Sorry, ISPs. You’ll have to deliver what you promise.

Unless you own a telecommunications company with a business model based on selling more bandwidth than you can deliver and then punishing your customers, this should be good news.

The FCC ruled against Comcast on Friday, saying that their interference with customers’ file transfers was a violation of federal policy. While it’s far from a guarantee of future network neutrality, it’s probably as good a precedent as we could have hoped for from this case.

Comcast has been given until the end of the year to get their act together and stop undermining the proper function of their service. While that is a lot further than the deadline I would have given them, the good news is that the Electronic Freedom Foundation has released the Switzerland Network Testing Tool. This means that Comcast’s customers should now be able to easily watch their ISP to make sure that they’re complying with the ruling.

Why not talk to the police? It can never help you. Ever. Especially if you’re innocent.

The Innocence Project : In more than 25% of cases where people were convicted and later exonerated by DNA evidence, innocent defendants made incriminating statements, delivered outright confessions or pled guilty.

Innocent people admit guilt all the time. Don’t be one of them. Don’t talk to the police. If you really are guilty, sufficient evidence should be found in due time. There really is no need for you to provide the rope to hang yourself.

Cory Doctorow posted these two videos of a law professor and a cop explaining exactly why you shouldn’t ever talk to the police without a lawyer present. To sum it up briefly, everything you say can and will be held against you, and it will never help you. Ever.

I’ve only watched the first one so far, but this is a lesson I’ve learned from personal experience. You do not want to learn this lesson from personal experience. Learn it the easy way while these experts are offering to teach you.

Sixty-nine fascists : there’s still one place where the majority will defend Bush.

Tuesday night on Countdown, Rachel Maddow talked to Jonathan Turley, professor of constitutional law. The professor had this to say about the Democrats’ capitulation on the FISA bill :

“So, what the Democrats are doing here with the White House is they‘re trying to conceal a crime that is hiding in plain view, that everyone can see it.  And so, the argument for it is quite sill simple, nobody wants to have a confrontation over the fact that the president committed a felony, not once, but at least 30 times.  That‘s a very inconvenient fact right now in Washington.”

“I think that the founders would have found this incomprehensible.  The expanse of power to the point of including what is now defined as a federal crime.  And not only that, but the Democrats have learned well from Bush.

Because the telecoms are losing in court, because the administration is losing in court, they‘re just going to change the rules, so that these public interest organizations that have brought these cases will all lose by a vote to fiat by the Democrats.  It‘s otherworldly.”

MADDOW:  “Senator Obama says he does not like this bill, but he says he‘s supporting it as a compromise.  Is this a compromise?  Is that the right term for it?  Is he right?”

TURLEY:  “Yes.  I got to tell you, I am completely astonished by Senator Obama‘s position and obviously disappointed.  You know, all of these senators need to respect us enough, not to call it a compromise.  It‘s a cave-in.”

TURLEY:  “And, you know what‘s terrible is like one of those stories where someone is assaulted on a street and a hundred witnesses do nothing.  And in this case, the Fourth Amendment is going to be eviscerated tomorrow.  And 100 people are going to watch it happen because it‘s just not their problem.

But you talk about expanding the president‘s power, it‘s coming out of the marrow of the Fourth Amendment.  It‘s coming out of the bone.  And it‘s going to hurt.  And it‘s being done for political convenience.  There‘s not an ounce of principle, not an ounce of public interest in this legislation.

So, at least show us respect of not calling it a compromise.”

Amen. Calling it a compromise is an insult to Americans on top of the injury to the Constitution. Yesterday was a terrible day for freedom and justice, and the cowards that let this happen in a Democrat-controlled Senate need to be called out.

One more reason to use encryption wherever we can. If only Tor was faster.