Supreme Court Just Empowered Ignorant Cops

Police ignorant OF THE LAW — or those who now claim to be — are able to make traffic searches, according to the highest court in this land.

U.S. Supreme Court Rules 8-1 that Citizens Have No Protection Against Fourth Amendment Violations by Police Officers Ignorant of the Law

Deep Web: Bitcoin and Silk Road

Filmmaker Alex Winter presents a radical and potentially disturbing take on the web beyond the law, the secretive parts of the internet nicknamed the “dark web.”

Winter already did a film favorable to Napster, calling it a “revolution” and giving a one-sided view of file sharing.

 

What strikes me is the total contempt and opposition to the music artists (and other copyright holders) who want to get paid so they can survive.   There is no balance to his presentation, and his fawning description of a web beyond the law, the realm of drugs, organized crime and terrorism, sort of gives pause.  Just what is he advocating?  Some laws are a good thing.

I remember a documentary from 1970 about the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin touring across Canada.  Just after Woodstock, when the massive crowds tore down the fences and the concert turned free – the bands met up with Canadian crowds who only wanted free concerts.  The kids tried to tear down fences in several shows, and Jerry Garcia discussed it with others about how the band needed to get paid so they could tour at all.   The musicians do need some compensation, and the expectation of free everything is childish and unrealistic, actually detrimental to all concerned.  If artists can’t survive then they will be out of the game.  Some compensation needs to be part of the system, or else it validates the claims of music corporations that downloading is “theft.”  Many people hate corporations with a knee jerk response, and the big ones deserve it.  But the musicians themselves are a part of this equation.

Alex Winter’s new project Deep Web is described here:

Deep Web: The Untold Story of BitCoin and The Silk Road

His pitch for a $10,000 sugar daddy is another moment to give pause.  Seems like someone oblivious that he’s playing with fire.  Or else he’s a bit of a pyromaniac.  Something to consider, anyway.

How can we balance the needs of free communications with the need to uphold the law and fight crime?  The new age is scary, for so many reasons.  The rise of hackers, government and corporate sponsored, as well as individuals and straight out criminals has us all at a disadvantage.  The modern condition is hackers 1, citizens 0.  As systems become more complex and pervasive that score is going to get a lot worse.