Friday, February 10, 2006

The FTC: Heavyhanded, or timely?

Here's a story about the FTC shutting down those companies selling people's private phone records. Obviously they SHOULD be shut down, but I'd rather that was done by showing a judge that what they're doing is probably illegal, getting warrants, raiding them and prosecuting. Instead the FTC seems to have warned them that what they are doing may be illegal. If it turns out that our sieve of laws does not make their activities illegal, then we're just witnessing another chill in freedom of expression.

Worse, if these companies had planned to make a buck until people caught on to them, they've been given a nice warning to hide the evidence and run.

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