily make life miserable for any given citizen, all in the name of “protecting” the citizens.

In this case, it just looks like a little of this and a little of that and a little bit of mind-reading and it adds up to criminal infringement even though each particular item in the list when taken alone is legal. Presumably that’s why it’s described as “evidence”, not a factual lawbreaking. So what is the actual illegal act that was done that does not depend on a list of legal activities?

 

See Jonathan Coulton’s blog post on the subject here:
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2012/01/21/megaupload/

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Posted in Censorship, Economics, Economy, global warming, Politics, Ron Paul | 1 Comment »

Feds slam Megaupload with indictment and racketeering charges, Anonymous retaliates | ExtremeTech

January 21, 2012

http://www.extremetech.com/internet/114741-feds-slam-megaupload-with-indictment

The authors here favor the execution of this indictment.

As usual, the “state” does not care about the collateral damage, and “liberals” who complain about collateral damage to the innocent in overseas bombings and the death penalty don’t seem to get the connection here.

If bank officials are caught in outright fraud, do the Feds just wipe out the dollar accounts and say Sorry no can have it?

But here there is no promise that legitimate users will get anything back.

Of course there is a principle of buyer beware. There is too much of an attitude these days that the government should not let anything bad happen to us. That’s a stupid idea, and it’s dangerous too, because it puts too much trust in the people that run the government, and gives them power over us.

What if the ones we trust decide that something we did is harmful –like “hate speech” that they don’t like, or a demand for constitutional government— and shut us down?

Here we have an example of that. This time, maybe the site owners were not innocent little angels. Next time, maybe they’ll just be political dissidents..

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Posted in Education, Freedom, Government, Latin America, Ron Paul | Comments Off on Feds slam Megaupload with indictment and racketeering charges, Anonymous retaliates | ExtremeTech