That's because the library is funded by taxpayers – it doesn't need the money.

How would you feel about a government-sponsored search engine? I think China has one of those.

If the queries were totally anonymized to protect it from the government itself, and the information provided was thorough and unbiased, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all.

If it were done the way China does it, I would.

A service offered by the government is really only as trustworthy as the government that's offering it. Do you have a problem with Xinhua News Agency? What about PBS or the BBC?

How would you feel about a for-profit Wikipedia?

> Today's features article: McDonalds!

Government-sponsored is totally different than government-led. China has the latter in terms of their search engine.

Indeed -- but the grandparent talked about "government-sponsored."

So we'll all be happy to do our searches through NSA.gov? Or would you prefer the alternative, google.nsa.gov?

We can even make searches like FOIA requests, where if you search something they don't like, they redact the results you wanted, and if you don't phrase the search correctly, they just give you nothing.

Yeah, so?

So what's better about paying via taxes instead of paying directly?

When something is paid for directly (and consequentially cannot be afforded by some), it will be biased towards the opinions of its backers, and thus, the wealthy.

And when it's paid for by the government, it will be biased towards the opinions of government officials, their backers, and thus, the wealthy (or the influential, in a political system where money has less influence than in the US).

> You pay for cable TV but they sell you to advertisers.

That's not quite right. You pay your cable provider for television service. The cable provider pays networks for their content (the networks are the "suppliers" in this case). Some of those networks also collect payment from advertisers, but that advertising revenue probably wouldn't go to the cable company.

What about the DNA tied him to the crime as opposed to the just the crime scene? The article doesn't really go into that.

If they're just comparing the DNA that was left behind at the police station to DNA they found at a crime scene, I don't see any issue.

This was a rape case. Leaving fingerprints or even DNA on a bloody knife can only confirm you picked up the knife, and therefore that you were present at the scene. In this case the DNA identified him as the perpetrator of the crime.

IMHO the EFF have chosen the wrong case to fight here.

I'm not sure there is any point in making a distinction, because while the DNA identifies him as the perpetrator, it also ties him to the crime scene.

Therefore, if we made a rule that evidence that ties you to a crime scene (such as fingerprints) can be collected without a warrant, but evidence that identifies you as the perpetrator needs a warrant, couldn't the police simply collect the DNA from the chair without a warrant, and only use the DNA from that sample to tie him the crime scene?

Then, once he's tied to the crime scene, that could be used to justify a warrant to collect a direct DNA sample directly from him, and then they could use that second sample to identify him as the perpetrator?

I agree that this makes the EFF look very bad. Persecuting rape is difficult enough as it is. I can't figure out any hypothetical example where this kind of identification testing could be abused without literally fabricating all sorts of additional evidence.

And if the rapist in this case was questioned as a subject, the police could have gotten a warrant for the DNA anyway.

You can't choose what cases will set precedence, and, once set, it is very difficult to "unset".

Lawyers can and do choose which cases will be set for precedent all the time. It's somewhat difficult to ensure that your case is the only one going after the said precedent at the right time, but just about any time a new law is passed that people object to, lawyers begin shopping for ideal candidates and then determining the best ways for them to break the law in the least damaging way, and in the best possible district to get the law deemed unconstitutional.

This typically happens with civil rights cases, and it's worth noting that there are certain legal groups that are better at it than others -- the Second Amendment Foundation is exceptional, and it's a large part of why their win record is so good.

I dunno, Instagram did pretty well for itself, despite being an (iPhone exclusive!) app at first. For a while, they didn't even have a web interface for viewing images, much less posting them.