Judges and character / motives of defendants

I've been thinking much about this old quote today.

[Judge Kaplan, in the DeCSS case:]

Defendants, on the other hand, are adherents of a movement that believes that information should be available without charge to anyone clever enough to break into the computer systems or data storage media in which it is located.

[Mike Godwin, Thu, 17 Aug 2000, commenting: ]

This passage is actually quite instructive -- it tells us that Kaplan decided the case on his perception of the character and motives of the defendants.

[I agree utterly and completely with Mike's sentiments, even if there is a certain irony]

Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog (Wikipedia, Google, censorware, and an inside view of net-politics) - Syndicate site (subscribe, RSS)