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Yes, in the same way ACLU was defending KKK and the American Nazi Party.

Yes, in the same way ACLU was defending KKK and the American Nazi Party.

https://www.aclu.org/know-your...

The ACLU isn't for unlimited freedom, it's for maximizing freedom.

Unless that freedom involves anything nice like a Christmas tree or something else they have a Jihad against. Sometimes the ACLU does something I like, often they don't. To depend on them them for anything would be a mistake. The have no regard for anything historical in their Athiest Jihad, not unlike how the Taliban famously blew up the historical Buddha statues in Afghanistan as described here

Here's your maximizing freedom examples:

regarding hate crimes

regarding privacy

ACLU harassing citizens

and a multitude of second ammendment ones like this

Also the NRA since he wants to protect constitutional rights and the ACLU has a few embarrassing gaps in that regard.

Since it's Slashdot:

Free Software Foundation http://fsf.org/

Electronic Freedom Foundation http://eff.org/

American Civil Liberties Union http://aclu.org/

Make sure they are registered as a 501(c)(3) so your donations are tax-deducible.

I'd skip sending money to ISIS or the Taliban. It's probably not tax-deductible and may result in unpleasant imprisonment.

My logic does not say that. You cited an example of criminal prosecution for expressing an opinion. That is not free speech.

Funny, that logic is why SCOTUS has ruled repeatedly that anonymous speech must be protected, and various civil liberties groups push to protect it.

I'll agree that slander and libel shouldn't be protected, but suggest that unsealing the identities of the anonymous person(s) should only be possible after proving the case--the court may only order that what might be necessary to have to identify the person be preserved and a good faith effort made to offer them the opportunity to come forward to defend themselves. (And, in a case like this, possibly answer the question of why, if their claims are true, they chose to make them known this way instead of, for example, an anonymous tip to the local anonymous tipline?)

Maybe the next step (for Americans, at least) should be standing up and demanding that our Government Grant Snowden Clemency.

Or, at a bare minimum, a guarantee of a fair and PUBLIC trial.

But, most of can't even be arsed into doing that. Given how we treat those who stand up for us, I am surprised anyone bothers.

This is about the big-dog incumbents (Myriad Genetics, Quest Diagnostics), who charge upwards of $4,000 for testing. They are concerned to keep out small companies that are trying to disrupt the business with $250 testing. With modern technology there is no reason it should cost any more, including interpretation.

The tactics are patents, lawsuits, lobbying and FUD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.aclu.org/cases/ass...

I'm including these links and PDFs.

The Photographer's Right

ACLU Photographers' Rights

Photography, The Law, and Photographer's Rights

Legal Rights of Photographers

The DMCA safe harbor protects them as long as they take it down immediately on request, and google is big enough to weather any lawsuit. Now if you or I were running an app store...

No, the DMCA provides no safe harbor for anyone profiting directly from the unauthorized sale of copyrighted works, intentional or otherwise. As long as the Google bookstore gets a cut of the profit on the sale, there's no safe harbor.

First, I don't believe that's correct. The DMCA doesn't seem to mention profit anywhere except in relation to whether something is a nonprofit institution of higher education.

Second, direct vs. indirect profits are when an infringer has both direct profits from the infringement (selling the infringing work) as well as indirect profits (add-on non-infringing sales of other works that may have been caused by the sale of the infringing work). For example, if I sell you pirated software plus a "service and warranty package", that's both direct profits and indirect profits.

It is perfectly legal to sign the petition that is being hosted by Snowden's legitimate legal advisers.

It shouldn't be ok to incite mass panic (yelling fire in a crowded venue)

It shouldn't, huh? How about statements like "President is a war-criminal" or "He is not a natural-born citizen" — can such speech not some day be banned under the same doctrine? Because it does interfere with the government's efficiency and, consequently, the entire country's quality of life, does not it? We might think this ridiculous today, but many countries — including the various worker's paradises — consider insulting the Dear Leader a felony already. Don't you recognize a slippery slope while sliding down on it?

There is a movement to ban "hate speech" already. The entire Yik Yak app is banned on many campuses and today's students are being trained to accept such a ban already, so it can not be far away, that the thought-police spills out from those institutions into the rest of our world.

For the past 7 years, the number one rebuttal to any critics of the current President was that they are "haters". Do you think, we are far away from the sitting President becoming off-limits for criticism? We aren't — and it all started, when we were sold the bogus premise of "some speech ought to be illegal"...

It is naive to think that complete, and total, freedom of speech was ever intended.

Is it naive? Then I share my naivete with Benjamin Franklin, for example — a Founding Father — who considered any abuses of the freedom of speech to be a lesser evil than entrusting anyone the power to suppress them. For example:

Those abuses of the freedom of speech are exercises of liberty. They ought to be repressed; but to whom dare we to entrust the care of doing it. An evil magistrate intrusted with power to punish for words, would be armed with a weapon the most destructive and terrible. Under pretense of pruning off the exuberant branches he would be apt to destroy the tree.

Do you honestly believe, the fine magistrates of the 21st century Virginia would've helped calm Franklin's fears of that "the most destructive and terrible" weapon?

There are no laws defending blonds or red-heads against discrimination by brunettes either.

Yes, there are. If you discriminate consistently against blonds, then you will be open to legal action.

Please, cite the relevant law I'll be accused of violating and any existing precedents of prosecutions (successful or not). I'll wait.

Has there ever been a documented case of someone discriminating against a Mi based on name? No? Then why do you think you deserve special laws?

The point was, an absence of a law explicitly protecting any particular class of people does not by itself signify discrimination of the group.

I've seen some that explicitly list LGBT (as a non protected class).

Some day you'll learn to provide citations. Until then, I'll be patiently reminding you every time. Citations?

That's not an omission, but a license to discriminate.

Yes, many kinds of discrimination are perfectly legal. A girl can say "You are too old for me" or "I don't date Jews" — and even she does so "consistently", it is her right to do so. Businesses too can discriminate on a number of traits (including hair-color, yes, really) — only the explicitly-listed few things are off-limits for discrimination. The details vary by states.

If someone is providing "material support" to terrorists then fuck them. Lets say Osama bin ladin is living in my house and I know it is him... and I and feeding him and giving him cover. That is an example of material support. If you're doing that... then allow me to say on behalf of the American people, that you can eat all the fucking dicks.

Exactly why is this a bad thing? I don't get it. Someone explain this to me?

Does material support not mean what I think it means? I don't understand.

Well, here's what it means according to law.

However, whether something counts as "material support" or not is, well, up to interpretation, as has been noted by a number of people.

Is the world safer?

Yes. The revelations, and public reactions to them (the real public reaction as expressed in the marketplace, not whatever jaw-flapping occurs in response to some inane telemarkepollster call) have led to security improvements. The fact that it has also led to the entertaining spectacle of useless bureaucrats running around pissing and moaning and whining and generally making fools of themselves in public is just a bonus.

According to John Oliver most people think Edward Snowden is Julian Assange. Oliver did "man-on-the-street" style interviews in New York, asking people who Snowden was. Most people, if they knew the name at all, thought he was "the guy who sold government secrets to Wikileaks."

The report doesn't mention this at all, so I'm not sure what to make of the statistics. If you asked people "Which color is brighter: green or brown" but they had never heard of brown before, you wouldn't be able to draw many meaningful conclusions from it. The report itself doesn't even mention what questions they asked people. There's really just no information here at all.

It's from an ACLU poll of 1000 online trolls

https://www.aclu.org/sites/def...

KRC Research designed the questions for an omnibus survey that was administered by ORC International. The survey was
conducted online among adults 18+ in ten countries: Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, Spain, and the U.S. The omnibus is conducted regularly among a demographically representative sample of approximately
1,000 adults 18 years of age and older in each country. Fieldwork was conducted between February 12 and 19, 2015.

This kind of contradicts the polls that came out way back in 2013, but I'm not surprised how our media can sway public opinion. ACLU has their own article about it which portrays it in a slightly different light, with poll results linked at the bottom https://www.aclu.org/news/inte...

What country are you from?
Here in America it is the cause of millions of arrests, up until very recently New York City used 'Stop and Frisk' as a way to target groups particularly for marijuana
In much of the rest of America, any time that a person is pulled over they and their car are searched 'to check for weapons'

Here is a piece of info from the ACLU:
"According to the ACLU’s original analysis, marijuana arrests now account for over half of all drug arrests in the United States. Of the 8.2 million marijuana arrests between 2001 and 2010, 88% were for simply having marijuana. Nationwide, the arrest data revealed one consistent trend: significant racial bias. Despite roughly equal usage rates, Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana."
https://www.aclu.org/gallery/m...

Here are numbers from the FBI identifying over 600,000 marijuana possession arrests a year:
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cm...

Way ahead of you.

ES said that if my gmail account was moved overseas on an international server, then the NSA could have a copy of my account even if there were no international sources/targets. Is that true or false?

That's true. While theoretically the NSA is not allowed to monitor communications between two american citizens, in practice, any communication leaving the country is simply assumed to involve a foreigner and is thus up for grabs. This "inadvertent" capture of american communications is in fact standard operating procedure:

The government has set a dismally low bar for concluding that a potential surveillance target is, in fact, a foreigner located abroad. By default, targets are assumed to be foreign. That's right, the procedures allow the NSA to presume that prospective targets are foreigners outside the United States absent specific information to the contrary—and to presume therefore that those individuals are fair game for warrantless surveillance.

"But on August 11, 2011, however, BART took an unprecedented step. Under orders from BART police, the system shut down underground wireless service for three hours. The interruption covered stations in downtown San Francisco. In a statement, administrators clearly identified “organizers planning to disrupt BART service . . . us[ing] mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART Police” as the rationale behind the move."

https://www.aclu.org/blog/tech...

It has nothing to do with "bombs". We had to get the patriot act in order to fight terrorists.

"Of the 22,741 warrants issued since 2003, 21,838 (96%) were issued under the heading of "Narcotics."

https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

How many times are we going to fall for this trick?

In the U.S. the supreme court allows mandatory checkpoints only because they are pre-published where the driver has the ability to be informed and can take a different route.

There is also the fact that the US government defines the "border" as including 100 mile in from the physical border and can pretty well do what it likes in that zone. This "border" conveniently includes where the majority of the population lives. Are You Living in the Government's "Border" Zone?

You mean, like this?

Just remember, the 'border' extends 100 miles inside the US.

https://www.aclu.org/know-your...

"Considering how frequently, blatantly, and deliberately the US government has lied..."

The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt in many areas, not just in this situation. A few areas of corruption:

Finance: in 2008, banks were allowed to steal from taxpayers. Bank managers were rewarded with extremely high pay: The Divide. "New York Times bestseller -- Named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews".

Health care: The new health care system will further bankrupt the country. The ACA, Affordable Care Act, is NOT affordable. The ACA benefits everyone but the citizens. #1 Best Seller: America's Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Back-Room Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System.

Prison system: The U.S. has the largest percentage of its citizens in prison, of any country, in any century. The prison system is hugely profitable for prison corporations. ACLU: With only 5% of the world's population, the U.S. has 25% of the world's prison population. ThinkProgress: The United States Has The Largest Prison Population In The World -- And It's Growing.

Violence: The U.S. government has killed, or caused the death of, an estimated 11,000,000 people since the end of the 2nd world war. War is extremely profitable for some corporations: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger. Bush and Cheney started a war that was profitable for them.

Since the CIA monitors government email and the NSA monitors private email, I don't really think this is a security issue.

Either the CIA or the NSA has archival copies of Hillary R. Clinton's emails both government and personal. The next time you loose your email simply call the CIA or NSA and ask them for a computer-readable copy of your email in a format which can be imported into your email client or server. These government agencies could fund their "intelligence operations" by acting as a cloud storage service provider.

Since the CIA monitors government email and the NSA monitors private email, I don't really think this is a security issue.

That's because the feds have been studiously trying to keep them under wraps, but the majority of users do appear to be locals, for ex the ACLU's tracking page here. The FBI has been interfering with court cases where they are filing amicus briefs and injunctions to attempt to prevent disclosures of local use of stingrays, which is why the feds are *particularly* prominent in this.

Not even close since 9/11 (think of the children!) https://www.aclu.org/national-...

No, actually I'm well aware of the 2nd Amendment, its court history, and the ACLUs stance, unlike you. Note that it took until 2008 for the SCOTUS to rule as it did, and that decision was contrary to existing precedent, and required the most ideological conservative court since the Hughes Court that battled FDR every step of the way through the New Deal.

The ACLUs position is here: https://www.aclu.org/racial-ju...

It states:

Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. For seven decades, the Supreme Court's 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was widely understood to have endorsed that view. This position is currently under review and is being updated by the ACLU National Board in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in D.C. v. Heller in 2008.

In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia. The ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right protected by the Second Amendment. However, particular federal or state laws on licensing, registration, prohibition, or other regulation of the manufacture, shipment, sale, purchase or possession of guns may raise civil liberties questions.

Note that it doesnt say "there is no right to bear arms", nor does it say "we opposed the 2nd amendment". Ergo, the ACLU doesn't oppose the 2nd Amendment. They just disagree with your chosen interpretation of it, which is not the same thing.

Which is what I said the first time.

So the ignorant one is you, and apparently you are incapable of logic as well.
And you also apparently dont know what flamebait is, as I must assume you are the cowardly mod (or even a sock pupper for ganjadude) who decided logic and reasoning were "flamebait" because you didnt like them.

(also i find it amusing that you assume I even agree them, rather than am simply pointing out and correcting your ignorance of the topic and your faulty logic)

Snowden confirmed our suspicions. And for that he lost his livelihood and his home. And in return for his sacrifice we....have done nothing.

We benefited from his revelations, and then we let him rot. We can't even be arsed into signing an online petition to help him out.

Given how we reward whistle blowers, I am surprised we have any at all.

Yes, that's exactly what they think. Nowait...

https://www.aclu.org/racial-ju...

And, unlike most of us, Snowden actually did something about it. As a result of his revelations, political pressure is being applied to the government from many different directions to get the situation resolved.

Of course, it cost Snowden his job, and his ability to live in his own country, and might still land him in jail or worse.

You could swallow some of that cynicism and at least try to improve things. Maybe ask the government to grant snowden clemency?

Nah. Why exert the effort to click an online petition when it is so much easier to just bitch about how hopeless things are?

I'm going to go with "because an online petition won't do a damn thing" for $1000, Alex.

You thought it was obvious? You must be a mind reader, because as the post was written, it says nothing.

Maybe ask the government to grant snowden clemency?

Nah. Why exert the effort to click an online petition when it is so much easier to just bitch about how hopeless things are?

And yet you post as AC.....

This makes zero sense. It is completely non sequitur.

Maybe ask the government to grant snowden clemency?

Nah. Why exert the effort to click an online petition when it is so much easier to just bitch about how hopeless things are?

And yet you post as AC.....

And, unlike most of us, Snowden actually did something about it. As a result of his revelations, political pressure is being applied to the government from many different directions to get the situation resolved.

Of course, it cost Snowden his job, and his ability to live in his own country, and might still land him in jail or worse.

You could swallow some of that cynicism and at least try to improve things. Maybe ask the government to grant snowden clemency?

Nah. Why exert the effort to click an online petition when it is so much easier to just bitch about how hopeless things are?

...can we all return the favor by pressuring the government to Grant Snowden Clemency?

If people don't stand up to protect whistleblowers, then there will be no whistle blowers, and government evil will run unchecked.

Sign it.

the First Ammendment, like the Second Ammendment, is not an absolute

Heh-heh... Yes, finally, the First Amendment is compared with the Second. Indeed, we must introduce the following pragmatic and common sense measures and clarifications:

• The First Amendment only covers the right to petition the government
• For a petition to be covered, it may only be for redress of grievances;
• A petitioner must register with the government, undergo a background check, and have a valid petitioner license at the time of petitioning (which, of course, turns it from a right into a privilege, but never mind that).
• The right may be stripped from convicted (or even merely suspected) criminals.
• Additional restrictions — such as mandatory waiting period — can be added by the States to any would-be petitioner.
• Only the technologies available at the time the Amendment became law can be used — radio, TV, and the Internet are decidedly not covered.

Did I miss anything?

Has the ACLU ever actively worked against gun ownership, though? They interpret the 2nd as applying to government-controlled military, not individual rights, but I don't know that they've tried enforce gun control. Here's a case where they defended a gun-rights supporter, though because of the violation of his civil liberties and not because of his firearms.

It's also a matter of domain rather than interest; where the ACLU doesn't take cases that could violate the 2nd, the NRA steps in. Why should the ACLU spend its resources on a battle the NRA can fight?

Similarly, I haven't heard much about the NRA working to protect free speech or the right to proper legal representation outside of fire-arm-related cases...

well under the gop healthcare plan you may want to be in prison if you need anything high cost and you have an preexisting condition

Except these days, most prisons are privately owned and run under government contracts. Their track records speak volumes. They're not gonna spend a dime they think they don't have to to stay profitable. See this, this, and just for the hell of it, this. Further examples can be googled of course.

I guess that just shows the NRA has a political agenda beyond gun rights.

Either that, or I missed the ACLU's campaign to ban guns.

The ACLU doesn't work to ban guns but they don't oppose the idea, either.

If you read the above link, they even take the unprecedented step of saying that in essence, the ACLU thinks that the SCOTUS is wrong and that the Constitution doesn't say what the SCOTUS says that it says.

LK

You can thank Snowden here.

Probably many of them faced the same crisis Snowden did; knowing that abuse was going on but fearing what happens to whistle blowers.

This is our fault. We allowed the NSA to get to this point, and we allow the government to ruin the lives of those who stand up and do something about it.

Want to do something about it without ruining your life? You can start by signing the petition to grant Snowden clemency. It doesn't matter if it is unlikely to work; it is what you can do, so what are you waiting for?

You owe Snowden that much.

The very least you can do is support his legal council in their efforts to Grant him clemency.

Whistle blowers sacrifice a lot for the rest of us. We should stand up for them.

And any pretense of the 4th amendment no longer being completely shat upon is pretty much gone.

This was already establish by the 100 mile border zone - which conveniently also covers pretty well all of the US population.

The Constitution in the 100-Mile Border Zone

Twitter was given a subpoena, not a secret warrant, so there was nothing preventing them from notifying the account owners. And they lost that appeal.

I wonder if you are doing anything more than ranting on slashdot to actually put a stop to this.

For example, have you signed the petition to grant clemency to an activist who took decisive action on this front?

A *tiny* fraction of computer users will do *anything at all* to counter this searching. The overwhelming majority of voters don't even understand what this means, and inasmuch as they have a glimmer of an understanding, they think "so the FBI can see what I am doing when I remote in to work from home? So what? They will just get bored."

There won't be open cyber warfare between "the people" and "the government." There won't be a widespread refusal to work for the government on the part of geeks everywhere. This is all jejune nonsense, and a very good example of why geeks in general are very bad at politics (and have basically no representation in politics).

If you care about this issue, the absolute best thing you can do is give money (real tangible economic power) to the lobbies that are fighting it (EFF, ACLU, etc).

And don't forget that you owe Snowden a favor given all he has sacrificed for you. The very very least you could do for him is Sign the ACLU's petition to grant him Clemency (and maybe go the extra mile and pass that link along).