It's better to allow these sites to continue to exist and demand that they comply with the requests than take them down with the FBI or whatever law enforcement agency.
The precedent is far too dangerous. It's so dangerous that it could make PIPA / SOPA look like little cute puppies.
The moral issues of being a pirate or not being a pirate and of allowing or not allowing piracy to exist are more of a "feel good, don't be weird" matter.
These legal precedents can and will be used to silence any kind of protests and all things like: articles / reports about police brutality, murders, people "vanishing" conveniently when what they're saying is incovenient for someome, fake votes, scandals of all sorts.
Today it's Megaupload, tomorrow it will be YouTube. After that, they will interrupt a live report which is incovenient.
If you think those who rule are better than this, you're wrong. We've seen it before and we're seeing it again: Apple used the FBI and the police on the country's territory as its own security force as if the country was its headquarters, the FBI seems to be used more and more to go after pirates and other such things.
Meanwhile, all kinds of bad things happen around the world, but the law enforcement agencies are too busy to defend the copyrights of big companies which want more billions in the pockets of those who own those companies.
While the people are paying their taxes and are expecting to live a life without being worried they'll be nuked by some insane dictator, they really don't want to look over their shoulder to make sure the politicians who are ruling the country aren't being replaced by the puppets of the corporations.
After all, making sure a 12 year old doesn't download an mp3 from Megaupload is far more important than making sure my children won't be having a probe in their bodies to tell the companies and the government where they are, what they eat, what they like, if they're sick, what they're seeing and saying and what their opinion is on the ads they see.
The state consists of two parts, the corporation and the government. The government are not some dumb fools who are just "get used" by some old shadowy men in some corporate office. Its a symbiotic relationship.
Apple didn't "use the police and FBI" - the police and FBI investigated crimes that are under their legal purview. Theft and corporate espionage are serious crimes and they are seriously investigated by both local police and the FBI. This is totally normal.
My mother once casually knew a guy who ended up stealing a bunch of computers from a company he consulted for. Because they had sensitive data on them, the FBI visited us.
Why? Because that's a crime the FBI covers.
There was nothing wrong, no extension of corporate powers, no overreach, no special treatment at work with the stolen iPhone prototype whatsoever.
The precedent is far too dangerous. It's so dangerous that it could make PIPA / SOPA look like little cute puppies.
The moral issues of being a pirate or not being a pirate and of allowing or not allowing piracy to exist are more of a "feel good, don't be weird" matter.
These legal precedents can and will be used to silence any kind of protests and all things like: articles / reports about police brutality, murders, people "vanishing" conveniently when what they're saying is incovenient for someome, fake votes, scandals of all sorts.
Today it's Megaupload, tomorrow it will be YouTube. After that, they will interrupt a live report which is incovenient.
If you think those who rule are better than this, you're wrong. We've seen it before and we're seeing it again: Apple used the FBI and the police on the country's territory as its own security force as if the country was its headquarters, the FBI seems to be used more and more to go after pirates and other such things.
Meanwhile, all kinds of bad things happen around the world, but the law enforcement agencies are too busy to defend the copyrights of big companies which want more billions in the pockets of those who own those companies.
While the people are paying their taxes and are expecting to live a life without being worried they'll be nuked by some insane dictator, they really don't want to look over their shoulder to make sure the politicians who are ruling the country aren't being replaced by the puppets of the corporations.
After all, making sure a 12 year old doesn't download an mp3 from Megaupload is far more important than making sure my children won't be having a probe in their bodies to tell the companies and the government where they are, what they eat, what they like, if they're sick, what they're seeing and saying and what their opinion is on the ads they see.