NYT: A Pro-Bug Vote on the Court?

[DeepModem Mom]

A Pro-Bug Vote on the Court?
By DAN MITCHELL
Published: November 5, 2005


MUCH of the attention being paid to Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's second nominee to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor, is focused on a few hot-button issues, led by abortion.

As is often the case with Supreme Court nominees, many issues that may be more important to more people are getting short shrift, both in the Senate and in the media.

Cnet News.com is one exception. This week, Declan McCullagh considers Judge Alito's heft on matters involving technology business, free speech, privacy and copyright. Mr. McCullagh writes that Judge Alito's "judicial philosophy seems nuanced and not doctrinaire." He offers a survey of the judge's rulings, presenting them as possible clues to how the judge might rule if confirmed.

Mr. McCullagh's survey is by necessity rather sweeping and general (it was posted the day after the nomination on Monday). But, he writes, "a few cases show that the broadly conservative philosophy of Alito, 55, means he takes a limited view of copyright, which could bode well for tech companies, as well as a permissive approach toward electronic surveillance by police."

All very fair and balanced. But the judge's police-friendly rulings seem to trouble Mr. McCullagh, who established himself as a staunch libertarian writer long before he took his journalism post with Cnet. Indeed, Mr. McCullagh posted parts of his article, devoted to Judge Alito's opinions on two cases, on his own site, www.politechbot.com....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/05/technology/05online.html

[William769]

1. Guilt by association.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. At least I agree with him on something

The absurd expansion of copyright is a disaster for creativity.

[UTUSN]

3. Pro-bug. Oh. Thought It Meant Pro-Tom DeLAY n/t

[rayofreason]

4. The GPL...

...will, I suspect, one day make it to the SCOTUS (Microsoft vs. Thorvalds?, SCO vs. Everybody?).

A restricted view of copywrite and the extent of tainted ownership of derivative intellectual property would be a good thing to have on that day. But the Cnet article really does not give me a good understanding of Alito on this issue, despite the quote in the posted article. Not enough info.

To be up front about it, I am a strong advocate of the GPL and the open source movement. I consider these things to be cruicial pillars of freedom in an increasingly networked world.