[wordup] Humor: American vs. British legal systems

[Adam Shand]

more old stuff.  sorry i've been slacking all, been busy with other stuff.

adam.

Via: politech at politechbot.com
From: http://www.ntk.net/

The American legal system is, of course, just the British kernel with a
shorter uptime and a few clumsy security patches slapped in. So whenever a
rogue US attempts to buffer-overflow some civil liberties, rest assured
our Parliament probably dumped core on it a *long* time ago. This week, we
thought we'd report on how to rip the new wave of "copy-protected" CDs.
Unfortunately, the CAMPAIGN FOR DIGITAL RIGHTS guys reminded us that we
lost that right back in *1988*, when Section 296 of the Copyright, Design,
and Patents Act prophetically forbade publishing "information intended to
enable or assist persons to circumvent that form of copy-protection". So
much for fussing over the DMCA, then. Worse, just as we were planning to
smugly report those US plans to make hacking a terrorist offence, we
remembered: it already *is* a terrorist offence here, thanks to the new
Prevention of Terrorism Act. And check it out - the Americans are putting
a time-limit on *their* terrorist legislation, just like we did in the
'70s!

    http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_21.htm#mdiv296

- we'd decode the legalise but, well, you know...

    http://www.blagged.freeserve.co.uk/ta2000/200600.htm

- celebrating 29 years of temporary measures

    http://uk.eurorights.org/

- protest tomorrow, while you still can

Meanwhile, it was the WASHINGTON POST who finally unveiled terrorists for
the monsters they really are: fiendish forgers and warez doods. Roslyn
Mazer unveiled a damning dossier that conclusively showed "trademark
pirates in Pakistan producing T-shirts with counterfeit Nike logos and
glorifying bin Laden" and that "eight of 10 countries identified by a
trade group as having the highest business software piracy rates in the
world - Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Ukraine, Russia, Lebanon, Qatar and
Bahrain - have links to al-Qaeda". Circumstantial? Perhaps? Necessary to
declare war on all IP theft? Of course. Although we still don't get it -
who'd pay for pirated stuff anyway? And does bin Laden get to sue for
using his image without permission

[...]

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