Is it a crime? 01/01/2009 10:13:58 am by Dan Krohn

	Here in Texas it's long been considered cowardly to shoot a man in the back. Looking back on 2008, one of the most disturbing developments is that such cowardice has been taken one step further. Though to this blogger's knowledge, no one has found a direct way to kill someone over the Internet, people have found ways to increase the likelihood of premature death. There's the famous case of the mother who falsely befriended then emotionally attacked an "enemy" of her daughter on MySpace, which ended in suicide and criminal charges. (The legal aspects of the case are very problematical. However, the prosecution went forward.) But there have been other cases around the world where someone has threatened suicide, and over the Internet encouragement was offered that may or may not have been a factor. It has been reported that mass suicides have been organized over the Internet in Japan. (Some years ago while driving to work listening to the radio, this blogger heard a news report of a person threatening to leap off of a bridge and thereby holding up traffic. In what has always struck me as an act of moral depravity, the DJ ranted about the traffic jam then played the musical excerpt "You might as well jump". Funny?) Unfortunately, we presently lack effective laws for dealing with such situations; and this blogger greatly doubts that effective laws can readily be adopted and enforced. Who wants to be indicted because their home computer had become part of a nefarious botnet that sent hundreds of emails to someone out of their address book encouraging them to end it all. Few, if any of us, have adequate security in place to guard absolutely against such an event. The technology proof issues exceed the sophistication of most prosecutors' offices, let alone the sophistication of most juries. Then there are the tricky issues of jurisdiction. The Internet does not recognize national borders, and this blogger has repeatedly noted how humbling this is for legislators. The United States outlaws online casino gambling. Anyone want to bet there isn't any? There are extradition treaties among some countries for some crimes, but the system is hardly either foolproof or thorough. Perhaps this writer's greatest concern lies in the fact that when the rule of law is ineffective, people lose respect for the law. If you and a couple hundred people you know were all to lose children to suicide encouraged by online moral vacuums disguised as human beings. And if each of you were by some means able to identify a person behind some of the sick encouragement involved. And if there were no adequate remedy through the legal system. What are the odds that all two hundred of you would be content to bury your children, go home, and blog your anguish?

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Monroe Doctrine Anniversary 12/02/2008 10:21:00 am by Dan Krohn

	Today is the anniversary of the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine. Like it or not, it appears that on this anniversary the Monroe Doctrine is dead. The special interest the United States claimed in the western hemisphere appears to have waned, while increasingly the United States focuses its attention on the Middle East and Central Asia. Meanwhile, China and now Russia are increasing trade and political influence in South America, with Russia openly stating that its activities are at least in part a reaction to U.S. support of Georgia. Perhaps this is all a natural result of globalization, but this blogger is concerned that the relative lack of attention focused on our neighbors in Latin America may come back to haunt.

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Kentucky Seizes Domain Names 11/19/2008 09:58:00 am by Dan Krohn

	Late last month I sent out an email dealing with the Kentucky case in which the state seeks to seize domain names of Internet gambling sites, arguing that they are just like roulette wheels - devices used for illegal gambling. See reprint below. Several groups, including the Electronic Freedom Foundation, have filed motions with the appellate court to have the trial court's procedure halted. The appellate court has put the matter on hold pending arguments before it in December. So the final result is not yet known, but at least the issue is set to get a more appropriate examination. Stay tuned. Kentucky Seizes Domain Names October 28, 2008 The State of Kentucky is upset about online gambling. In a creative effort to shut down Internet gambling, Kentucky is pursuing a court case in which it seeks to seize the domain names of several Internet gambling sites. This has been the subject of considerable controversy in the legal community, and this writer expects the case to go through rounds of appeal if both sides continue to pursue it. A number of interesting questions arise. One is how much credit would be given to such an order from a Kentucky court by courts/governments of other nations. If a server is located in another nation which permits such activities, that country is unlikely to care more about Kentucky's revenue raising efforts. Hence, the effort to seize the domain names and not the servers. But this raises the questions: what kind of property is a domain name, how can it be seized, and from whom? Will domestic ISP's be effectively ordered to block access to certain domains? Will domain registrars be required to change ownership on their records as the court has held? (It seems at this point that the registrars are split with some complying with the court's order and some retaining counsel to oppose it.) What kind of property is a domain name anyway? In some cases a domain name is a trademark, but not always. Yet domain names can have value. Often a domain name is legally just an address. If illegal gambling were occurring in a building at 1000 Main Street, one could expect the police to raid and carry off people and equipment - but 1000 Main Street, the location, would remain. Thus far the trial court has held that such domain names are the same as roulette wheels for the purposes of this case. The Kentucky court bases some of its ruling on the asserted ability of online casinos to put up geographic blocks that would prevent computers in Kentucky from accessing their domains. But how effective would such blocks be, and what if clever Kentucky gamblers found ways around the blocks? These are just some of the questions raised by this new Kentucky effort, but I doubt the questions will be resolved in this lawsuit. The ramifications are tremendous as the same enforcement technique, if permitted and effective, could be used in an almost infinite number of e-commerce situations. This is the kind of situation that makes the intersection of computers and law so fascinating. Changes are rapid and often unpredictable. I love it!

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More Reason for Trust Busting 11/10/2008 01:20:02 pm by Dan Krohn

	Interestingly the big insurer AIG which already has been the subject of a government bailout is on the verge of getting another one. Now the federal governmetn already owns roughly 80% of AIG by way of the initial bailout. However, it seems that AIG continues to burn through money at an extraordinary pace, and it continues to hold a load of toxic (gotta love that word in this context) assets. So the government is looking to put in more money, then presumably when that is spent, again more money - with no announced plan to end the draining. Oh, except for the proposal that the U.S. government take on the toxic assets itself. Now it seems that AIG has gotten itself so intertwined with other parts of the economy that the thought of it's failing is scary (this writer finds an indefinite unlimited money whirlpool scary, too, so take your pick). An example of that intertwining is public transportation. It seems that many public transport agencies have raised money by selling assets (in this case rail cars and buses - presumably not toxic in themselves) for cash, then leasing the same vehicles back from the investors who bought them. The investors required that the lease payments be insured by a highly rated company, and guess who insured the lion's share of these deals. Surprise! It was AIG. It's failure or flirtation with failure threatens to put quite a number of local transportation agencies into default. So now those agencies are leaning on their congressmen who are leaning on the Fed and other federal financial policy maker to help. If AIG were not so big and so dominant in certain markets, we could just let it fail. If it is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. As this blog has argued before, companies too big to fail should generally be broken up under antitrust laws. If there is a good reason for their being too big to fail, then they should be heavily regulated (and that means really heavily regulated - like government agency approval of all executive pay packages) by the government or owned by the government outright. That's no more contrary to our capitalist market system than taxpayer bailouts of big companies which have made bad decisions.

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Subsidized Problem Creation 10/23/2008 09:35:23 am by Dan Krohn

	Apparently with government approval, several big U.S. banks are planning to use new capial being supplied by U.S. taxpayers to fuel an acquisition binge. In the short term, government officials see this as positive as the big banks might acquire troubled smaller banks preventing further bank failures. However, as is often the case with the U.S. government, this is very short sighted. If there are banks that will fail, let that be the case. The government can handle sales of their assets and deposits to other banks at that time. What is troubling is that in this era of the "too big to fail" attitude towards big banks requiring a huge and yet to be defined taxpayer bailout, the government is subsidizing the exacerbation of the too big to fail problem. Government funds, if provided at all, should be used to shore up banks' capital positions to enable them to increase lending and not fail themselves. Poorly managed banks should not be given taxpayer money to increase market share. As previously argued in this blog, banks in the too big to fail category should be candidated for breaking up through antitrust action - not encouraged to grow. And if such big institutions are allowed to exist with the public insuring them against failure, then there should be an extra tax on such companies to serve as an insurance premium and they should be subject to greater regulation than their smaller rivals which would be allowed to fail if that demise were dictated by the market.

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