Viacom and Judge Louis L. Stanton Rob YouTube Users of Privacy

On Thursday July 3rd, U.S. District Court Judge Louis L. Stanton forced YouTube to give Viacom -- which owns shows like "The Daily Show", and "The Colbert Report" -- records that show what videos you and I have been watching.

Here in this video , I explain that the implications are dangerous and could help, for example, the Chinese Government find and kill Tibetan protesters. In this, a private company could purchase the data from Viacom and then resell it to the Chinese Government.

The Chinese Government could use the IP address information to find the general location of Tibetan protesters, go to their areas, and kill them. That's a possible scenario.

I considered the court's "restriction" on use of the material by Viacom. But that's the problem: the block is on how the data is used -- there's no specific prohibition of the sale of the information.

The reason for all of these actions, if you've not followed the story is that Viacom has sued YouTube for allegations of copywrite infringement. Viacom lost on the majority of motions, but the one that's sticking asks for YouTube to essentially share records of what videos you and I have been watching, and that includes IP adresses.

I can't see the need for the data. Viacom claims that they wish to learn if audience views to a Viacom show on YouTube are greater than that for amateur shows like LonelyGirl15. They don't need all of that information to see that LonelyGirl15 has a larger audience traffic than "The Colbert Report" on YouTube.

You can complain about this decision. In the video, and here, I give the contact information for Judge Stanton and his Law Clerk, Samson Enzer.

The contact info is this: Phone number for Judge Stanton: 212-805-0252 and the fax is 212-805-0359. Mr. Enzer is on Linkedin and Facebook. You can contact him directly from this blog post.

On Rush Limbaugh, His $400 Million Contract & Bo Snerdley

Today, it was announced that Rush Limbaugh signed a %400 million contract with Clear Channel. In this video, I explain that Rush's success came at a price. Michelle Sixta is a friend of mine and at one point lived on Madison, across Lake Merritt from me in Oakland, Ca.

Michelle was a lot of fun. She and I would go on something called the "Back Yard Bird Watch" and generally had a good time, then lost touch after a few years.

She was also -- prior to our meeting -- married to Rush as his second wife. She didn't talk about him much at all, but when she did, she explained that at first their marriage was fine, but as the years went on, Rush was more into himself than into her. He'd rather read a book than have sex.

I hope she's going to get part of that $400 Million.

Meanwhile, Rush has taken aim at Senator Barack Obama's run for president by employing his call screener James Gould as "Bo Snerdley" the official Obama criticizer.

In my view, picking someone who looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy and Austin Powers' "Fat Bastard" to supposedly criticize Obama just helps the Obama for America campaign.

Thanks Rush.

Finally, Rush should never be allowed to have himself photographed smoking a cigar as he was in my video. He looks like he's giving some dude a BJ, and that's from a straight guy.