Encrypted hard drives now covered by 5th Amendment rights

In this US court decision, judges decided that the unnamed defendant would not be jailed for refusing to decrypt his hard drive to be used as evidence in a trial against himself. This decision rested upon the protection provided by the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution, which reads:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. (source)

The defendant claimed that the act of decrypting his hard drive would be testifying against himself, and the courts ultimately agreed.

As technology advances, old laws, precedents, and decisions are no longer relevant. Some may not apply, and many may not even exist to cover new technologies such as encryption, which our forefathers could not have foreseen.

I think this decision is extremely positive and important for the rights of the individual when it comes to technology. The government has certain rights, but they don't own us. The defendant in this case was accused of having child porn, and while I have a moral opposition to child porn, I think it was valuable that he stood up for his rights. It seems that the political trends in recent times are chipping away at individual rights, so it's necessary to defend what we have.

EU Decision shifts copyright blame away from social media companies

According to this decision by the EU Court of Justice, "The owner of an online social network cannot be obliged to install a general filtering system, covering all its users, in order to prevent the unlawful use of musical and audio-visual work."

I think that this is a great step forward in regards to Internet freedoms. Such a measure can prevent or safeguard against, in Europe at least, the enforcement of laws such as ACTA, PIPA, and SOPA, which if passed, will place the responsibility of policing for illegal content onto website owners.

For websites such as Facebook or Youtube, this would be an enormous, if not impossible task. It is undeniable that such laws threaten Internet freedoms. Although some people agree that illegal content has no place on the Internet (others believe that it is not illegal at all and that its distribution and use is considered to be a form of civil disobedience), the measures that would by enacted by these hypothetical laws are too harsh for our modern world. Large websites, which I assume make up a vast portion of the average Internet user's browsing content, would be shut down for the acts of individual users who have no affiliation with the company or website in question, other than that the users have accounts with the hosts.

I believe that it should be up to the administration of websites to decide what is not allowed on a website, as long as it is of no harm to others. If real child pornography appears on a website, that should not be allowed and the government of the appropriate country should be involved (through contact by the website administration - and if it is unreported, then action is necessary). In this case, real people (the child or children involved) are being harmed, not only physically, but in the fact that their likenesses appear on the Internet in such a cruel and violating fashion. There should be little tolerance on this matter.  This is a side point in the matter, as the content which is targeted by laws like ACTA, SOPA, and PIPA most falls under copyright concerns.

While it is important for an artist to have copyright or some sort of right over his or her own work, the music and movie industry are pushing too far in this matter. Perhaps they are losing money through piracy, perhaps not. The point is, they still make enormous sums of money. I believe that bubbles in the economy should not come about, as the only outcome is burst - which harms basically everybody involved. Although the bloating of the entertainment industry has not been referred to as a bubble in popular culture, I believe it is. It's disgusting that these people have so much money when people are starving all over the planet. As it stands, I have no sympathy for these companies and fully absolve these ridiculous excuses for law they wish.

Piracy not slowed by shutdown of Megaupload

http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/09/megaupload-shutdown-did-nothing-to-slow-piracy-study-finds/
According to this article, illegal or grey-area file-sharing didn't slow with the recent shutdown of file-sharing website Megaupload. Although global Internet traffic decreased temporarily, it was found that much of the content was moved to other sites in other countries.

It seems that the United States government is playing "Whack-a-mole" with piracy. With one targeted site banished, others arise or become more popular. As the suspect content moves elsewhere, the situation is becoming stickier. Despite its declining economy and international power, the US is pressuring other nations to follow in its footsteps on the path to war against abstract concepts. Joining the War on Drugs and War on Terror, the War on Piracy seems to be the US's latest in a series of misguided attempts to exact control where no control should be. Standards of living in the Western world on average are higher than they ever have been in the past. We have more and more time to spend to ourselves, and seemingly through the eyes of the government, more time to spend potentially doing wrong. Although in our modern world it is less clear where to draw the line on certain issues such as censorship and file-sharing, with the technology of the Internet acting as a means of global interaction,  the US has attempted to draw these lines closer to home than most would hope. Despite the public outcry against SOPA and PIPA, many US legislators still naively support such acts.

The Internet represents a new age, where people around the world can share content with each other almost simultaneously. Of course this presents the possibility of crime, but when it comes to file-sharing, the US is fighting a losing battle. According to work done by professionals at the University of Minnesota and Wellesley College, US box office sales are not affected by piracy. It makes sense for the US to take a strong stance against the distribution of actual child pornography online, since harm is directly done in the production of such materials. Only monetary harm could be brought about by the sharing of movies or other materials, and this impact seems to be less than the fat cats in Hollywood fear. This is also good for them, since it seems there's not much they can actually do about piracy. If there is a way to share things, people will share them. Laws are not absolute and do not represent morality.