@dervheid
>>"I believe the 'slippery slope' referred to is the political expediency of giving Plod ever increasing, unchecked judicial 'authority' without reference to the courts. (Cue police state)."
But the basic problem with 'slippery slope' arguments is that they're fundamentally lazy and typically logically inconsistent.
They seem to assume an effective /inevitability/ about the future being a wild extrapolation of some proposed change to the current situation.
However, if that is a valid logical argument now, then presumably if the exact same logic had been applied in the past to one of any number of past changes, the conclusion then would presumably have been that where we currently are is already past what would have been previously imagined as some point of no return.
Either that past conclusion is correct (in which case we may as well give up) or it isn't, in which case the slippery slope argument logically fails.
It's also a fairly patronising kind of argument, implicitly suggesting that /other/ people will be too stupid/idle/sheeplike to do anything in the future even if things actually do get bad, while simultaneously demonstrating how foresighted the proposer of the argument is now, even though many other people taking a more pragmatic view of the situation are perfectly capable of /imagining/ potential extreme extrapolations while understanding that those aren't necessarily the primary thing that should be taken into account when looking at a particular proposal.
Given the *actual* change under discussion rather than paranoid worries about what it possibly could (or 'obviously will') lead to in the distant future, what seems to be important is what would actually happen in the cases where a domain is wrongly seized where that seizure wouldn't have happened in the current situation - how quickly could a decision be challenged, and what (if any) compensation might be available.
>>"Am I to take from your post that you think that giving Plod this level of judicial authority, without formal oversight by the courts, is a good thing?"
If wrongful seizures can be appealed, there would be oversight after the event, as there is in all kinds of other situations, such as considering whether an arrest or seizure of property was legal.
As for how bad or good it might be, what seems most important is not whether there's a theoretical possibility of misuse or abuse, since there will be that possibility in the case of any power granted to anyone, but how much that misuse/abuse will happen in practice and what kind of redress there might be.
How much happens in practice is something that is only clear over time, even if educated guesses can be made, (though I'd venture that the people assuming maximum possible abuse are probably not making the most educated of guesses).
What kind of redress there might be is something that isn't currently clear.
Personally, I prefer to wait for adequate information before making a judgement, though I understand that some other people feel differently.
One thing that does seem probable is that if the suggested power was repeatedly used to seize domains where there wasn't a valid legal case, whether through malice or incompetence (in the way that many slippery slope people seem to assume it necessarily would be), that would be likely to cause reactions which would lead to a modification of the power or changes in its application.
Though even if that happened, it wouldn't seem to be at all likely to make the lovers of slippery slope arguments actually think about what they'd predicted and how things ended up - they'd only see any misapplication of the power as proving they were right all along, but ignore whether the power had actually been used for the common good in other situations, and also ignore any corrective action taken which was seemingly moving the world up the slippery slope, rather than down it.
>>"how do you actually formulate 'meaningful' compensation. And who would foot the bill for said compo? Would that be the particular Plod taking the action personally paying the compo? No, it would end up being the rest of us shelling out for Plod's screw-ups as usual."
I guess in a decent system, it'd be up to courts to consider potential compensation, bearing in mind any losses suffered.
Would personal financial accountability mean that if a judge currently makes a wrong decision in granting a right to seize a domain, (or in other areas, like making an incorrect ruling which leads to a wrongful criminal conviction) the /judge/ should be personally liable to pay compensation?
If so, who'd be a judge?
If not, then why should the police be treated differently?
And as for who ends up paying, surely the logic is that the primary aim of compensation is to recompense someone for losses unfairly imposed on them, with penalising the people responsible and/or getting them and others to be more careful in future being a different issue, and one which could be pursued in various ways.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
