It's not about safety in numbers, it's about standing up. There is a kids book you should read, Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.
It's about bravery in the face of great might and terrible consequence. It's about (and this is the important one) defining morality and justice through the eyes of history.
People make right, and numbers bring change.
At least de Tocqueville understood that he must speak out in the face of great resistance to his beliefs. In fact from your own knowledge of de Tocqueville you should know that he would have been involved in both the civil rights movement and other non-violent acts of civil disobedience.
Do you tout this 'no safety in numbers' line because you fear the discomfort involved in standing up for what's right? Or do you repeat it so that you will feel justified at some future juncture when you do nothing and morally should have broke the law and protested?

First, no where in the original post does it state a sit-in is illegal.
Second, civil disobedience is one of the cornerstones of true freedom, it's why you can drink alcohol in the states.
Your fear is palpable, I'm glad I will not ever see you standing up and promoting change with those 'mob' types that have built your freedoms and rights.
The American war of independence is the ultimate example of standing up and doing illegal acts with a larger group.
You wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for people risking their freedoms and live to promote change and equality.
What does your comment promote? Fear of authority? Fear of sacrifice for belief? Who cowed you?

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/02/mediasentry-role-in-riaa-lawsuit-comes-under-scrutiny.ars

Idiot huh? Nice response.

Personal information gathered without an investigators license is against the law. Correlation of a skype phone number with an IP address and data mining for that correlation is acting as a private investigator without a license.
Your argument is what? That an IP is semi-public info?
What does that have to do with the price of tea in china?

Um collecting and storing personal data without an investigators license.

I cannot imagine a bigger waste of HR, IT, or managements time to go chasing around data regarding their employees web usage.
If you hired intelligent, effective management you wouldn't need to go policing your employees after the fact.
Instead of asking; How can we find out which of our employees isn't working and then make them pay, how about finding out which of our employees is no longer being challenged or effective in their job and how can we help them.
You aren't their parents you're their employer, it's your job help them succeed, and if you cannot then refill the position.

What are you people, stuck so deep in the forest you cannot see the trees?
The american justice system provides you with fair warning about incriminating yourself.
The British justice system threatens you into speaking with a vague warning that if you don't you wont be able to later.

Honesty versus underhanded double-speak, yeah I think the Americans got it right.
In Britain your citizen rights are protected by a royal mandate, which protects the institution and allows for the citizen to retain some independence.
In the US (recent freedom reductions notwithstanding) it is part of the formulation of the core values of the nation that citizen rights be protected.

If your argument is that for a lawyer there is slightly more wiggle room in the British method of dealing with self-incrimination, I cannot count that as a good thing.

It's no different then realizing your father was a complete asshole to your family as you were growing up, stating that fact, and then reformulating your household so as to not end up being viewed that way.
Calling an American a xenophobe essentially is like admitting to everything your child feels about you.
An asshole-ish statement after being called an asshole just proves their point.
Way to fall directly into a poorly made and obvious trap.

I'm using a homeless person as an example of an emotionally and possibly mentally crippled (Such as the gentleman in the court case) with minimal social/secular education.
The question I pose isn't rhetorical either. Since this falls exactly in line with what the accused did in this case. A mentally/emotionally broken man, burst into an open funeral parlor and made obscene statements and gestures.
This sort of thing happens in meat-space too. It's why we have doormen at fancy hotel entrances, or ushers at a wedding. To keep those with poor self-management skills out, or remove them when they become unruly.
If they become highly offensive or violent the police are called.

Unfortunately this is a little bit of a Honey-pot situation. Using the logic given above, you could effectively lure someone into making a stupid remark in an inappropriate forum, then beat them silly for it (and maybe with good moral cause) and then claim emotional excitement of some kind.
Or, such as in this case, sue them for 'trolling'.

The reality of this situation is, poor emotional and scholastic education created an individual who would step to the level required here, to make light of another's loss.

Take a lesson from 'The Little Prince' though, do not expect more of others then they are capable of giving. Or translated for this situation 'If you give an Ass-hat an opening...'
How many years would you give a homeless person for bursting into a funeral parlor and doing something heinous, such as acting out the death of the deceased?

Wow I'm glad someone said something. That was seriously irking me.
Why even use that example of his 'trolling' and then fail to provide the terminology of an item correctly so that a correlation could be made by the reader.

I figure A: The contributor expects everyone to know what they're talking about when it comes to Thomas the Tank Engine lore
or B: It's just a stinkin' random omission (wow an irritating one though)

LOL, so angry! Except you fail to make a single point in your comment.
I don't poop in the ground because I have a toilet. If you advertise you have a toilet but then require people to have a subscription to toilets monthly to use the toilet well then you're not offering a toilet at all are you?
WoW is online online because it is designed that way.
Racing games have time trials so you can compete against yourself.
Quake II had single player modes because of the state of internet connections and gaming in general.
This company decided to make a single-player offering into a stunted MMO, but still wants the single-player moniker attached.
'Shut up, nutsack.'
It's obvious I just wasted my typing on you, but others find intelligent debate meaningful to read, and enjoy the opinions and concerns of others.
Go read a book, child.

Actually this is a developing nation problem more than a developed nation problem. The decisions we make in our developed nations will assist in the direction the developing nations will choose for their products.
I believe ACTA is an excellent example of this. By requiring member nations to get on board with the over-bearing repressive style of patent, trademark, and copyright litigation and regulation we have effectively stunted their ability to produce.
By opening these developing nations up to possible reprisals from developed nation based multi-nationals you have threatened with the stick but not offered a carrot at all.
"This forum is, unfortunately, populated by so many of the same kind of person, the one that rallies against any form of DRM because they feel it violated their basic human rights."
I'm confused as to where this comment puts you? Are you stating you have no vigilance whatsoever when it comes to human rights? Or are you stating this doesn't fall under human rights and should be ignored? Since I have yet to see a comment besides yours mentioning human rights so far in this thread, your statement is even more confusing.
The people here are rallying against having their ability to enjoy their entertainment hampered by questionable business practices and possible collusion between businesses.

No they are offering a stunted hard to use product when the product can just as easily be offered and utilized without their stifling add-ons.
I believe that is the basis for copyright and trademark infringement according to economists the world over.
Although no one is owed a specifically tailored product to their needs, when a company releases a product that has the ability, with minor modification, to meet a greater majority of their consumers desires, that modification will occur and the knowledge of how to circumvent the limitations imposed by the above mentioned product developer will be disseminated among the rest of humanity.
'They stole our bits!' Is currently a motto that is destroying the US from the inside out. Get your shit together you brain-dead Americans, you're walling yourself in, and you already sold off all your abilities to self-sustain.

So you're advocating further complication to simply enjoy entertainment?
Please extract your head from your ass, it seems all the technology you've attached to it in order to simply enjoy life has made it hard for you to remove it from your posterior in order to see the cognitive dissonance you're spouting.