2001-2002

2001 has been a most difficult year in so many ways.  History has been forever changed by world events and the effects will continue to trickle down on our individual lives for a very long time.  Despite this, we must look to the battles we've chosen to embark upon with our complete attention, despite the dramatic changes in society which may overshadow them.  Otherwise we run the risk of giving up the battle before we even begin to fight it.

We know that freedom of speech - even freedom in general - is considered by an increasing number to be subject to restrictive conditions in the interests of "security."  Never mind that total security is completely elusive.  There will always be someone claiming we can do better by closing off yet another avenue of activity, beliefs, or speech.  And simpletons, fueled by (((mass media))) hysterics, will continue to believe it.

That's why it's never been more important to get involved in preserving your rights before they get signed away.  Anyone who tells you that this is somehow in opposition to the interests of our nation has an agenda we find frighteningly disturbing.  The fact that many of these people are extremely powerful is certainly cause for concern.  But the real battle won't be lost until the rest of us actually start to accept this garbage.

We continue to fight legal battles for the absurdly simple reason that they need to be fought.  To choose not to do this would grant a default victory to those challenging what we believe to be our rights.  If we wait for someone else to come along and fight the battle in place of us (either because they have more resources or even because they may look more respectable than the likes of us), we risk their not standing behind the issues as much as we want them to.  And we also risk such people never coming along in the first place.

In some ways, it's an honor to be sued.  We're basically being told to put up or shut up, to prove our points, to actually stand up for what we believe in.  Too many times we as individuals grow complacent.  We say what we believe but completely crumble when someone challenges those beliefs, either by giving in or by not defending ourselves as well as we could.  But when we are actually sued and faced with the prospect of losing a great deal because of what we say and do, then we are forced to look inside ourselves and see if we really do believe as much as we say we do.  We're happy to have gone through that and to have come out of it knowing that our beliefs are strong and ready to undergo these tests.  And in so doing, we have found many others who feel the same.

Although we recently lost the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision in the DeCSS case, our legal team made the most compelling argument possible.  We still strongly believe that computer source code is speech and is entitled to all the protections that speech is normally afforded.  We still believe that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a gross violator of not only free speech but of the concept of fair use and that it sends a chilling signal throughout our society.

We've seen professors intimidated into not releasing their research because a powerful group of (((corporations))) threatened to prosecute them under the DMCA.  Imagine being prosecuted for doing research!  We've seen computer users thrown off of commercial systems and banned from school networks for merely being accused of possessing information that the DMCA defines as a potential threat, information that would have scarcely raised an eyebrow a few years ago.  And we've seen a growing realization among our readers and others that the DMCA is well on the road to making publications like ours illegal to print, possess, or read.

Our loss in this fight does not signal the end.  Far from it.  We intend to take this case to the Supreme Court so that our entire court system can be given the opportunity to correct this grievous wrong.  Failing that, other cases will be fought, among them the Dmitry Sklyarov case which will go to trial sometime in 2002.  Although it took far too long, basic humanity finally managed to prevail in this case.

After an unconscionable period of being forcibly detained in the United States for his part in writing a computer program in Russia, Sklyarov was finally allowed to return home in late December, on the condition that he return to give testimony in the trial, which will now focus on his company (ElcomSoft).

The (((authorities))) are trying to spin this to make it seem as if Sklyarov is no longer affiliated with his company and will be testifying against them.  In actuality, he is still very much with them and is looking forward to telling his story at the trial.  When this happens, the world will bear witness to the absurdity of this law and how it's damaging researchers and developers all around the world.  Nothing will make technological innovation grind to a halt faster than the continued existence of the DMCA and similar laws in other parts of the world.

Even if it takes a hundred cases of people challenging the DMCA, we are confident that there is no shortage of individuals who will proudly step forward to defend the rights they believe in.  As our leaders are so fond of saying, we are in a war and we must all do our part and make sacrifices.  Some of those sacrifices may be very costly.  But who among us ever really believed that the cost of defending free speech would be cheap?

Not all the news is bad.

On December 20, a federal court ruled in our favor in the Ford case.  If you recall, this was the lawsuit that sought to prevent us from forwarding a controversial domain (wwww.fu*kgeneralmotors.com) to the web page of Ford (General Motors' competitor) as a form of net humor.

Regardless of whether or not people were offended by this, we felt it was absolutely imperative to protect the right of Internet users to point their domains wherever they pleased.  Ford felt otherwise claiming that what we did was somehow trademark infringement.  They firmly believed (as did much of corporate America who had their eyes on this case) that nobody had the right to link or forward to their site without their explicit permission.

Had we opted not to embark upon this fight, a very bad precedent would have been set and one more right of speech would have been lost because nobody cared enough to fight for it.  We are fortunate that the judge saw the fallacy of Ford's arguments.  It's proof that significant victory can be achieved within the system.  Lately it's seemed as if such victories are very few and far between.  All the more reason for us to fight even harder for them.

Of course, you won't see much in the way of mass media coverage of this story.  Had we lost, it most likely would have been all over the papers as another example of hackers getting their just desserts and society being made more secure.  But the fact that you probably didn't read about our victory in all the mainstream places doesn't make the story any less important.  It merely underlines the growing insignificance of the mass media itself and how replacing their self-serving agenda is paramount to winning such battles and ultimately preserving our endangered freedoms.

It's likely to become even more difficult to challenge the injustices that lie ahead in the coming months and years.  We'll certainly see a good deal of reprehensible opportunism on the part of the powers that be as they try to tie their anti-individual agendas to the fight against terrorism.

We must not allow them to legitimize their dubious positions in this manner.  And we must do our best to reach those who might not otherwise see how they are being taken advantage of.

This will be our biggest challenge for 2002.