... !!!!!!

[kyrielle]

The US is insane lately. Witness some of the decisions regarding prisoners. However, here's a new and different piece of insanity: Senator Hatch proposes damaging or destroying computers used to download music illegally - seriously.

Okay, let's get the fanatics, nuts, and haters out of government, please. Assuming it could be and would be done (both, I think, unlikely - but it doesn't make the guy proposing it any less scary!), imagine the litigation. Especially they day they got someone who was NOT downloading illegally. Or who claimed they weren't, and it couldn't be proved otherwise.

Comments

[camwyn]

I have a feeling that if they even think of trying this in earnest, they'll run into a situation like what happened a few years back with Representative Dick Armey. Republican. Wanted net filters and such installed on library computers everywhere. Then Mr. Armey found out that 90 percent of all net filters blocked access to his Web page, because it didn't refer to him as Richard - it referred to him as Dick.

Put the destructo system in place and some Senator's son is going to use his Dad's computer to download, the Senator's machine will be wrecked, and all hell will break loose. Jeebus.

[pheon.livejournal.com]

You wrote:

Okay, let's get the fanatics, nuts, and haters out of government, please.

I'm not sure we could run the government on the 17 people left after doing this. Which might be a good thing.

Especially they day they got someone who was NOT downloading illegally. Or who claimed they weren't, and it couldn't be proved otherwise.

Of course, if the machine has been destroyed, there is no proof left either way, right?

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

*grins* I know that feeling of disgust you speak of. It's even worse when you're living abroad and people ask you what the hell is up with your country... I usually want to run away when politics comes up in conversation.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

I like Neil Gaiman's response (http://www.livejournal.com/users/officialgaiman/24609.html) to this.