Well, it will be election day in a week ago.

I realize this is such a timely entry, but I still wanted to post it. I decided to vote for my last time in Utah (unless I decide to move back, which is entirely possible given the right financial situation); I will be losing my status as a Utah resident well before election time comes around again. And I fully intend to vote here in Arizona when it does.

From the previous paragraph, you can safely assume that my house, wife, and kids are still in Utah. I’ve just received two callers interested in buying our town house, and unfortunately for the current real estate market, had to assure them that my asking price was negotiable. In any case, I hope one of them decides to call back to make an appointment to see it (and, of course, buy it).

While I’m sure my family life is incredibly interesting, I’m sorry to inform you that this entry will more likely cover a topic from the title, probably elections.

It appears that Utah’s billion year incumbent, Orrin Hatch has been re-elected to the U.S. Senate. I tried to get my family and friends to vote for the candidate running against him, Pete Ashdown, but it appears it was too little, too late; hopefully in 6 years, Mr. Ashdown can make himself well-known enough to get our (well, Utah’s, not mine anymore) incumbent out of office.

My wife mentioned that Utahans likely feel that he is getting things done, and I really do hope that is the case, but he has made a comment before that I very much disagreed with. This news is incredibly old, but it’s the reason I looked for another candidate in the first place: Hatch made a statement a couple years ago (long enough ago not to have affected the election enough to lose) that some sort of technology should be invented to destroy the computers of those committing copyright infringement (specifically, downloading movies, music, or other media online without consent of the copyright holder). While the topic of copyright is a large enough topic for 50 trillion more entries, I’ll try to stay focused on why I chose to vote against Hatch.

There are many of Hatch’s policies that I agree with, a few including: allowing media to be edited (specifically, removing offensive content) for resale, stem cell research, tax cuts, and tax reform. Hatch claims to be pro-Constitutional, which I assume is a conservative view that the government only holds the rights specifically given to it by the people, and no more. Unfortunately, his comments about destroying a person’s property without being proven guilty doesn’t seem to fall in line with ”due process” of the fourth amendment. Even though he eventually retracted those comments, it still seems as though he temporarily set aside the fact that this government is required to assume innocence until proven otherwise.

Don’t get me wrong, if probable cause of copyright infringement can be shown, I have no problem with the courts issuing a warrant to determine if any infringement has actually happened (including the confiscation of the property in question, but not the desctruction or permanent confiscation before a guilty verdict).

I don’t really like the use of the word probable, as most people understand it today. Probable cause means that you have pretty damn convincing evidence showing this person committed the crime (fortunately, many judges do still understand this); and not that they “probably” (id est, “might have”) committed the crime.

And the biggest reason I chose to vote for Pete Ashdown, is because he truly listens to the people (or at least does a pretty dang convincing job of it). On his own website he encourages communication on issues by the community (using a wiki), and when he feels they have reached a good conclusion, makes it part of his official policy. The great thing is that these policies are contributed by the people, not just solutions Ashdown has come up with off the top of his head. Because I also agree with the majority of Ashdown’s policies, he was the perfect candidate for me to choose.

However, I do strongly believe that people make mistakes they regret, and are completely entitled to change their opinion, even on extemely important issues; new information can completely change the circumstances on which you may have previously based your former opinion. Since Orrin Hatch is now Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman, I sincerely hope he realizes the error, and works towards intellectual property reform that will protect the consumers as strongly as the copyright holders. I would really still like the ability to “own” a book, movie, game, or song (id est, all art); I don’t want to end up in a world where art can only be “rented” (aka, licensed) by consumers.