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To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (23730)	12/3/1999 10:13:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 24154

Then there's The Register, which had this amusing subheadline on the following piece: M & A specialist firm gets upside down gig Full story: DoJ appoints financial remedies advisor theregister.co.uk Gratuitous excerpt: We have no comment on Greenhill's appointment and the fact that its London office is just around the corner from The Register. In a sense, Greenhill's job is to advise how to do the very opposite of what it is normally called on to do: it is being asked to put a governor on illegal business practices and to restore competition to the industry, rather than to help Microsoft. It is good that the DoJ is seeking advice, but it has made it clear that it will not be bound by any suggestions. It is not clear whether the appointment was made to help with the mediation talks, or in preparation for the next rounds in Judge Jackson's court. Of course, it is just possible that the suggestion came from the mediator, Judge Posner. We suspect however that the appointment is being used by the DoJ as a lever so far as the mediation talks go, and that the major purpose is preparation for the next round when remedies will be discussed, after the findings of law.

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (23730)	12/3/1999 11:29:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Software Code Has Power of Law on the Internet, Author Says nytimes.com Apologies in advance for three in a row, Gerald, but as an old timer who's into political philosophy, I have to point this one out to you, on another old pal. One great danger Lessig sees is that the fashionable laissez-faire philosophy of digital libertarians will inevitably result in an "invisible hand" of commercial forces that will change the landscape of cyberspace for the worse. "It's really na‹ve to believe that things will take care of themselves," he said. "With laissez-faire, things will get really awful. On the other hand, there's nothing that government can do that I have much faith in. But we need to do something." For such a vigorous teacher and writer, it is perhaps a bit strange that a melancholy strain runs throughout "Code," which is Lessig's first book and is written for a popular audience. But Lessig concedes that he is pessimistic. After all, the Internet revolution has created a need for Americans to actively choose which of their political values should be embedded in the code of cyberspace, he writes. But that demand comes in the midst of "the age of the ostrich," when citizens have become deeply passive and skeptical of government. "We are no more ready for this Internet revolution than the Soviets were ready for theirs a decade ago," Lessig writes. "They needed to make some quick decisions, but they couldn't, because they had no practice," he said. "We've had practice but we're sick of it. It's an attitude that leads to, 'Let everything take care of itself.' That answer will be disastrous." Ahem. We used to get into a lot of stuff like that here, eh? Funny thing, there's at least one school of "digital libertarians" working on the "fight the power" front, the Open Source/ Free Software crowd. But that gets into this postmodern economics business, where the only way you can compete against Microsoft is free, so people should quit whining and compete. Beats me. Cheers, Dan.