Boo, Obama. Boo.

His picks are really starting to suck.

Obama picks RIAA's favorite lawyer for a top Justice post | Politics and Law - CNET News:

"As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama won applause from legal adversaries of the recording industry. Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, the doyen of the 'free culture' movement, endorsed the Illinois senator, as did Google CEO Eric Schmidt and even the Pirate Party.

That was then. As president-elect, one of Obama's first tech-related decisions has been to select the Recording Industry Association of America's favorite lawyer to be the third in command at the Justice Department. And Obama's pick as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position, is the lawyer who oversaw the defense of the Copyright Term Extension Act--the same law that Lessig and his allies unsuccessfully sued to overturn.

Obama made both announcements on Monday, saying that his picks 'bring the integrity, depth of experience and tenacity that the Department of Justice demands in these uncertain times.' The soon-to-be-appointees: Tom Perrelli for associate attorney general and David Ogden for deputy attorney general.

Campaign rhetoric aside, this should be no surprise. Obama's selection of Joe Biden as vice president showed that the presidential hopeful was comfortable with someone with firmly pro-RIAA views. Biden urged the criminal prosecutions of copyright-infringing peer-to-peer users and tried to create a new federal felony involving playing unauthorized music."

Hit & Run > Nudged - Reason Magazine:

"All hail the rise of "soft paternalism:

"The incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama will name Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor who pioneered efforts to design regulation around the ways people behave, as regulatory czar, the Wall Street Journal reported.

A report on WSJ.com said Sunstein would head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, overseeing 'regulations throughout the government, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.'"