"We should never let criminals hide behind a hollow embrace of legitimate American values." Wrong. We do this every single time we instruct a jury that the ac

"We should never let criminals hide behind a hollow embrace of legitimate American values." Wrong. We do this every single time we instruct a jury that the accused must be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, when we advise a drug dealer he needn't co-operate in his own prosecution. Our system explicitly agrees that the liberties it recognizes will be abused by some bad actors. Failing on that principle, it fails on the less important ones. It doesn't support DNS filtering, but it doesn't reject it either. The implication is that it just might be okay if targeted with sufficient precision, and never mind the precedent set. Without recognizing the technical and civil rights principles that make DNS filtering unacceptable on principle, it goes on to place responsibility for piracy prevention on everyone -- "Washington needs to hear your best ideas". In short, the statement accepts the MPAA's bottom line as an absolute requirement -- something must be done about piracy! -- without recognizing the tech community's as such. That, my friends, is how you lay the groundwork for a "compromise" in the eyes of well-meaning moderates who don't really understand the issue. If I were trying to set someone up as an unrealistic radical, I'd do so just like this. Does the WH care about getting the fundamentals right in the eyes of those who really understand them? Or does it want to position those fundamentals as the excess demands of unreasonable people who just won't compromise constructively? A great deal could ride on the answer. And remember, the question is being put here by some White House staffer who doesn't seem to grasp the implications of the 5th Amendment.