The decision came not an hour ago. No 10 Commandments in courthouses unless they’re displayed neutrally as a tribute to history, which I have no problem with. They stuck to a more case-by-case ruling, but at least we’ve established some line. Injecting religion into law is not good. I think that’s pretty well established.

Huge wins for large media companies and cable companies, however. Grokster and other file-sharing companies are toast. It’ll be interesting to see how this affects BitTorrent, which is getting a lot of legitimate use (like distributing Linux releases). Consumers also lose with the overturning of a prior decision forcing cable companies to open their lines to other broadband providers.

Finally, journalism was dealt a blow when the court rejected appeals from Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller, who refuse to reveal their source on stories they wrote regarding the leak of a CIA officer’s identity. I’ve watched enough spy movies to know how critical it is to keep identities secret, and certainly the person who leaked the information should be punished (especially if it was reprisal against the CIA officer’s husband Joseph Wilson for speaking out against the Bush administration), but many important exposés would never happen without some guarantee of confidentiality. Imagine of Deep Throat had never talked to Bob Woodward.