Michael R. Irwin wrote:
If you want
immunity
against legal threats in the western world (and for what outlaw
purpose would you want this?), you probably have to relocate to
North Korea, Syria or Zimbabwe.
Personally I do not think we need or want immunity, nor do I think it is
possible. In my view compliance is reasonable and required.
I do think making damn sure that the millions of manhours of donated
effort spent developing the Wikimedia project data can not be partially
or totally wasted by the simple expedient of purchasing all media and
data rights of the WMF from a liquidation authority for a few thousand
dollars and then filing nuisance lawsuits against anyone posting or
publishing online the entire dataset from backups.
If you do not like the above scenario make up your own and consider how
to defuse it.
The datasets the WMF supports online are just now getting to the point
of potentially depressing sales of millions and then hundreds of
millions and then billions of dollars of published materials in the
U.S.A annually. The publishing industry in the U.S. is not going to
roll over and modernize any easier than the record labels, Disney,
U.S.Government; and the other DRM proponents did. They can buy access
to the U.S. Congress just as easy as anyone else.
Nor is it unlikely that the U.S. government might like a return to more
easily controlled media focal points. I do not know if you have
noticed; but as official policy, both foreign and domestic, the U.S. now
employs torture, has secret courts (an oxy moron), and has an executive
branch which does not even meet its responsibility under federal law to
tell a secret court within 3 days why it backdated the ability for
secret police raids, searches, wiretaps, etc. This is a substantial
departure from the typical U.S. citizen's mental image of the "land of
the free".
Some people claim this is standard practice while at War while others
claim this is a substantial departure from U.S. policy, laws, and
expectations. The one thing that is clear is that the "War on Terror"
is likely to be finished when the office of the U.S. president (POTUS)
says it is finished. It is not prudent to be relying exclusively on
the Constitution of the United States for the ability to publicly
publish useful information potentially detrimental to large business or
government interests in the U.S.
If this is a nonissue because duplicate dataset updates are routinely
sent to various chapters that have agreed to serve as out of U.S.
control zones backups and reestablish internet access within six months
of WMF shutdown; then maybe someone can say so publicly and we can leave
all risk management issues and elimination of single points of failure
to the God King and his designated Trustees and staff.
BTW, is a completed audit on the WMF's first few years of operation
posted somewhere online where interested parties such as myself can
review it?
If it is not posted, but available upon request, then I would like to
request copies or be placed upon the distribution list so I get copies
when they become available.
later,
lazyquasar
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Oh come on guys, WMF is not going to get swept away, and they do not
enjoy "sovereign immunity" because they are
1. Not a State (11th Ammendment)
2. Not the United States Goverment (must have Waiver of Immunity)
3. Not an Indian Nation
They are a non-profit corp, which gives them all the rights of any
citizen (since a corporation is a citizen).
They do GOOD THINGS, and they act in GOOD FAITH.
They are not going away (unless they want to), getting smashed, or being
litigated into oblivion. If things really get
that bad, they can co-locate their hosting on Indian Land somewhere
under "Native American Language Preservation"
and then they truly will have immunity from most causes of action if the
program is run by one of the tribes with an English version
of the site as an adjunct "add on" non-primary site.
Jeff