Skip to main content

Watch out for your technology freedoms - use the judicial processes already in place

Skitched 20120322 201300

Technology is important to everyone's lives today. It has infiltrated deeply no matter whether you use computers on a daily basis or not. Even the most technologically-discconnected person must deal with systems and software at some point in their day. This importance means that everyone has something to lose when legal safeguards are overridden or ignored.

Each day my news reading brings new stories of web sites seized or taken offline without any semblance of judicial review. Web sites seem to exist outside the normal legal process and law enforcement entities like the FBI and Homeland Security are able to remove them with nothing more than the accusation of wrong-doing.

While I am fully in support of charging people and companies who are violating the law, I am also a strong supporter of the legal process. We have methods of reviewing legal proceedings that have been developed over hundreds of years. To ignore their application to new technologies is a dangerous precedent in itself. The "rule of law" helps to insure that we do the right thing in our society and to remove its protections is a danger to all.

You might not think that the lack of judicial review has anything to do with you, but how much would you lose if your businesses commerce site was suddenly, and without legal review, removed from the Internet. Even worse, what if the web site was replaced with a banner that accused your and your business of some heinous crime? Think that it can't happen to you? Recently a web site was removed because of how some of its users were using the site. In other cases, users illegal comments were used as the reason for removal.

These cases are beginning to reach far beyond their original area of software or movie piracy and into the bread and butter sites of the Internet. It is not a huge logical leap to see the that such takedowns could easily spill over to the larger web sites you use everyday including Gmail, YouTube, SlashDot, PInterest and more. I believe the major opposition to the recent SOPA and PIPA bills in the US Congress came when you, the average computer and Internet users realized just how dangerous these laws were. SOPA took Internet censorship, without judicial review, out of the rarified air of the tech community and brought it right into your own home office and living room.

The issue of extra-judicial shutdowns and siezures is only destined to grow bigger over the coming years and you need to remain vigilant about it.  The next site to be shut down could be yours, your businesses, your organizations or some other site on which you depend greatly. Let your representatives know that the shut down and seizure of sites without judicial review is wrong and will not be tolerated. Otherwise we risk losing many of the greatest benefits the Internet, and its services, has to offer.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Microsoft release Outlook.com email services to replace Hotmail

Today Microsoft released its new email service Outlook.com to replace its Hotmail brand. This new streamlined Metro interface design looks good and functions well so far. You can use your existing Microsoft account to log in and then choose an email alias (i.e. douglaswelch@outlook.com) for your new email address. Here are several articles that discuss Outlook.com... Goodbye, Hotmail; Hello, Outlook.com [REVIEW]  Outlook Is a Completely New, Feature-Filled Webmail Service from Microsoft Go Get Your @Outlook Email Address Quick Before Someone Else Does I will post links to more articles and reviews as they appear.

Tiny Wow - Tools That Solve Your Files Problem - Convert to/from many file formats [Shared]

A nice collection of quick, online tools, to convert to and from a variety of file types. Just the site to keep in mind when you need to shuffle one type data into a new system. — Douglas TinyWow & Your Privacy Don't you love finding a great online tool-set that claims to be free, let's you build and interact the way you want, only to be denied access if you don't pay for an account(or sign up for an account). Our site is free. We don't limit. We don't even take sign-ups. Might we take sign-ups one day? Sure, we probably will(but not any time soon). When we do go down that route, what we will NOT do is trick you into spending your time using our tools, only to be denied access before you can download what you have just spent your precious time creating. TinyWow is free. We don't have ads, we don't sell data. We currently have no plans to monetize. Why offer these tools for free? We operate two tech websites: Alphr & TechJunkie. We thought our use

TechIQ Gift Guide #15: Sams Teach Yourself Wordpress 3 in 10 minutes

#15 Sams Teach Yourself Wordpress 3 in 10 minutes Chuck Tomasi , fellow Friends in Tech member and co-author of Podcasting for Dummies , along with another Friends in Tech member and podcasting partner, Kreg Steppe , have a new book out that would be a great gift for anyone interested in blogging and New Media. Wordpress is my first recommendation when someone wants to get started with blogging, but it can be a little intimidating. It is very powerful and with power comes complexity. That said, this book can help to jumpstart your Wordpress knowledge and help you be productive. There is also a companion podcast to the book, Wordpress in 10, available from the author's web site. From Amazon.com... "Sams Teach Yourself WordPress in 10 Minutes gives you straightforward, practical answers when you need fast results. By working through its 10-minute lessons, you’ll learn everything you need to build great blogs with WordPress and WordPress.org, and reach any audience by web brows