Gabriel went to hell to speak with the devil and when he came back, he had a cell phone.

So, we were pretty sure making a backup copy of a CD, or, say, putting a legally bought CD onto an iPod is legal. Right? I mean, the RIAA legal council is quoted saying as much: "The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod."

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case anymore. The RIAA is now claiming that "creating a back-up copy of a music CD is not a non-infringing use." Yep. The RIAA is sure trying to destroy that pesky Fair Use law.

Read more here.

Don't die.

Live like a king: tell everyone what to do and watch as no one does it right.

I'm thinking that there might be finally movement on determining whether NSA and Bush overstepped their bounds on wiretapping. A federal Judge has ordered "the Justice Department ... to release documents about the highly classified effort within 20 days or compile a list of what it is withholding."

It's about time. The only way we can know whether the executive branch has been abusing its powers is to get the Courts involved in oversight - which is what the FISA Court should have been doing all along.

Read more here.

Don't die.

Save a life, punt a cat.

CityWatcher.com, a security company in Ohio, has implanted RFID tags into two of its employees. Yep, two employees actually volunteered to test this new "security" measure.

Read about it here.

Also, Mitch Ratcliffe, a blogger over at ZDNet, writes about it here. Obviously, he isn't very excited about employees being "chipped like a dog."

Don't die.