Copyright and the Web

I believe U.S. District Court Judge A. Howard Matz does not know much about technology when he decided that Google had violated the copyright of images from a porn magazine when they appeared in the image search engine. If you want to restrict your content, you can do it. Perfect 10, the site with artificial model-type nudes, can even decide to exclude its site from search engines altogether. This, however, is also not in their interest because visitors will no longer be lured to their site.

Aside from excluding your site, or parts of it, you can also use many security features, such as setting up a secure portal. I furthermore believe that this verdict is problematic for the whole internet as a platform for free exchange of information. Without the ability to search website even for pictures, the internet loses its ability to exchange information.

President Bush - Threat to Democracy

It has become increasingly clear that the Bush administration is a threat to democracy. From warrantless wiretaps to claims that some forms of torture are legal, from secret prisons and imprisonments without trial, from using only supportive data to start a war to refusing to release important information to a public, this presidency has constantly undermined American democracy. This has been helped by a Republican Congress that has willingly surrendered power to a strong executive, an executive that is perhaps the strongest in the democractic world. And I would like to agree with David Ignatius when he writes about an "arrogance of power", and this power corrupts! From strong executive power to dictatorship is only a small distance.

If the terrorists' goal has been to destroy American democracy, they have succeeded, despite all the claims to the contrary after September 11.