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Government requires document retention of just about everything.

No, it only requires record retention, and how posts like this get modded insightful is beyond me.

Government, as a rule, doesn't have to keep email items unless they're specifically "records" on those emails. [If you have a record, and you mail it, it's still a record, but email in and of itself isn't necessarily a record.] To simplify this, certain mailboxes are designated as the sort that hold records, and those are managed differently.

http://www.archives.gov/record...

Capstone - which sought to use a broader capture methodology for mailboxes for important roles wasn't implemented until 2013.

You say that as if it were true. Cite, please, because there is no "6 month" limitation, and the records required to be kept are,

Please my original link. It clearly says the IRS keeps emails for 6 months.

Which clearly includes the information now being sought. Furthermore, for records kept only on a (now defective) hard drive, the law requires action to recover them:

First of all, 44 USC Chapter 33 does not actually say that. 44 USC Chapter 29 covers retention. So either you are trying to sloppy in documenting or you are trying to combine two different sections to say one thing that it does not. The keyword you seem to miss is "unlawful". In this case, the HD was crashed. The IT person removed it. That's not unlawful as the IT staff as part of normal lawful duties removed a HD.

Schools are probably teaching it because their staff knows how and they have the equipment. Not because it's a useful, saleable, or even particularly interesting skill.

Allow me to introduce you to one of the great masters of the darkroom and analog photography:

Ansel Adams, "The Tetons - Snake River"

It still doesn't mean that film photography or developing is any more of a useful, saleable, or interesting skill than is oil painting. He's a great master of his art, but it has become a specialized niche. As a photographer, I have many friends who have such skills professionally, and there are no jobs. Most of the film stores have shut down and there are more highly experienced people out there than there will ever be jobs. Digital photography and computerized post processing would be a much more useful, saleable, and for that matter probably interesting skill for the kids involved. I'm sure some of them would like to do it, and even continue with it. I'm glad for them. Still, teaching film photography and developing is like teaching BASIC programing on an Apple II. It's still useful and would do a decent job, but chances are that the kids being taught could do better with other tools and probably can't get a job doing it or use the same tools to use at home without great expense and trouble.

In fact, a hard copy is required.

BWAHAHAHA!

Oh, man, you're killing me here. That's the funniest thing I've seen here in a long time.

Numerous government organizations use 90-day retention policies for email. They're deleted from the server, which is why people keep PST files -- which they probably shouldn't either, but network admins bend to the will of executives...you know, in every organization everywhere.

NARA makes pretty damned clear that the only federal government requirement for archiving email is when it's a "record" and goes on to describe what a "record" is.

http://www.archives.gov/record...

The only argument here is if some of those emails constitute "records" or not.

Schools are probably teaching it because their staff knows how and they have the equipment. Not because it's a useful, saleable, or even particularly interesting skill.

Allow me to introduce you to one of the great masters of the darkroom and analog photography:

Ansel Adams, "The Tetons - Snake River"

and had a limited quota on an Exchange server.

In reality there are two sides to their exchange configuration: how it technically works, and how it legally works.
Being the US government however that means there is only "How it works" which is an alias for how it legally works (How it technically works might as well be magic)

http://www.archives.gov/record...

Installing exchange server and not raising the default retention period is a criminal act.
Actually, I'm pretty sure not installing a backup package to work around exchange store limitations would also count as a criminal act, but it may just be negligence or something instead of willful destruction of records.

Of course as you mentioned, if they would have gone a step further above zero-point on the server side setup, XP/outlook/PSTs wouldn't even need to be involved in the matter.
The very fact the even mention the client PC crashing implies that isn't the case.

Personally coming from a long line of competent IT work, it's a tiny bit shocking it was even a thought to go look at the client PC... That's the kind of thing one should only resort to if/when the exchange shit hits the bit-bucket fan. At my organization that would be called "unexpected disaster recovery plan C"

Sadly I very much doubt the person responsible for information and technology will be held responsible for their crimes.
If the PC didn't get the blame, then some poor outsourced Indian fella would have been one more addition for the no fly list instead :/

No, I have a right to lobby my legislators to stop the irresponsible spread of killing weapons in America. Michael Bloomberg also has that right. Little-by-little, America is going to get better on this issue. Remember tobacco? Remember highly unsafe autos prior to Ralph Nader? Watch, and learn.

Two points:

First, what are you doing to get all automobiles banned?

Second, your emotional, unthinking characterization of guns aside, you seem to care little about this:

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

And cut out the crap about "well regulated Militia", please. That's nothing more than a supporting clause providing ONE reason for the right to bear arms. It doesn't restrict the right. All the rights in the Bill of Rights are individual rights - the history of their creation and adoption makes that clear. Why the hell are you so bent on restricting fundamental rights guaranteed in the US Constitution? Because you don't like it? Tough shit. The rights of others aren't there for YOU to like or not. Just because you don't want to exercise one of your fundamental rights gives you no authority to strip others of their rights.

Don't i recall that these disks were advertised as having shelf lives of 100+ years? And that they were fantastic archival mechanisms... and now we're finding out that they only lasted 10% the rated time

This site says 50-100 years; http://searchstorage.techtarge...

Though the government only thought they'ed last last 2-5 years here... http://www.archives.gov/record...

You don't have to trust Wikipedia. That's what their citations are for. Here's the text of the speech from the horses mouth. It is as Wiki says it is.

http://georgewbush-whitehouse....

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." -- 2nd Amendment

I imagine back in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, and the country was mostly rural, and the army was mustered from the citizenry, this made perfect sense.

Today, we have standing armies. People are trained to shoot while in the military. You're not relying on people training themselves, or bringing their own weapons. Heck, the average person has a very hard and expensive time getting an automatic weapon, the type used in the military.

However, I think the Supreme Court reads this correctly. The 2nd Amendment says WHY the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Granted, the WHY is not relevant to the situation today, but that's what the 2nd Amendment does pretty clearly say.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." -- 2nd Amendment

I imagine back in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, and the country was mostly rural, and the army was mustered from the citizenry, this made perfect sense.

Today, we have standing armies. People are trained to shoot while in the military. You're not relying on people training themselves, or bringing their own weapons. Heck, the average person has a very hard and expensive time getting an automatic weapon, the type used in the military.

However, I think the Supreme Court reads this correctly. The 2nd Amendment says WHY the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Granted, the WHY is not relevant to the situation today, but that's what the 2nd Amendment does pretty clearly say.

To be technical, the text of the 2nd Amendment is:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Many people focus on the last two phrases in that sentence. Not so much attention is focused on the first two phrases, but IMO they're just as important as the last two. Keeping and bearing Arms is a right ... but it's a right, a power that comes with a hefty dose of responsibility (to be "well regulated") as well. Most of you probably know the quote "With great power comes great responsibility." If you can't handle the great responsibility, well, responsibly then perhaps it's better you hold off wielding the great power until you can.

For instance, the person quoted in the summary as issuing a death threat directed at the employee? Yeah, IMO they're not handling the responsibility very well at all. I wouldn't have a problem with that person's gun or guns being placed out of their reach while they learn how to play well with others.

Yes, I want to be clear that I think this Supreme Court decision was a good one. I do not like racial preferences, even as a means to right wrongs. I think it also leaves intact the valuable parts of Affirmative Action.

Here's the order that Kennedy signed, and here is Johnson's order.

Now, Johnson's order has definitely been used to justify quotas. Nixon famously did this, and Reagan famously failed to undo this. I don't think the concept is totally without merit, but I think it is misguided, counterproductive, and sets a dangerous precedent that runs counter to the larger goal of equality.

Baldrson asks:

What if 30% so intensely object to the present form of government that they advocate armed rebillion [militianews.com] toward the end that they might institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness?

KeensMustard pontificates:

Then those 30% would be proposing tyranny.

Brilliant answer.

For those not interested in helping useless middle-man ad farms, here's the original source on the National Archives website (including the YouTube video):

How Computers Changed the Tax Game

This King, these Lords, and these Commons, who it seems are too remote from us to know us and feel for us, cannot take from us ... our Right of Trial by a Jury of our Neighbours. ... To annihilate this Comfort, ... let there be a formal Declaration of both Houses, that Opposition to your Edicts is Treason, and that Persons suspected of Treason in the Provinces may, according to some obsolete Law, be seized and sent to the Metropolis of the Empire for Trial; and pass an Act that those there charged with certain other Offences shall be sent away in Chains from their Friends and Country to be tried in the same Manner for Felony. Then erect a new Court of Inquisition among them, accompanied by an armed Force, with Instructions to transport all such suspected Persons, to be ruined by the Expence if they bring over Evidences to prove their Innocence, or be found guilty and hanged if they can’t afford it.

(emphasis his)

Yes, although he should anticipate being watched like a freaking hawk for any transgressions. According to The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission:

Today, according to the U. S. Government Manual of 1998-99, the EEOC enforces laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or age in hiring, promoting, firing, setting wages, testing, training, apprenticeship, and all other terms and conditions of employment. Race, color, sex, creed, and age are now protected classes.

Ironically, your straw man's right to be a racist prick is protected by the law. Note that he has no right to bring his prejudices into the workplace.

The 1973 Fire, National Personnel Records Center

They are still recovering from that one.

Experts Recover Military Personnel Records 40 Years After Fire

Just imaging the President on a presidential bike.

George Bush and Bill Clinton.

Okay, the Clinton one is a joke, but George Bush used to ride quite a bit.

That depends on the circumstances.

If John was posing an imminent threat to your life, then you might have a justifiable self-defense excuse.

In our society, killing people, in general, is illegal (and immoral, and unacceptable, and unaccepted).

The United States Declaration of Independence specifically lists "life" as an inalienable right, and last I checked, DC was within US jurisdiction. Further, the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution already recognizes an intrinsic right to life ("...nor be deprived of life... without due process of law.").

No fundamental change is necessary; it's already in there.

That depends on the circumstances.

If John was posing an imminent threat to your life, then you might have a justifiable self-defense excuse.

In our society, killing people, in general, is illegal (and immoral, and unacceptable, and unaccepted).

The United States Declaration of Independence specifically lists "life" as an inalienable right, and last I checked, DC was within US jurisdiction. Further, the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution already recognizes an intrinsic right to life ("...nor be deprived of life... without due process of law.").

No fundamental change is necessary; it's already in there.

Sorry, Obama has signed a total of 167 orders to date for his entire presidency. Not 100's of orders per day. See http://www.archives.gov/federa... for a comparison of orders.

So you see the difference? You're acting like you have a fundamental, natural right to your idea/story/song/whatever, but you don't.

It's called "property rights", and yes, he does.

Take away government and descend into anarchy, and you'll still have property rights. It'll suck, and be more far more expensive to secure and protect (i.e. you'll have to patrol your own territory, buy your own guns instead of amortizing it across a larger population) but it'll still be there, and most people will very easily see it and respect it. Even animals know about most of this stuff; that's how simple it is.

Yet for all that, you won't have the slightest thing even vaguely approximating the kind of right that you're saying exists; you won't even get 1% of the way there. When you write a book and sell a copy to a traveller in exchange for a gallon of petrol, and he sets off on the trail and out of your physical control, there is nothing you can do about how he uses the book. He might read it to someone else but also keep the book, he might trade it to someone you don't like, and he might use its pages in his outhouse. You sold it and it's not yours anymore. You had a property right to the book, but now you have a property right to the gallon of petrol instead.

You can pretend you have a right to both the petrol and still the book too, but the world's reality disagrees with you.

Everybody hated the expense and unreliability of anarchy's ability to secure rights, so we have governments now. A lot of us think governments are mainly just good at securing our already-existing rights, though, and that governments lack the capacity to create or remove rights (though they can "infringe" them, as opposed to actually removing them). Our rights are unchanged by governments. There's a very famous explanation of this viewpoint, written in 1776.

You can take a broader view of rights, which doesn't really fit into any of this. Then you might say governments actually can create rights that we otherwise never had prior to government. I think that's going to be a very unpopular viewpoint among Americans, though. (And there are a lot of Americans on Slashdot.)

Most of the time when we Americans hear people talking about rights that way, we try to not make a fuss, and just assume you're using "right" a little sloppily and loosely, or as shorthand for some expedient tradeoff. There's nothing wrong with talking that way! Just don't forget, when you're doing it.

In your case, your sloppy application of "property rights" to controlling what happens to a book that you already sold to someone else, really sounds like one of those new-fangled "rights" that we think is merely a neat idea, so expedient that we even put something about it into the constitution. But don't think for a second, that you're really going to pull the wool over anyone's eyes, whenever you use "right" in that manner.

What? Never heard of executive orders?

http://www.archives.gov/presid...

Not only that, isn't lying under oath to congress a criminal offense? If he lied, why don't they charge him?

James Clapper and Congress to a lesser extent are behaving exactly as predicted by the Iron Law of Bureaucracy which states:

"In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely."

If there is any merit to the adage "Knowledge is Power" then the usurpation by the NSA in totalitarian total access certainly empowers the federal bureaucracy that both Clapper and Congress work for. As it has always been since the beginning of our country it is the responsibility of the citizens to correct the government. Unfortunately due to the corruption of our election process accelerated by unfettered campaign finance most people do not vote for third party candidates and we end up with corporate sponsors instead of representatives. The next time you visit the ballot box remember to vote your conscious and not for who the corporate controlled media want you to believe will win. You have control over the former but not the later.

What law am I ignoring? Please, do explain.

The Consitution
No where in that document does it grant a watchdog group the power to declare something legal or illegal.

FYI - the fact that America has a "court" that is not open to public scrutiny is blatantly unconstitutional, no matter what rationale you try to use to justify it.

Citation required

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

The document does not specifically give the federal government power to create secret courts. Per the 10th Amendment, any power the Constitution does not directly assign to the feds is not a power they have.

Freedom is more important than safety. Remember how this is supposed to be "the land of the free and the home of the brave"? No? Then perhaps you're too trusting of the government.

Or maybe you simply ignore parts of the Constitution that aren't your favorite. If you bother to read the constitution, you see entire sections devoted to the question of providing for the security of the United States. If fact you could make the very reasonable argument that freedom of the individual citizens was assumed and it was security, national defense, that had to be explicitly provided for. Many of the specific guarantees regarding various freedoms are not in the text of the main document itself, but are "add ons" in amendments. The main text of the document, the Constitution, is concerned with explicitly describing authority related to providing national defense and powers of the Federal government.

The simple fact is that various aspects of security and freedom are tied together. A nation that is conquered by a foreign invader will not be free. A nation that has a breakaway region faces enormous questions as to its fate. If lawlessness in your city is such that you have reasonable fear for your life or limb by leaving the building where you live, what true freedom do you have? If pirates are taking your citizens as slaves, you are failing to protect their freedom, and yet it isn't clear you would be troubled by that since ".... we have to take some risks. That's what happens when you're free." Would you protect the freedoms of American citizens, either protecting or freeing them from pirates? I have no confidence in that.

On the whole I find your argument "freedom is more important than safety" to be ill considered, at best, since most people I see making that claim here tend to resolve it towards the direction of "therefore we cannot tolerate steps taken to provide for security, at all," even if not explicitly stated.

Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." I think if we look closely at the arguments of those who claim we must only have freedom, and any steps towards security are too many, that they are in effect saying, "Hang the lot of you, but stay away from me." If there was a guarantee that they would be a "canary in the coal mine," the first to be hung to give the rest ample warning, it might be worth considering. But there is no such guarantee, so we must provide for both.

The Constitution of the United States

Article. I.

Section. 8.

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; ....

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Section. 9.

The Pri

So... you're saying you agree with me?

Of course not. Then we'd both be wrong.

If the only thing with power over the government is the other parts of the government, then they certainly have nothing to fear from its citizens who can't even sue due to lack of standing (as determined by part of the government).

Circular logic works because circular logic works because...

Sigh. If only there were some historical document written, perhaps by the author I quoted that explained other remedies available to citizens... maybe then I wouldn't have to spoon feed the truth to people and they could infer from the quote the course of action needed. Or, I don't know, maybe just not falling asleep in civics class...

Yes, as I said, that is all technically very true. And that ignorance is what sold the war. From Bush's State of the Union: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Then it's all talk about generic WMDs. The issue was framed in a way to make it seem that the WMDs in question were nukes. And that is very dishonest (honesty is not synonymous with the truth).

By the way, even the pressure cooker bombs used in the Boston Marathon bombing classified as WMDs (at least for the purposes of the DA to ensure a "10,000 years in prison + 100 life sentences + 1 death by lethal injection" sentence). I highly suspect that Mexico has the capacity to build pressure cooker bombs (and probably sometimes has used similar devices), but I don't see the will to invade. But even using a more specific term like NBCR would have been misleading and dishonest if it were started off talking about Radiological weapons and suddenly switched to talking about Biological weapons without bothering to mention that fact.

If you search the Constitution, you don't find the word "sovereign" in it, and yet the US government has sovereign immunity when not waived as recognized by the courts and taught by the law schools. It would seem difficult to apply "sovereign immunity" to a government that wasn't sovereign. The fact that people vote to elect its leaders and legislature doesn't really alter that.

This doesn't even count the fact that optical media is still subject to the same degradation and bitrot that tape is.

And anyone who thinks electromagnetic tape is "dead" is naive or just ignorant. People have been predicting the death of tape for decades, and it's no more true today than it was in the 70's. Modern EM tape is typically rated for 15 to 30 years of retention, and as long as it is not over-exposed to moisture during storage, it has proven to be able to last that long: otherwise, the manufacturers would be out of business because the Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies - the majority of whom backup to tape and send it off-site - would have sued them to extinction.

On the other hand, according to archives.gov:

"CD/DVD experiential life expectancy is 2 to 5 years even though published life expectancies are often cited as 10 years, 25 years, or longer. However, a variety of factors discussed in the sources cited in FAQ 15, below, may result in a much shorter life span for CDs/DVDs."

It can have a forcing effect on things other than direct belief when it becomes part of the civil or governing code

You are many centuries too late. The 10 commandments and other religious moral codes are already seen as a basis for a lot of common law. Trying to tell yourself otherwise is ignorance. (Now that you've read this it's willful ignorance or self deception.. )

What are they teaching in public schools these days.. Shesh..

Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_Compact

Read this: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

And if you don't mind, the preamble to the constitution of the united states.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Not seeing anything religiously oriented in the Preamble there...

It can have a forcing effect on things other than direct belief when it becomes part of the civil or governing code

You are many centuries too late. The 10 commandments and other religious moral codes are already seen as a basis for a lot of common law. Trying to tell yourself otherwise is ignorance. (Now that you've read this it's willful ignorance or self deception.. )

What are they teaching in public schools these days.. Shesh..

Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_Compact

Read this: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

And if you don't mind, the preamble to the constitution of the united states.

>> If Congress can't handle a simple friggin website project, it's time to clean house

Replace "Congress" with "the current president" (you know, the one in charge of IMPLEMENTING the law - http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html) and I'll agree with you,

Saying that the purpose of the GCHQ or NSA is to spy outside the country is like saying that the purpose of the military is to shoot and bomb people.

The NSA Mission Statement references Executive Order 12333, and I quote directly -- "2.2 Purpose. This Order is intended to enhance human and technical collection techniques, especially those undertaken abroad..." The GCHQ lacks a specific mission statement, because as you know, the British are terrible at getting to the point. The website is, however, full of committee-written documents and available in 9 different languages and makes a point of saying it's available to those who require "assistive devices". The NSA makes no such attempt; I guess that's social commentary.

And as to the military... for an organization whose purpose isn't to shoot and bomb people, they sure do shoot and bomb people a lot. In other news... If an NSA or GCHQ analyst ever reads your post... they'd laugh as hard as I did at your naivety, except part of the swearing in ceremony to become an employee requires they surgically remove the sense of humor.

You are about 32 years late with your outrage... but good try.
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html

It says no abridgeing by Congress of the Right peaceably to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Delay would seem to be abridging. So, yes, the Government must be open to the people, not shut down. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

The only link that matters still works.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

Too bad they can't reference this one more.

That would be the NSA
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12333.html

What? Source?

The Constitution of the United States

"George W. Bush...

and Barack H. Obama

"went to college, got drunk and smoked pot...and made connections. GWB

and BHO

got farther with his connections than you or I did with our productive skills."

Just trying to be non-partisan.

Paul Krugman says that you should beware of false balance. Every president is a child of privilege. I'm no Obama fan. I think Obama is an opportunist who deceived a lot of his voters and implemented some terrible policies.

But Obama did graduate Harvard Law School, where he edited the law review, and he taught at U. Chicago Law School. At Harvard Law School, everybody is a child of privilege, but he excelled even among the children of privilege.

GWB by all accounts was a self-admitted drunk at Yale and Harvard. He got through Yale because his father was a Senator and a rich alumnus. Nobody's going to fail a kid like that. He went through Harvard for the same reason. GWB got an MBA, not a law degree, from Harvard. There's a reason for that. You can bullshit your way through an MBA, but even a Senator's son can't bullshit his way through a law degree, and a bar exam, much less a professorship.

GWB was really stupid and ignorant. After all his talk about literacy, reporters asked him what his favorite book was. He said, the Bible. Somebody asked him what his favorite passage was, and he said he'd have to go upstairs and get it. You could get better answers in a high school English class.

Look at his interview with Carole Coleman of Irish TV. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040625-2.html He can't answer even the most reasonable, obvious challenging question.

Well, yes copywritten: It says copyright 1963

And quoting out of context, the speech does say: "In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check."

On a more serious note: he also says : I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their characters.

I would say that day has arrived. His dream has come true. We can honestly say that his kids are brown-nosing assholes. Not because of the color of their skin, but of the shitty content of their character.

Try Democracy Now. http://www.democracynow.org/

There are enough lying right-wing sources (mostly Republicans but also Democrats) that a journalist could easily spend the rest of her life asking tough questions of people who will never talk to her again, and still not run out.

For example http://www.democracynow.org/features/bill_clinton_interview

There are many real journalists in the US. The problem is that we don't have many real voters, who want to inform themselves of the issues, and take time to understand things. The last time it mattered, they fell in love with Obama, who betrayed his old liberal friends, and became a friend of the Republicans (a lot of good it did him). It's amazing what a billion dollars in campaign contributions will do to you.

(Carole Coleman is Irish, but she deserves a mention. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040625-2.html )

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

Skip down to the "We hold these truths..." Ignore the talk of a "Creator" if you must.

Only ones you purchase pre-recorded, not ones you write which have a lifetime of 2-5 years.

Well, not 007 Roger Moore, I have some very bad news for you. I have CDs that I wrote in 1998 (and as early as 1995 around that I can test) that I accessed not less than 48 hours ago. I have burned DVDs from 2001 that I also went through looking for the file I wanted that also read just fine. So much for that "2-5 years" theory. The number may be correct for discs accessed daily or not stored properly, but who would want to access a CD/DVD for data daily? I have in the past. It's not fun. If I had a way to carbon date my discs or something without destroying them I could prove it.

Many states legally require electors to vote according to the popular vote of that state.
In many others the electors are chosen by the victorious party -- so even then you're not buying out some general elector, you're buying out someone who has been chosen by, and sworn loyalty to, the winning party.
And it would be a pretty massive scandal if a significant number of electors went against the popular vote. Hell it'd be a pretty massive scandal just to find out someone had tried to buy them off. Why risk that when you can just buy out whoever wins? Shit, anyone with enough money and connections to buy off electors certainly already owns both major parties...

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/electors.html#restrictions

The electoral college is a *TERRIBLE* system, but electors being corrupted should probably be among the least of your concerns.

Only ones you purchase pre-recorded, not ones you write which have a lifetime of 2-5 years.

It's quite remarkable, then, that I can still play DVD-Rs I recorded ten years ago, when their life is only 2-5 years.

An optical disc will outlive a hard drive by decades.

Only ones you purchase pre-recorded, not ones you write which have a lifetime of 2-5 years. Even then while hard drives may fail it is easy to keep a RAID array up and they are very easy to copy the data to and from. So in 10 years time when the 8TB solid state memory stick or 1000+-year lifetime quartz technology drive is available you can easily copy all the files over to it...unlike your optical discs which you will have to load into the machine individually to copy the data over a speeds well below that of a hard drive.

Suppose we were to organize a riot against the state in protest over violations of privacy. We'd be thwarted. Suppose we try to organize over real issues such as global warming, energy shock, systemic economic collapse? We the soon powerless starving majority at home will be the enemy of state.

"Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances."
-- Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies, Department of Defense, April 2013
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-04-12/html/2013-07802.htm
January 2013 http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/10C18.txt

"Environmental destruction, whether caused by human behavior or cataclysmic mega-disasters such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, or tsunamis. Problems of this scope may overwhelm the capacity of local authorities to respond, and may even overtax national militaries, requiring a larger international response."
-- http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2006/sectionX.html 2006

"... anti-government and radical ideologies that potentially threaten government stability."
-- Army Modernisation Strategy, Department of Defense, 2008

"DoD might be forced by circumstances to put its broad resources at the disposal of civil authorities to contain and reverse violent threats to domestic tranquility. Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance."
-- Strategic Studies Institute, 2008

"Climate change would lead to increased risk of ... tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural catastrophes... Furthermore, if such a catastrophe occurs within the United States itself - particularly when the nation's economy is in a fragile state or where US military bases or key civilian infrastructure are broadly affected - the damage to US security could be considerable. ... A severe energy crunch is inevitable [by 2015] without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions."
-- US Joint Forces Command, 2010

"climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked."
-- Quadrennial Defense Review, Department of Defense, 2010