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To boot, Dr Rev MLK Jr would have made the speech without pecuniary incentive...

I wonder why he sued Twentieth Century Fox for spreading his speech then.

We can't just lay this at the feet of King's family. King himself... in his lifetime... jealously guarded his copyrights.

It isn't just his family who has turned this into a nightmare, MLK Jr. himself started the whole issue:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/mlk_speech/

Furthermore, it appears this wasn't simply a response to someone else trying to publish and profit from his address, it sounds like he claimed copyright a mere month after he gave the speech

From (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-pasternack/i-have-a-dream-copyright_b_944784.html):

"Also crucial in the estate’s copyright claims: though King himself claimed copyright of the speech a whole month after he delivered it, his claim was seen as valid because no “tangible” copy of the speech had been distributed before he made his claim. (The ruling was based on previous copyright law, from 1909, not the 1975 law we use today.)"

You get more for less.

We have quite enough already, thank you.

Where did you acquire this lunatic idea that the purpose of government was to watch over every citizen every hour of the day?
Try this link. You may find it was something you slept through in the 6th grade.

There is no such fraction as a "fourth".

Article V of the Constitution disagrees with you: "...ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof..."

> We're a democracy,

Uh, no offense, but you might want to try _reading_ the Constitution sometime there buddy ...

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

Article. IV.
Section. 4.
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,

The problem with this is that many copyright holders are corporations, and it's rather rare that they die.

There's the problem. The copyright section from the U.S. Constitution has been quoted many times in this discussion and on others with emphasis added but here's a new emphasis: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Most of today's "rights holders" are not the creators. Instead of quibbling over duration of copyright, just make the rights non-transferable. That would really get fought tooth and nail by big media, but it strikes at the heart of the matter.

From the flickr page:

The U.S. National Archives digitized more than 15,000 photographs from the series Documerica (Local ID 412-DA) and included them in our online catalog. Our Web site has quick catalog search links for featured DOCUMERICA topics, locations, and photographers.

From the flickr page:

The U.S. National Archives digitized more than 15,000 photographs from the series Documerica (Local ID 412-DA) and included them in our online catalog. Our Web site has quick catalog search links for featured DOCUMERICA topics, locations, and photographers.

From the flickr page:

The U.S. National Archives digitized more than 15,000 photographs from the series Documerica (Local ID 412-DA) and included them in our online catalog. Our Web site has quick catalog search links for featured DOCUMERICA topics, locations, and photographers.

However, no attempt was made to capture al-Awlaki. Instead a concerted (successful) attempt was made to assassinate him, and in fact in such a way that capture was not ever possible. The act was against both U.S. and international law.

No, it is NOT "black and white". It's just plain black. It wasn't war, it was murder. According to the law.

And how is it against the law? The strike was done in Yemen, with Yemen's permission and approval. So no sovereignty was violated, no treaties broken. So what law(s) were broken? You'd have to come up with that before it can be called murder. And it is a black and white case. The US killed him under a war proclamation. You may disagree with that, but that's also black and white.

You attempt to justify this by stating that Yemen's sovereignty was not violated, but this is wholly irrelevant. The issue is not whether Yemen as a state was aggrieved -- the issue is that the US government is openly assassinating people without any recourse to due process protections guaranteed under the Constitution. And please read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights -- they actually aren't that long, and you'll find that they distinguish between citizens and people or persons, with most of the rights and protections applying broadly to this latter category (i.e., to everybody, regardless of citizenship).

Assuming that US law still counts for something, then how is it possibly anything other than murder to kill al-Awlaki (and two weeks later his 16-year-old son) without any attempt at applying due process? For example, what was he charged with? Who issued his arrest warrant? How was arrest attempted? Who was put in immediate danger of bodily harm, and how, to justify the application of deadly force during the attempted arrest?

But there were no charges, not proper formal legal charges. There was no arrest warrant issued. There was no arrest attempted. No one was in immediate danger of harm.

You also attempt to make the case that there was some sort of "war proclamation" that justifies this, which suggests that you're a bit confused about war legalities. War in any legal sense is declared by the US Congress, not "proclaimed". And, for that matter, there have only ever been five declared wars that the US has participated in throughout the whole course of US history. More here. The only two in the 20th century were WWI and WWII; none have yet been declared in the 21st century. (Think about that for a moment. For all the war the US wages, most of it isn't even legal by the US's own standards.)

Your argument fails, due to misinformation. Please, read the foundational documents of US law. You will learn much. Notably, you will find that the underlying legal framework of the US is designed to be as fair and impartial as possible, precisely in order to protect against the "we don't like you so we're going to kill you" kind of indiscriminate state behavior that the US government is increasingly fond of.

However, no attempt was made to capture al-Awlaki. Instead a concerted (successful) attempt was made to assassinate him, and in fact in such a way that capture was not ever possible. The act was against both U.S. and international law.

No, it is NOT "black and white". It's just plain black. It wasn't war, it was murder. According to the law.

And how is it against the law? The strike was done in Yemen, with Yemen's permission and approval. So no sovereignty was violated, no treaties broken. So what law(s) were broken? You'd have to come up with that before it can be called murder. And it is a black and white case. The US killed him under a war proclamation. You may disagree with that, but that's also black and white.

You attempt to justify this by stating that Yemen's sovereignty was not violated, but this is wholly irrelevant. The issue is not whether Yemen as a state was aggrieved -- the issue is that the US government is openly assassinating people without any recourse to due process protections guaranteed under the Constitution. And please read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights -- they actually aren't that long, and you'll find that they distinguish between citizens and people or persons, with most of the rights and protections applying broadly to this latter category (i.e., to everybody, regardless of citizenship).

Assuming that US law still counts for something, then how is it possibly anything other than murder to kill al-Awlaki (and two weeks later his 16-year-old son) without any attempt at applying due process? For example, what was he charged with? Who issued his arrest warrant? How was arrest attempted? Who was put in immediate danger of bodily harm, and how, to justify the application of deadly force during the attempted arrest?

But there were no charges, not proper formal legal charges. There was no arrest warrant issued. There was no arrest attempted. No one was in immediate danger of harm.

You also attempt to make the case that there was some sort of "war proclamation" that justifies this, which suggests that you're a bit confused about war legalities. War in any legal sense is declared by the US Congress, not "proclaimed". And, for that matter, there have only ever been five declared wars that the US has participated in throughout the whole course of US history. More here. The only two in the 20th century were WWI and WWII; none have yet been declared in the 21st century. (Think about that for a moment. For all the war the US wages, most of it isn't even legal by the US's own standards.)

Your argument fails, due to misinformation. Please, read the foundational documents of US law. You will learn much. Notably, you will find that the underlying legal framework of the US is designed to be as fair and impartial as possible, precisely in order to protect against the "we don't like you so we're going to kill you" kind of indiscriminate state behavior that the US government is increasingly fond of.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

So, this does beg the question, who stuck the word "property" in there expecting us not to notice?

Only what the Constitution explicitly allows.

And unlike the previous President, he hasn't been ruling by fiat, executive order and signing statement.

Did you type this with a straight face? And I wonder whether the moderator was LOLing as he modded it up. Please read this. The numbers are quite the same. And W's weren't quite so... "fiat". How else can to describe ordering the wells in the Gulf to shut down, being told by a federal court that's illegal, and then just resubmitting the order anyway?

You're probably getting the idea. The technology is easy. The processes are complicated

This is a great post. I think kiwimate has a very good understanding of digital archiving.

There really is a lot more than scanning documents and putting them into mass storage. In fact, most of the DM stored by NARA has far more metadata associated with it than actual content. There are several forms, requests, approvals, verification, etc that is involved in the process of ingesting data.

One big thing the kiwimate didn't mention is the legal aspect. The authenticity and accuracy of the information in these documents needs to hold up in a court of law. If information is just slapped in there without the extensive process, NARA would find themselves up to their eyes in legal trouble.

Regardless, it wasn't the technology or the process that led to the difficulties of NARA's system (which is falsely reported as a failure). The reasons had more to do with NARA's inexperience/inability with developing a government-funded tech system - which the GAO was very critical of.

BTW, archivists hate when you call them librarians (even if that's what they are).

Earlier this year, due to cost overruns and project mismanagement, NARA announced it was ending a 10-year effort to create an electronic records archive

Ummm no.... source please?

The truth is that NARA's Electronic Records Archive was not scrapped. This year, the final increment of development came to an end (on schedule), the system was formally accepted (on schedule), and the program entered the O&M phase (on schedule).

NARA wasn't "ending a 10-year effort", a 10-year effort was coming to an end.

So there isn't a repeat of this:
http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/military-personnel/fire-1973.html

It's a "Delaware corporation".

I currently work for a Government agency and I strongly advise against using logic to argue with them. Things are done the way they are written. It costs them more time and money to rewrite the rules than to buy new hard drives.

The method we use in this office to dispose of hard drives is the same for ALL drives regardless of content. They have had too many mistakes to do it any other way. Better safe than sorry.

Here is the procedure for hard drives we use:
1. Overwrite the data using the computer in which it is currently installed. (Something like DBAN that costs a bunch of money)

2. Physically degauss the hard drive. (A large elctro-magnet that they paid too much for)

3. Send the drives to NARA:
http://www.archives.gov/about/

At NARA they check and make sure that the drive is not readable. If it appears to be blank or broken they physically destroy the equipment. If they can get something out of it then they analyse the data before they destroy it. They might want to keep it.

P.S. There is no secret information at the facility in which I work.

Yes, a petition to the White House is totally the way to get a constitutional amendment passed... Not! Petitions are great, but it's much more useful to send them to someone who can actually do something about them.

I think patents make a lot of sense, for some things and not for others.

On balance, there are a lot of really bad software patents, simply because you can sit down with any one of a hundred people "skilled in the art" of whatever area of software and ask them "is this obvious?" and they will almost always say yes, though when you ask "why hasn't it been done before?" the answer comes back a little more murky, usually something about it just not having made sense before because of the user base or available hardware or whatever, and during the period of 1995-2005, the patent office seemed to be in rubber stamp mode for software.

If you go back to something like barbed wire, there were probably a half-dozen wire manufacturers crying "oh, that was so obvious, we were about to do that" when the patents issued, but today with software, you literally have millions of individuals who are capable of implementing these things that are getting patented - it's a different scale, and the standard for obviousness and prior art should be equally higher.

Hm, could you please expand on how Obama's "abusing" the EO? according to this he's issued 97 EO as of Oct 6. That's about 32/year.

Bush II issued 297 EOs over his 8 years for about 36/year.

"This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins." -- Benjamin Franklin

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." -- James Madison

Clearly, this violates the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
United States Bill of Rights

Somebody in a previous post was correct when they said that we need to simply say 'No' when they want to perform illegal searches. Saying 'I have nothing to hide' and letting them do what they want is the same as letting a stream of water erode the riverbank until the structures alongside the river have compromised foundations.

It bothers me that all of the "announcements" that I am reading make this look like a decision made for the good of the country by the Obama administration. This is just not the case. As much as I am not a GWB fan the truth of the matter is that the Dec 31 2011 date for removing combat troops from Iraq was set by a a strategic framework and security agreement between the Bush administration white house and the Iraqi's in November of 2008. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/11/20081127-2.html Pentagon officials under the Obama administration have actually been trying to get the Iraqi's to extend this date since may/june of last year but they (Iraqi government) will not ALLOW us to stay any longer in combat capacity.

The government of the United States, formed under the Constitution, was intended to fulfill the following functions:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

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 exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

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.

There's more, you can read for yourself on a website provided by the Government.

"Poverty, AFAIC, is created by government spending (and regulating/taxing/subsidizing) and wealth is created by the private sector investment. Government is not (or shouldn't be) here to invest. It's here with a specific spending function - protect liberties. That's all that all of the government must be concerned with."

Have you read the United States Constitution?

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

Article 1, Section 8
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

General Welfare means social programs, they aren't theft, and the US began taxation programs during the Washington administration.

As for the statement that no one paid income tax in the 1950s, that is just ridiculous, there were accountants, there were ledgers and people went to prison for tax evasion.
http://ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-1.html
http://www2.census.gov/prod2/popscan/p60-018.pdf
1952-53 - 22.2% on income above $4000.
92% at $400,000.
Average income was $4011
And the bulk of US households made more than $4000 a year.

If welfare is evil, does the US military-industrial complex strike you as evil? Lockheed Martin for example makes the vast majority of it's income from US government contracts, as does Northrop Grumman, General Dynamic Land Systems, TRW and many others.

In this case, the rules were written by NARA. And I speak from personal experience in this subject when I say they are truly Byzantine.

I've asked our records management attorneys a few times the simple questions of "is this a record" and "how long do I have to retain it". I usually leave in a daze and still don't know.

Anyone within the intelligence community could have been able to "speak intelligently about it off the cuff'. It is clearly spelled out in Executive Order 12333. Everyone within the intelligence community is given yearly reinforcement training on it.

The most important part that is emphasized during the training is that the US Intelligence Community cannot collect or maintain intelligence information on US citizens or those assumed to be US citizens (anyone physically in the US is considered a US citizen unless it is known that they are not) unless they are suspected of working for a foreign "entity".

Therefore, if that person is suspected or known to be working for a foreign entity, the information can be maintained.

There are no legal consequences if it's found that a US intelligence agency accidentally (or incidentally) collected information on a US citizen (think phone call between foreign person and US person), that information is purged from the system, and if related to a crime given to the FBI. There is only a legal consequence if the US continues to maintain the information once it's found and confirms that the US person doesn't fit the criteria in order to keep it. Keep in mind that most of the information that the NSA collects is never reviewed by a human and so isn't looked at to try and figure out if it involves a US person.

Also note that there is nothing that prohibits the US from giving the "incidentally" collected information to US allies who would, of course, share it with us at our request. The executive order only says that the US cannot maintain it.

yeah, i feel the same way about people who use the wrong "its".

Does that include the authors of the US Constitution? Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 2: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

And yes, the apostrophe is in the original.

Why weren't Catholics and many other Christians allowed to drink real wine during prohibition when they performed communion?

They were. The 18th amendment only prohibited it "for beverage purposes," and the Volstead Act, which enacted the amendment, provided that "Liquor for non beverage purposes and wine for sacramental purposes may be manufactured, purchased, sold, bartered transported, imported, exported, delivered, furnished and possessed . . . ."

So...I take it there was an uptick in church attendance during Prohibition, then? :)

It's called the War Powers Resolution for a reason... it was a resolution, of Congress... which does not have the signature of a President... it was not vetoed... or even pocket vetoed... because it was never presented to a President for his signature... preventing any possibility of a veto override.

As much as I loathe this President... I do have to give him credit for standing up against the WPA... it’s a shame he’s not competent enough to recognize the reality of the WPA and state it... rather than playing these games.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.

It passed the House on July 18, 1973.
It passed the Senate on July 20, 1973.
President Nixon vetoed it on October 24, 1973.
His veto was overridden by the Senate on November 7, 1973. Thus immediately the bill became law, without the need for Nixon's signature.
And this is a high resolution scan of the final bill.

Might want to read up on Executive Order 13233 - Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Act. Most information will generally become available within 12 years (with several exemptions listed in the link, primarily for security reasons).

It you want to say TV isn't a failure, then cut off CAFR funding for it. Cut off Obama's giveaway to the networks. Let's have the FCC panel made up of engineers who the public votes in, not the one's the POTUS appoints. Today you have to get your daily dose of propaganda BS along with your local news (which could possibly warn if a tsunami is on the way) what a nasty trade off, listening to how jobs are so good, and the economy is recovering, and OBL shot and dumped at sea, just to try to know if the rain might have nuclear fallout or if some earthquake has a 100' wave headed your way. Let us not forget the switch to DTV which sucks more money people don't have. Plus when it's really windy from the haarp technology mucking with the weather, the DTV packets break up. Where in analog, it was just snow and noise, now it's BSOD (black screen of death)

Ya want to talk about the telcos? Start with NSA fios splitters, move on to wiretaps, spying, and all the rest of the crap. You couldn't GIVE me a mobile phone.

You want to talk about the internet and law? Miserable failure. *.AA , DMCA, streaming stations, copyright/patent trolls, SEO blackhats, the intelligence community spying, Chamber of Commerce, facebook. You can't look me in the eye and tell me that's not a failure for the US Constitution which is now intermittent.

When the monetary system financial terrorism come to fruition and mark to market is realized and the funding sources are added up, and the financial terrorists are prosecuted, these technologies will be a failure. It's just that it isn't measured this way currently because of the corruption and payola.

Watch: sock puppet / trolls will vote this message off the radar they don't like the truth.

Article 2 Section 1:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

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

> No, they're not right. We are a representative democracy or a democratic republic.

Originally, we were a Republic. The word democracy or democratic doesnt even appear in the [US] Constitution.

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

Section. 4.
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence."

Why don't they use that map that every Verizon commercial shows, about how good their coverage is? Then we could have taken that 0.2 $G and hand out a million bucks to everyone in this thread, like Oprah: "You get a million! You get a million! You get a million! You get a million! You get a million! You get a million! You get a million! You get a million! You get a million! " x 200 people. The quality of the information would be the same, plus, instead of one agency cashing in on free tax money, we could share it. Government is not in the business of providing broadband access to anyone. RTFM.

Plenty of countries have complied with what the US has done and/or done the same. If you are leaving to somewhere better may my family and I ride in your rocketship with you?

Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists - GWB.
I read that as a threat that the world will do as it is told - or else. Complied is an apt word.

Ah. Willing to hold others to a standard you won't follow yourself, I see. Very well, I'll humor you:

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/disposition.html

That's linked directly from your Wikipedia link*. The ranges of EO numbers alone confirm Straif's figures, but if you don't feel like doing some math, each Presiden'ts name is also a link that plainly states, among other things, the total number of EO's issued by that President

Obama: 75

Bush Jr: 291

Clinton: 364 (note that 364 is more than 291, so that utterly destroys your original claim all by itself)

Bush Sr: 166 (exactly what Straif said)

You smugly told protektor to "look up the history of the executive order", but were steadfastly opposed to the very notion of doing it yourself.

You are a liar and a hypocrite. That is an absolute fact, and you have no choice but to agree with it. Your desperate attempt to deny it won't even fool yourself, let alone anyone else.

*It's also in the above reply by treeves, which was made before your reply to me, which means you had already seen it before you replied and had chosen to ignore it because you knew it proves you to be a lying scumbag.

Ah. Willing to hold others to a standard you won't follow yourself, I see. Very well, I'll humor you:

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/disposition.html

That's linked directly from your Wikipedia link*. The ranges of EO numbers alone confirm Straif's figures, but if you don't feel like doing some math, each Presiden'ts name is also a link that plainly states, among other things, the total number of EO's issued by that President

Obama: 75

Bush Jr: 291

Clinton: 364 (note that 364 is more than 291, so that utterly destroys your original claim all by itself)

Bush Sr: 166 (exactly what Straif said)

You smugly told protektor to "look up the history of the executive order", but were steadfastly opposed to the very notion of doing it yourself.

You are a liar and a hypocrite. That is an absolute fact, and you have no choice but to agree with it. Your desperate attempt to deny it won't even fool yourself, let alone anyone else.

*It's also in the above reply by treeves, which was made before your reply to me, which means you had already seen it before you replied and had chosen to ignore it because you knew it proves you to be a lying scumbag.

Ah. Willing to hold others to a standard you won't follow yourself, I see. Very well, I'll humor you:

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/disposition.html

That's linked directly from your Wikipedia link*. The ranges of EO numbers alone confirm Straif's figures, but if you don't feel like doing some math, each Presiden'ts name is also a link that plainly states, among other things, the total number of EO's issued by that President

Obama: 75

Bush Jr: 291

Clinton: 364 (note that 364 is more than 291, so that utterly destroys your original claim all by itself)

Bush Sr: 166 (exactly what Straif said)

You smugly told protektor to "look up the history of the executive order", but were steadfastly opposed to the very notion of doing it yourself.

You are a liar and a hypocrite. That is an absolute fact, and you have no choice but to agree with it. Your desperate attempt to deny it won't even fool yourself, let alone anyone else.

*It's also in the above reply by treeves, which was made before your reply to me, which means you had already seen it before you replied and had chosen to ignore it because you knew it proves you to be a lying scumbag.

Ah. Willing to hold others to a standard you won't follow yourself, I see. Very well, I'll humor you:

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/disposition.html

That's linked directly from your Wikipedia link*. The ranges of EO numbers alone confirm Straif's figures, but if you don't feel like doing some math, each Presiden'ts name is also a link that plainly states, among other things, the total number of EO's issued by that President

Obama: 75

Bush Jr: 291

Clinton: 364 (note that 364 is more than 291, so that utterly destroys your original claim all by itself)

Bush Sr: 166 (exactly what Straif said)

You smugly told protektor to "look up the history of the executive order", but were steadfastly opposed to the very notion of doing it yourself.

You are a liar and a hypocrite. That is an absolute fact, and you have no choice but to agree with it. Your desperate attempt to deny it won't even fool yourself, let alone anyone else.

*It's also in the above reply by treeves, which was made before your reply to me, which means you had already seen it before you replied and had chosen to ignore it because you knew it proves you to be a lying scumbag.

Ah. Willing to hold others to a standard you won't follow yourself, I see. Very well, I'll humor you:

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/disposition.html

That's linked directly from your Wikipedia link*. The ranges of EO numbers alone confirm Straif's figures, but if you don't feel like doing some math, each Presiden'ts name is also a link that plainly states, among other things, the total number of EO's issued by that President

Obama: 75

Bush Jr: 291

Clinton: 364 (note that 364 is more than 291, so that utterly destroys your original claim all by itself)

Bush Sr: 166 (exactly what Straif said)

You smugly told protektor to "look up the history of the executive order", but were steadfastly opposed to the very notion of doing it yourself.

You are a liar and a hypocrite. That is an absolute fact, and you have no choice but to agree with it. Your desperate attempt to deny it won't even fool yourself, let alone anyone else.

*It's also in the above reply by treeves, which was made before your reply to me, which means you had already seen it before you replied and had chosen to ignore it because you knew it proves you to be a lying scumbag.

If by "orders of magnitude less", you mean about a quarter as many (75 vs. 291) in about a quarter the time (2 years vs. 8 years), then yeah. Going over the same time (from inauguration to Jan 25 two years later), we see Obama is slightly behind, at 75 vs. 87.

Maybe you should do the research before spouting your "orders of magnitude" crap...
Source

FWIW, people of both parties need to get the fuck over this EO panic. EOs are necessary and proper when they concern matters within the scope of the president's authority, and bad when they usurp power not given the president (whether given to congress, or reserved to the people or states). Of course, it's harder to read all the EOs and try to judge their constitutionality than it is to just look up totals, and when people are so lazy that they'd rather spew "orders of magnitude" bullshit than look up the totals, it's no wonder the government is riding a now left, now right zig-zag course to totalitarianism.

I didn't see any numbers/lists of Executive Orders in your first wikipedia link, and the your second link specifically says in its first sentence, "The following is an incomplete list of United States federal executive orders." [italics mine]

GP was quoting a federal government website: http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/disposition.html.

Why should I trust wikipedia over that, even if I did find a simple and complete list on wikipedia?

Yet he has anyway

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/obama-subjects.html

It's a good thing Obama hasn't used executive orders so your statement holds true.

I'm not saying he's a nice guy or perfect - far from it.

I'm thinking "about 180 degrees from it" myself.

But the fact remains that he got a far larger share of the vote than most western leaders

Sure. What percentage did the current President of China win by again? What percentage did Saddam get in his final "election"? Rigged elections are meaningless.

and extremely popular with most of the population

Again, I'm reminded of all the "vocal supporters" of other dictatorial regimes who are only "vocal" because they're afraid of being "disappeared" if someone hears them talking bad about Mr. Dictator-For-Life.

has ploughed money into education and healthcare, and massively improved the lives of the poor

Say what again?

Again, the US is on dodgy ground to criticise, with elections of presidents on less than half the votes with results determined by dodgy courts

I take it you have never studied how the US constitution and election system, in particularly the Electoral College in which the vote is not a "national popular vote" but 50 separate elections apportioning the votes of 538 representatives to the national ballot.

detention without trial in Cuba

Sigh. And you seemed so rational prior to this.

the ever-widening poverty gap

No, most of us agree this is a problem.

denial of healthcare to the poor

All you have to do to have healthcare in the US is to show up to a hospital. The fact is, "health care access" is not an issue: "health insurance", which helps one pay for it, is what is being roundly discussed.

Neither system is perfect, but it seems that Chavez is at least helping the poor rather than the rich

With due respect, if you honestly think this, you need to get your head out of the sand and take a better look at conditions in Venezuela.

And he's not starting wars responsible for the deaths of thousands

No, he's just busy murdering thousands of the citizens in his own country. As for the rest of your assertions, they're offtopic and can be discussed at another time.

The NDA is definitely required as one of the three components necessary for access to classified information.

http://www.archives.gov/isoo/training/standard-form-312.html

This particular reference led me to an interesting section of US law I was unaware existed - Title 18, Section 793(e):

Whoever, having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document... relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates... or causes to be communicated... the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it... [s]hall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(take the widest possible definition of "communicate" because I deleted all the other similar words for clarity)

It's something of a corollary to the UK Official Secrets Act. I've no idea whether this is applicable to anyone subject to US law or just clearance holders (as I am too lazy to read the entire section of code). It would seem to me that all of the US newspaper editors collaborating with Wikileaks are in violation of this section. I'll reserve my personal opinions on that particular idea.

Freedoms to speak (wikileaks), freedoms to think (public schools funded and guided by the dep't of education), freedoms to fair trial (Irwin Schiff, Guantanamo, private Manning...), freedoms to do business without harassment (Patriot Act,

Never heard of Irwin Schiff, but it seems like mostly reasonable complaints here...

IRS

OK, you're kind of crazy...

CIA

I guess they did overthrow a bunch of legit governments over the years. Chile in 1973 comes to mind. And I think they were implicated in some torture in Iraq or something, though I can't be sure. Yeah, they've done some bad stuff.

all the regulations and rules and

OK, you've jumped into the crazy again. There are lots of things that we need to regulate. As an example: Are you opposed to food safety laws? If you are against that, would you volunteer to eat something that FDA/USDA has given a failing grade? Or, if you really favor market-based competition, I would expect you to think antitrust laws are a good idea. Gotta preserve those free markets, and if a corporate entity vertically integrates and gets too large, that's not a free market.

and subsidies

You're right; we should stop subsidizing corn. Unfortunately this will not go over so well in Iowa where people decide who gets nominated for President.

and taxes),

See also: death. I'm not sure how a government can do anything, including the good stuff that you no doubt depend on for your daily life, without taxes.

Is there a PURPOSE to the Constitution and what IS the purpose? Isn't the purpose of the Constitution to LIMIT the gov't in what it can do?

Others have pointed out that it sort of defines what the government is. In some cases that means what it can't do ("Congress shall make no law ...."). In others it is quite the opposite ("The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes ...") If you are not content with this description I encourage you to read it here. (Although that website comes from a .gov domain, which obviously makes it part of the CIA/IRS/USDA conspiracy to tax and regulate away your freedom to sell tainted beef.)