FYI the cleaning and planting in season 2 is an intentional act. The farmer that buys the Round Up Ready seed is well informed and actually signs an agreement not to clean and re-plant. The agreement actually requires practices to reduce cross-pollination. For example, in corn crops, detassling

The usual poorly informed Slashdot debate has focused on accidental cross-polination. That is not the issue. We can debate the efficacy of patents and other intellectual property protections in spurring innovation and I am not completely convinced either way. I know Round Up Ready is very effective but over used to the point of creating resistant weeds. But that doesn't change the issue at work here that Monsanto is targeting intentional conduct not accidental. Granted, accidental cross-pollination may occur.

Signed: A farmer's son.

Technically wrong. A soybean, what you eat, is the seed. Pollination has nothing to do with it. A farmer buys seed from Monsanto in year/ season 1, harvests, cleans the soybeans to prepare it for use as seed, and plants in year/ season 2.

"It grows in much of the two thirds of the planet that is underwater, so it wouldn't crowd out food crops the way corn for ethanol does. "

There is so much uneducated FUD about biofuel which only goes to show that the best of intentions among environmentalists and world hunger activists can have adverse environmental and social impacts. If use of corn for ethanol was an issue I would expect the vulnerable third world countries to be crying out for the US to sell them corn, but that isn't the case. The third world is attempting to curb the expansion of US production of corn. See e.g. http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/index.php/2010/04/nafta-and-u-s-corn-subsidies-explaining-the-displacement-of-mexicos-corn-farmers/ http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/truth.pdf

If people want to solve a problem, at least decide what the problem is. What is the greater evil, too much or too little corn?

As a side note, seaweed biofuels may be a better solution to bio-fuels - or it may not. Treating the environment and problems of world hunger as questions with such a simple answer is dangerous.

The appropriate response then, is a virtual Hague.

"We have to have the same civil rights online as we have offline. Imagine if the U.S. authorities wanted to do a house search at my home, go through my private papers."

The right to free speech is not infinite. Especially when your speech infringes on the rights of others (try right to life of soldiers and CIA),

This woman would be subject to having her home searched and private papers viewed if she were physically in the US. Physical papers could be searched if they were in a US bank vault. The same rule applies when she stores her private papers here electronically. If you don't like a jurisdiction's policy calls on the lines drawn regarding speech and privacy - don't speak in that jurisdiction (servers located there).

Due process has been afforded and civil rights upheld. From TFA - the justice department followed the law and the use of the law was allowed to be challenged.

That's the case I just settled. My client's didn't trust banks (go figure) and kept their cash in a safe. They got most of their cash from a legal action but they couldn't account for all of it because their job was tip based and they couldn't prove their expenses. Long story short, they went to make a large purchase, people got suspicious, and 90% of American currency has cocaine residue (either from being used to snort or simply going through money counters at a bank). Under a few states' laws and the former federal law, known as civil forfeiture, you are guilty until proven innocent. See e.g. USA v. $124,700. Only property connected with drugs is forfeited, but the raw deal is that innocent people must prove their innocence and guilty people must prove the proportion of their guilt to get the property back. Double Jeopardy does not apply and so the guilty person that proved his guilt to get his property back has proved the states' later criminal case.

My clients settled for less than their entire amount (like everyone does) because of the uncertainties of trial - they couldn't prove how much money they spent from their legal award and they couldn't completely prove how much they made in their jobs. Further, my clients were minorities and the case was venued in a minority unfriendly county.

Well ... Blowout Taking down a dam used to require an act of Congress-or terror. Now it's just good business. No comment - just relevant.