On 3/23/07, Paul G. Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Cox violated Due Process
You keep citing "Due Process", but I think you either don't know what it means, or you're just muddying the meaning of the phrase. Wikipedia says: "In United States law, adopted from British law, due process (more fully due process of law) is the principle that the government must normally respect all of a person's legal rights instead of just some or most of those legal rights when the government deprives a person of life, liberty, or property." In other words, due process is what *the government* follows. Using Google for a "define:due process" gets "The guarantee of due process requires that no person be deprived of life, liberty, or property without a fair and adequate process." from a .gov site, and "In general a constitutional concept (Fourteenth Amendment) that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without legal protection" and various others that identify 'due process' as being a legal concept that is outside of person to person contract. This can only be *especially* so if you're capitalizing Due and Process. Whatever it is you mean, you may be right. But what you are *saying* is not right. Repeat: what you are saying is not true. Instead of taking the reactionary stance of Damn the Man and Fight the Power, take a step back. If we are expected to be given our freedoms as individuals, don't we have an obligation to treat others as if they have those freedoms as well? Don't the people who have an interest in the business Cox conducts have the right to run the business as necessary to ensure its continued operation? Don't they have the right to expect the terms of their contract to be respected? If you have a beef with what has happened to Bob, then address how Cox could have accomplished their goals differently, or maybe why the MafiAA is overstepping its bounds or why intellectual property shouldn't be a legal fiction at all. You're stepping across the line when you ask that your freedom from wrong give you permission to wrong someone else. In this case, Bob has admitted there could be copyrighted material on his computer that he doesn't have the legal right to. Your criticism is not necessarily inappropriate, but is misguided. -todd -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
