......that the first thing I did was laugh. The second thing was thing, finally discipline in schools.

Surely this is just the right thing for the Police to show at times, it lets people know that Police Officers are human too and not stoney faced authoritarian figues. If I saw a could of policeman having a quick go at sledging with the public I would be amused not outraged.

Admitedly using a riot shield was probably not the best idea, but hey....better that than the usual reason it is taken out of the van.

@N

That will not solve the problem either, if BT are allowed to get away with the trial and then subsiquent roll out of the Phorm system, what is to stop other ISPs from following suit safe in the knowledge that they CAN do it without consiquence of penalty?

The answer to the issue is to make sure BT suffer the consiquences for their actions in the fullest legal amount and public manner as an example to other ISPs and bodies. This would then serve as a warning that this behaviour will NOT be tollerated at all and WILL be acted upon.

I agree with the poster who hilighted the differences between the steps and actions taken against illegal file sharers compared to actions taken against BT who have commited a far great crime than mere copyright infringement.

I think we still refer to them as black holes due to the perspective of the original observers. When first discovered it appeared to be literally a black hole in space into which everything was sucked. Early thoughts were that a black hole behaved a like a worm hole spitting out the matter it pulls in at an indeterminable location. Later science and discovery have obviously led to our current understanding of black holes but the naming has stayed the same.

Personally I say let America impose these rules. What will eventually mean is that travel will reduce to America and people will be reluctant to enter US airspace and influence. It will also serve to further degrade America's place in the grand scheme of things.

As a whole the world has a pretty dim view of America and it's foreign policy. This will serve to just make them even more introverted and have an even more limited view of the global landscape.

The sooner America's influence on the world is removed the better.

N.B. I should quantify that last statement really. The sooner America gets a sensible administration and stops seeing itself as the world's police force who expects everyone to do things THEIR way the better.

Look at the situation from BT's perspective; upgrading the network to a total fibre solution will cost them Millions, possibly in the order of hundreds rather than tens. Once they have upgraded all of the infrastructure to fibre they are under Oftel's rulings to make the upgraded network available to all other ISPs. These providers are then able to offer higher bandwidth solutions with absolutely none of the cost of setting up and maintaining the underlying network.

So BT are out of pocket a substantial sum of money and others reap the benefit of the crippling costs. Is it really any wonder BT have put off doing the upgrades this long.

Low density does not make an object viscous or liquid by nature. There are stones here on Earth with a low density, which resemble the surface of Hyperion; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumice .

Why can the AGs not just write up a subpoena, it is not a hard task for them to do. All MySpace are doing is protecting themselves from legal action should data be given. You cannot expect any company to put themselves in a position where they are open to being sued by any group or individual who's data they give to law enforcement agencies.

I am sure MySpace would be more that happy to help authorities, all they are asking for is a piece of paper that will protect them. They are not deliberately defending offenders nor are they complicit in the actions of sex offenders. All of the headache would go away if the AG office would follow due process and provide MySpace (and any other company/service provider in a similar situation) with a valid subpoena then no-one can cry foul play.

Too many people view a subpoena as a document delivered to force an action, in a lot of situations like this it should be viewed a document with two purposes:

1) To protect any party from whom information is requested to facilitate in the tracking of and possible prosecution of anyone commiting criminal activity.

2) To ensure that any defense attourney cannot have any evidence gathered discounted by claiming it was gained illegally. Thus, giving an added possibility of a criminal escaping justice.