China stepping back from proposed blog rules

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Bush Solution Was a Good One

The current US President Bush solved the slander via blog problem by applying existing laws involving voice communication. If you think of a divorce, the solution is easy to understand.

Say a person wants to (for legal strategy) discredit her husband or to harass him into a settlement he otherwise would not take.

She hires lawyers who hire third parties to spread rumors and half truths. These operators paint the husband as a wife beater and child molester and a person who is fiscally irresponsible. Eventually the poor sap is kicked out of his church, loses his job, his ability to support the children, his bank accounts and his support network of friends and family.

This "irreconcilable differences" game is so well understood that laws involving telecommunications were established. A person or their operatives are free to spread the story they will tell in court as they see fit by voice (and now data) communications as long as they use their real names. If they remain anonymous and the truth is being distorted and they are caught they go to jail.

This makes it hard for lawyers to find third parties to post on blogs. They either have to do so themselves or come up with other strategies for negotiation.

Another example. Say it is the husband that wants to harass his wife. He hires detectives who constantly phone the wife and follow her until she is frightened, feels threatened, and settles on terms less favorable than she would otherwise. The harassment laws allow communication by phone as long as the caller identifies themselves with their real names. In other words it isn't illegal to harrass by phone when the caller's real name is known, because there are legal ways to stop the harassment if you know who is doing it. One womans harassment is another's courting. How is the government going to know which is which? A restraining order is not so hard to get. But if the caller is unknown there is little the woman or police can do. Hence laws putting those who will not identify themselves when asked in prison when caught.

It really does work. Since Bush applied the existing laws involving telecom to datacom, law firms have curtailed their use of third party detective and public relation firms substantially IMO. We have even had law firms in Seattle that have specialized in that kind of thing (Preston Gates and Ellis for example) shut down completely.

In many ways the Bush Solution was related to the war on terror, I suppose. In any case, the Patriot Act had little to do with solving things. This application of telcom laws to datacom is what tamed the wild west like Internet.

Posted by: mighetto   Posted on: 05/22/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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