On Tue, 28 Aug 2007, Emilio Perea wrote:
>On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 12:49:56PM -0400, Dave Anderson wrote:
>> But, as I understand the issue, this is _not_ part of his specified
>> punishment -- it's just a side-effect of the manner in which the
>> government wants to impose a portion of his punishment. There appears
>> to be no real reason for it other than the government's convenience.
>
>As I understand the issue, he agreed to have the goverment monitor all
>his computer activity. This requires that he run an operating system
>that will allow that. Does Ubuntu? I guess it's possible, and in that
>case it would be reasonable to request that the goverment monitor his
>current OS. Otherwise he needs to change OS or go back to jail. Wasn't
>that what he agreed to?
>
>I'm sorry to say that I suspect him to have known all the time that his
>parole officer would not be able to monitor his current system, and
>therefore had no intention to keep his side of the bargain.
You may be right; all the information I have is what's shown up in this
thread, and I've no idea whether anyone has implemented suitable
monitoring software for Linux (or exactly how the 'monitoring'
requirement was arrived at).
But this incident does raise the question of what sort of presumably
unintended costs 'the government' should be allowed to impose on
_anyone_ at its whim -- and _that_ issue is one which should interest
all of us (lest we find ourselves at its sharp end).
Dave
--
Dave Anderson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
