Wrong because "free" speech has nothing to do with copyright or vice versa.

Free speech means you can say unpopular things, things that disagree with the "establishment", things that are inflammatory, things that are downright disgusting (in some segment of the populations opinion)..

Free speech does not mean you can copy things either privately or for profit.. it never has and it never will. Fair Use/Copyright/Public Domain are all interrelated with only each other.

There are times when Free speech and Copyright may cross paths.. (such as I dunno.. someone putting out a scathing unauthorized biography of a political figure.. and selling that book/movie.. and then suing someone else for trying to copy his or her work and sell it)

I really wish that people who are so into constitutional/bill of rights issues would at least do the rest of the world a favor and get a passing knowledge of the subject first.

This misunderstanding of Free Speech comes up nearly as often as the complete and utter confusion over "the right to keep and bear arms" clause.. not to mention the strict constitutional interpretations that conveniently (much like religious zealots) ignore the parts that they do not like or agree with.

How dare you use logic and common sense in a slashdot comment!

Emokids who think that they somehow have a right to use company/school networks for whatever they please and take great pleasure in "sticking it to the man" are the modern equivalent of the employees of yesteryear who thought that a "job for life" was their right regardless of performance/thievery/behavior.

If you want to use the company network it will always have rules attached.. crying that you cannot shop online, or that your porn fix, random non work related internet use may in fact be monitors/blocked is somehow "unfair" or "Illegal" is downright comical

I suggest you go reread your source material, as you are way off base with regards to which case is which.. and what they actually cover..

Suffice it to say that *every* SMS provider can and will provide copies of incoming and outgoing texts to the person or company paying the bills.

If you are using workplace equipment, you have no expectation of privacy, this goes back to pre-internet days.. and nothing has changed.

The cases currently under review have to do with internal policy (allowing private use of company property if the user pays the overages) IE they where considering what sort of access the provider of the device has (the employer) when they ask the employee to pay a portion of the charges.. does that change the privacy expectation from non existant to partial. The other case was purely about "you did something and i am taking you to court" Because both of these cases where about partial employee payment, rather than simply provided goods.. is the only way they got in the door of the court, otherwise they would have been tossed out.

And according to the supreme court.. the 9th circuit was wrong, RTFA.

Did you even read the article?

Or are you just trying to sound smart?

This IS THE Quon case ruled on by the supreme court, saying that there is no expectation of privacy on a employer issued device.

ANY Communications that are made over the device are open to recording and interception, the fact that it is a cellphone is in no way overriding the fact that its a "work issued" device.. if the employer wants to record every call in and out of its devices they can simply say "we record all conversations to improve service" and they are covered. If you do not like it.. use a private phone rather than leeching from the office.

If your not concerned that your use is gonna be illegal or embarrassing of course you dont need to pay for your own duplicate service.. That said.. government employees none of them should be issued cellphones imo, theres no logical reason for them to be distributing something that serves no work related purposes..

I mean really who is using government issue cellphones and in what way are they work related to begin with?

This is not a webserver in another country.. though is it? This is doing business directly with US ISP's and companies directly (offering its product a blacklist)

Thats a bit more active than just having a website that someone in the US happened to see

I said before i *really* suggest you go chat up a UK lawyer before you post any further on this subject.. the last statement you made sums up your opinion and lack of understanding of international law rather clearly.

If you as a small business in america choose to ignore a foreign court because its foreign chances are you will be screwed over for doing exactly what spamhaus did.. Though I am fairly certain that they would have been better off not showing up at ALL, rather than showing up leaving and making what amounts to throwing up a big middle finger salute to the american court on its website.

Having done this on several judgements (in the UK as well as several OTHER EU member states) I can guarantee you.. they did not ever care *what* the case was about, only that the I's where dotted and the T's where crossed in terms of the actual case..

Of course these where all contractual disputes, and *not* third party middleman cases. But the fact remains this is never gonna come down to "but the guy is a spammer so therefor the court will refuse to accept the judgement"

I mean logically if that was true then everyone in the UK could decide that credit card companies are right bastards, and therefore no need to pay bills anymore, and none of those judgements would be valid?

You would still be responsible for any civil proceedings in that country, and they would be legally able to attempt to extract any assets you do have from wherever you are.

Hopefully if you are a smart porn site you have your sites geoblocking *all* middle eastern countries from access, and certainly are blocking Mid-East plastic from going through your payment processor..

If you have not done all of that, and anything else you can think of to block countries with laws that make your content illegal, you get what you deserve.

Not sure what the point of your post was trying to make though, do you really think that i would agree that the spammer should win in court, but that I would be so hypocritical as to say "but in my case no i would say FU saudi court" ?

Clearly reading is too tough, and your lack of understanding of big words shows through here.

AGain, whether or not you flipping agree with the case by e360 being valid or not.. that doesn't change the fact that "being in the UK" saves its residents from being bound by doing business in the US.. if spamhaus didn't want to be a party to the laws of this country they should NOT be distributing their list here.

Which brings us to your "not satisfied" 1) by distributing the list and causing action on that list by US entities satisfies the first rule

2) spamhaus lawyers did in fact file counterclaims in US court when they had the proceedings moved to federal court

3) By showing up and participating in the initial stage of the case, they agreed to submit

4) this was what happened today when they didnt throw the case out but returned it to the lower court for modification

5) was obviously satisfied as spamhaus knew about the case and participated until they figured out that the "hey we are from the uk your laws do not apply to us" defense was not going to work.

Again step back relax, forget that this is a spammer winning vs an anti-spammer vigilante and look at it for what it is.. Had the damn company simply played out the court case they would have had it disposed of properly years ago. Instead of trying to turn it into a political statement game.

Actually no a flat tax doesn't burden the poor any more than it burdens anyone else..

Shall we look at the current tax structure of the united states?

The US uses a tiered model, which theoretically has the wealthiest paying proportionately more of their income in taxes, more for their property in higher valued taxes, and theoretically more in sales and use taxes because they are more willing and able to buy products..

The lower income brackets pay less in income tax by %, less in sales taxes, and less or NO property taxes..

Theoretically this is great.. but in practice, this is not how things play out.. because the upper brackets shelter income, assets in tax free or low tax instruments.. and end up paying far *less* than their stated share of taxes..

10% of your income in taxes for a minimum wage employee is just that 10% of your income.. at the highest bracket.. which should be up to 35% but can be almost *entirely* shifted from actually paying taxes to *other* things .. reducing tax liability to less than 10%...

You cannot claim that your more harmed by paying your 10% than anyone else simply by nature of the fact that your paying 10%.. this is not about the fact that minimum wage in the USA is laughable, or that so many working people live below the poverty level etc.. this is purely about retarded tax laws that are so full of loopholes for the wealthiest people in the country, that the avg person has no idea what the hell they owe in taxes at a given time.

Having said all that, your assertion that its somehow "fair" to pay more suggests to me that you should go visit the USSR and see how that experiment worked out in the long run. Penalizing success is *not* the way to fix the tax system..

True.. LOL

You again miss the point.. the UK court would *never* ask that question.. they dont give a shit what spamhaus feels about jurisdiction.. they would say "is this a legally binding valid judgement from a court that we recognize" if the answer is yes, they would recognize the judgement and force spamhaus to pay.

There is *NO* jurisdictional argument here, you may recall that there are many treaties between countries yes? many of them apply to just this sort of thing.. its why as long as the person in question is not facing the death penalty.. the UK will deport the person without any questions to face trial in the US..

You guys seem to think that being a UK citizen allows you to bypass the laws in the other 97% of the world freely and with impunity, sadly it does not.. your government has long recognized this.. and this is why your government and courts routinely enforce judgments and seizures of assets based on foreign court decisions.

Lets give a better example that bypasses the whole reason why you guys are in a tizzy (you feel spamhaus is right and e360 is wrong fine).. So lets go at it from this direction.. another form of civil case.. divorce decree issued in illinois forces ownership of property in the UK by a UK resident to be given to her ex.. when that divorce is granted by the Illinois court, the UK will force the transfer to the ex.. through simply filing the appropriate papers with the UK court.. *NOT* bringing the suit again in the UK..

Your trying to read far more into this than there is actually to read.. I never said automatic, merely that its routine for UK/US courts among others such as canada to RECOGNIZE the courts rulings as valid and enforcing them.. Without bringing suit again..

Keep in mind that spamhaus doesn't get to choose what courts it recognizes or not, and the jurisdictional claim wouldnt fly in a UK court any more than it did in american court. Another example.. if you live in Cumbria and a london retailer wrongs you.. you do not file suit in london, you file in your local court.. its up to the plaintiff to travel, not the defendant.. not in the US, and not in the UK..

Even if we follow the argument through that for some reason the charges need to be filed in the UK again or that the UK has to look at the charges again.. The problem for spamhaus is that the UK court HAS TO BY LAW agree that by not showing up to court, that they would have issued a summary judgement for the plaintiff as well. Because judges cannot be swayed by "personal opinion" on the validity of the case..

If i where to travel my happy ass to London and file a rediculous lawsuit against you saying that you agreed to pay me 100,000,000 dollars for webdesign work for your blog.. and you chose NOT to appear in court.. they would issue me a judgement for that amount as a matter of course..

And *that* is all they are gonna look at when e360 files to have its judgement enforced in the UK, they will not look at the "original charges" or side with spamhaus and say that "they where right not to appear", they will look at the FINDING OF FACTS in the case and say "everthing appears to be in order" and order payment.

They will also likely issue a statement telling spamhaus that disrespecting any court, or failing to appear is not a valid defense in the actual courts, only in the court of public opinion. Btw http://www.loble.co.uk/enforcement_of_foreign_judgments.htm may be an interesting read if you *REALLY* think that the UK has some special laws that make their citizens and companies immune to laws of every other nation on the planet.