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No, read the bill. It is primarily aimed at "commercial entities", which is defined on page 4 of the PDF. So this doesn't apply at all to a person or company writing programs for their own use. It only really applies if you write a P2P program and sell it or otherwise distribute it as part of some commerical venture.

I'm pretty sure they'd just rule this as a technical workaround and it wouldn't stand in court.

Well since the stated intent of the bill is to have the user informed, and that would be part of any judicial review of the law, it's possible but not necessarily probable.

I honestly think the basic intent of this law is to require P2P software to better inform the users of what the software does and ensure user consent before any bits move. I can imagine that persecution complexes would be fairly common among Freenet users, but if this law's purpose was to target Freenet directly, yet still stubtly, the language would be include prohibitions against distributed encrypted packages residing on a computer, etc...

I know many on Slashdot have a distrust and disrespect for governments in general, but if you read the actual bill you'd see it's fairly straight-forward, and it's hard to hide secret clauses in just 7 pages.

The purpose of H.R. 1319 is to reduce inadvertent disclosures of sensitive information by making the users of this software more aware of the risks involved.

Sure it is. Now, how about taking a closer look;

the term "peer-to-peer file sharing program" means[...]
to designate files available for transmission to another computer
to transmit files directly to another computer; and
to request the transmission of files from another computer.

Why didn't you post the entire defintion directly from the proposed bill rather than use second-hand paraphrasing?

24 (4) the term "covered file-sharing program"-
1 (A) means a program, application, or soft
2 ware that is commercially marketed or distrib
3 uted to the public and that enables-
4 (i) a file or files on the computer on
5 which such program is installed to be des
6 ignated as available for searching and
7 copying to one or more other computers;
8 (ii) the searching of files on the com
9 puter on which such program is installed
10 and the copying of any such file to another
11 computerâ"
12 (I) at the initiative of such other
13 computer and without requiring any
14 action by an owner or authorized user
15 of the computer on which such pro
16 gram is installed; and
17 (II) without requiring an owner
18 or authorized user of the computer on
19 which such program is installed to
20 have selected or designated another
21 computer as the recipient of any such
22 file; and
23 (iii) an owner or authorized user of
24 the computer on which such program is in
25 stalled to search files on one or more other

1 computers using the same or a compatible
2 program, application, or software, and
3 copy such files to such owner or user's
4 computer; and
5 (B) does not include a program, applica
6 tion, or software designed primarily to-
7 (i) operate as a server that is acces
8 sible over the Internet using the Internet
9 Domain Name system;
10 (ii) transmit or receive email mes
11 sages, instant messaging, real-time audio
12 or video communications, or real-time voice
13 communications; or
14 (iii) provide network or computer se
15 curity, network management, maintenance,
16 diagnostics, technical support or repair, or
17 to detect or prevent fraudulent activities.

I emphasized the parts that are inconsistent with your interpretation. So it looks like email, web browsing, and a lot of other internet applications are explicitly exempted from this bill!

Commodore, I looked through the bill (all 7 pages of it, and half of which are definitions) and it doesn't make using these services illegal. From my reading, the only impact is software must give clear notifications to the user on what is being shared. It doesn't require identification of what computers you are sharing. So unless you can point to the exact language I'm misunderstanding in the bill, I don't think what you bring-up is really an issue.

Even more interesting is the provision right up front in section 2.a.2 exempting preloaded software on new computers as long as somewhere in the 40 pages of tiny print the purchaser is told that a back-door sharing program is installed.

So preloaded sharing programs and spyware installed by Sony is ok then...

The bill is 7 pages, people. READ IT.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090930/hr1319_ains.pdf

Ron Paul certainly has done nothing to show that he knows better than everyone else.

http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2003/cr091003.htm
Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government's interference in the housing market, the government's policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing. - Ron Paul September 10, 2003

Because they've done the study.

The study that made them incapable of predicting the crash or understanding the causes? Yeah, I'll get right on that.

Because now you're just looking like an idiot.

Maybe so, but I'm an idiot whose wealth didn't get wiped out. It grieves me to see so many otherwise intelligent people following the expertise of the very people who have just screwed them over. Maybe they should become idiots. If I'm an idiot, at least I'm a lucky idiot.

Prior to CSPAN the Congress used to actually sit on the floor. After CSPAN they started hiding behind closed doors. So really CPSAN didn't reveal government - it just drove it underground.

The everyday work of the House and Senate is done in committee.

There are 100 Senators. 435 Representatives.

Twenty-five commitees in the House alone. Committee Offices Each with its own staff and funding.

In 1850 the House had 233 members and the Senate 62.

The Senate in those days was the place to be if you wanted to hear some remarkable debate and oratory: The Seventh of March Speech

But this sort of thing eats up a hell of lot of time if everyone wants to have their say.

In 1900 the House had 357 members and the Senate 90.

At this point, you simply have to break the work down to managable size or nothing gets done.

The standing committee with a permanent staff has a reasonable chance of holding its own against the executive, the bureaucrat and the lobbyist.

This is the fallacy of term limits.

No one is going to master the federal tax code, military procurement, agricultural policy, Social Security and Medicaid-Medicare - in two years.

You can find your Senator here:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

And your Congressman here:

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

I wrote them a note like this, and you can copy it/use it/change it. Whatever you like.

I support the Open College Textbook Act of 2009!

Open formats for education works derived from taxpayer dollars is essential for the longevity of information. Non-open formats such as .doc (MSWord) are subject to software changes and incompatibility issues. Open formats like .odf (Open Office) and .pdf (Adobe) allow the data to be accessed for countless decades.

Information paid for with taxpayer money should be made freely available to the taxpayers!

Hey all,

Just remember, saying you're all for it on an internet forum doesn't actually do anything... Write your elected officials in support of S.1714, the "Open College Textbook Act of 2009". Here are some links, just in case you're THAT lazy....

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://takeaction.lwv.org/lwv/dbq/officials/

Remember to get the senate AND the house.

-T

So rather than research the issue yourself... you take the talking points from the Speaker of the House and House Majority Leader... you could at least make it less easy to make it clear where you got your talking points from (Bing, Google).

That being said... from that list (assuming they are the worst offenders given the source of the material)... how many have the kind of lasting change and massive regulation that the heath care... err sorry, health insurance reform would be. How many of those effectively nationalized 1/6th to 1/5th of our economy.

I'll tell ya a lil secret... when the republicans used this move to do something (other than break an unconstitutional filibuster on a court nominee)... it was wrong... and pointing to wrong behavior in order to justify behavior that is wrong and orders of magnitude more massive does not make it ok.

As many have said, the health care bill is very poorly written.

Excerpt from the section, SEC. 1173A. STANDARDIZE ELECTRONIC ADMINISTRATIVE TRANSACTIONS [My punctuation standard]: "(6) IMPLEMENTATION AND ENFORCEMENT: Not later than 6 months after the date of the enactment of this section, the Secretary shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a plan for the implementation and enforcement, by not later than 5 years after such date of enactment, of the standards under this section."

Translation: "Please support a very expensive bill that fundamentally changes something very important. It is certain that you will pay. It is uncertain what we will do."

I strongly support improvements in health care in the United States. I believe that those who propose the bill have our best interests in mind. But they haven't finished their thinking.

The bill [PDF] is 1,017 pages long, and affects everyone in the U.S. enormously. Every part of it requires public discussion.

The bill makes changes to other laws that are themselves EXTREMELY complicated.

Another quote [My punctuation standard]: (3) DEVELOPMENT OF DATA REPORTING STANDARDS: (A) IN GENERAL: The Secretary shall develop and implement standardized data elements and definitions for reporting under this subsection, for contract years beginning with 2012, of data necessary for the calculation of the medical loss ratio for MA plans.

Translation: "We will tell you later how it will work."

Very few who comment on this bill have read and fully understood the implications. I haven't. Have you?

Is it unreasonable for some people to oppose important changes when they don't understand those changes?

Where can I sign up to become the exclusive Oregon dealer for these GPS blockers?

I believe you can find the contact information here, although for some reason they don't advertise their standard fees for such favors...

- T

For those who want to protest, Representative Blumenauer's phone number is (503) 231-2300. Anyone can protest, but this is Blumenauer's district.

More about the bill: H.R. 3311.

Blog coverage: OpenCongress.

More coverage: H.R. 3311 is an oxymoron.

For those who want to protest, Representative Blumenauer's phone number is (503) 231-2300. Anyone can protest, but this is Blumenauer's district.

More about the bill: H.R. 3311.

Blog coverage: OpenCongress.

More coverage: H.R. 3311 is an oxymoron.

Reply to self:

I just wrote to my congressman asking him to oppose all such legislation that violates citizens' privacy. Rather than complain to Slashdot, complain to your representatives. It takes only a few minutes and it is a lot more important!

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

You really think that the best way for the government to collect funds is by taking your money before you even get to see it? You think that it is fair (and constitutional) for the Federal Government to dig into all of the deepest areas of your personal life to make sure you are compliant?

Whether or not it is fair, there is no question about it being constitutional. Article I, Section 8, clearly states:

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;

This section establishes that Congress can (through law) impose taxes and some other forms of complusory ways to gather income. The section doesn't exclude any type of tax, therefore they only way income tax could be seen as uncostitutional would be if it ran counter some other part of the constitution. So unless you want to agrue that income taxes somehow violate your civil rights I don't think you can question their constitutionality. Oh and you don't have to take my word for it, here is a link or two to the text of Constitution of the United States of America.

Personally though, I'd rather tax current wealth (in the form of net worth) rather than income. Thus there wouldn't be an disincentive to earn, just a disinsentive for horading wealth and property. Before you dismiss my idea, consider this quote from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations about government and property:

Civil Government, so far as it is instituted for the security of Property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those wh have some property against those who have none at all.

I have no idea whether the US regulations are available online...

1: go to http://www.usa.gov/
2: type in "US Code"
3: Hey, look, the HOUSE has the US Code online! http://uscode.house.gov/

Most states have a similar index. And THESE are what are the actual laws, not the bills passed to amend them.

House Resolution 1020 is a bill that will address this kind of forceful arbitration. However, the bill is currently in committee and if people do not get the members of this committee to move this resolution to a floor vote, then this is all pretty moot. Please take a look at the members of the House Committee on the Judiciary. If one of the members is your Representative, write them. Otherwise this thing will most surely die in committee since this is not the most pressing matter on the public's mind.

If your Representative is not listed as a member of the House Committee on the Judiciary but you live in the same state as a member of the House Committee on the Judiciary. Write your Representative to urge the member to move the bill to the floor, so that your Representative can get a chance to help you out. Usually, members of the same state know each other pretty well and talk to each other about broad topics that affect the state as a whole.

If you live in a state that has no members on the committee. Check to see if your Representative or a Representative from your state co-sponsored the bill. If so, make your case using that point; if not, write your Representative asking why they did not co-sponsor the bill and make your point about how not having legal recourse affects you and your community in general.

Always remember one big point when you write your Representative...Always make sure you make it entirely clear what it is you expect your Representative to do, and make sure it is within their power to do so. If you just tell them about HR 1020 and that they should support it, then all you are going to get back as a reply is, 'their sorry but it must make it out of committee before they can do anything about it, but if it does make it to the floor they'll be sure to consider it carefully. Yours truly, Rep. Blah Blah Blah (X-Your state).'

House Resolution 1020 is a bill that will address this kind of forceful arbitration. However, the bill is currently in committee and if people do not get the members of this committee to move this resolution to a floor vote, then this is all pretty moot. Please take a look at the members of the House Committee on the Judiciary. If one of the members is your Representative, write them. Otherwise this thing will most surely die in committee since this is not the most pressing matter on the public's mind.

If your Representative is not listed as a member of the House Committee on the Judiciary but you live in the same state as a member of the House Committee on the Judiciary. Write your Representative to urge the member to move the bill to the floor, so that your Representative can get a chance to help you out. Usually, members of the same state know each other pretty well and talk to each other about broad topics that affect the state as a whole.

If you live in a state that has no members on the committee. Check to see if your Representative or a Representative from your state co-sponsored the bill. If so, make your case using that point; if not, write your Representative asking why they did not co-sponsor the bill and make your point about how not having legal recourse affects you and your community in general.

Always remember one big point when you write your Representative...Always make sure you make it entirely clear what it is you expect your Representative to do, and make sure it is within their power to do so. If you just tell them about HR 1020 and that they should support it, then all you are going to get back as a reply is, 'their sorry but it must make it out of committee before they can do anything about it, but if it does make it to the floor they'll be sure to consider it carefully. Yours truly, Rep. Blah Blah Blah (X-Your state).'

Hmm...Not really. Earmarks for "other people" are what is unpopular. If the earmark is for "you" then it's cool no matter how outlandish a waste of money it is and screw what the NYT or CNN or Limbaugh think about it too, eh? That's the way it works where I live anyhow. I am represented by a freshman Dem who is representing a district that is 58% Rep and he thinks he can buy himself some goodwill, newspaper endorsements and popularity points by "bringing home the bacon". No amount of watch dogging for pork is gonna matter to him if the people in his district are happy about the new money flowing in.

I agree citation is needed but isn't your restriction like saying "anyone who doesn't agree with me does not count?" As for citation: http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-SHAREDRESPONSIBILITY-071409.pdf [QUOTE] ALL AMERICANS WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR HAVING HEALTH INSURANCE, EXCEPT IN CASES OF HARDSHIP The reforms in the bill will make health care coverage more affordable so that all Americans have access to coverage that protects against catastrophic costs. Individuals who choose not to obtain basic health coverage will be subject to a modest penalty based on 2.5 percent of income. In no case would the penalty exceed the average cost of a health care policy in the Exchange. Hardship waivers will be granted to individuals based on criteria such as affordability or religious objections, among other reasons.

Actually most libertarians versed in the US Constitution wouldn't have a problem with the USPS. Section 8, Clause 7 permits congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads" and I'm pretty sure the USPS falls under this.

Furthermore, it wouldn't be a stretch to see how maintaining things vital for our national security and prosperity, such as the federal mail system, interstate roads, and even the Internet Infrastructure to a limited extent, are permissible for the government to handle by the Constitution.

Its all the other BS the government does (printing $ out of thin air without actual precious coins backing it, needless interventionist wars to maintain a vast empire, criminalizing and detaining its own innocent citizens through the war on drugs, etc) that Libertarians are strongly against.

The ones already ordered are still being built.
If gas prices go back up giving cost parity for wind, he plans to continue the plan.
As we modernize the infrastructure he plans to continue; just the current infrastructure can't handle the increased load, so it is a waist.
If it wasn't for the government created recession he would still be pressing forward.

Not really, according to this report, 21% of federal employees work in D.C., Virginia and Maryland:

http://maloney.house.gov/documents/workingfamilies/fammedleave/TotalFederalEmploymentbyStateDecember2007.pdf

For context, 4.6% of the nation lives in those areas. By comparison, 13% of the nation lives in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, but only about 7.8% of federal employees work there.

(I used these numbers for population:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population )

Now, moving things around so that things were exactly balanced to population would almost certainly result in inefficiencies, but it is also almost a certainty that tens of thousands of those jobs could be moved around without any impact on costs.

FWIW, this is according to wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_code:

By law, those titles of the United States Code that have not been enacted into positive law are "prima facie evidence"[2] of the law in effect. The United States Statutes at Large remains the ultimate authority. If a dispute arises as to the accuracy or completeness of the codification of an unenacted title, the courts will turn to the language in the United States Statutes at Large. Where a title has been enacted into positive law, however, a court may neither permit nor require proof of the underlying original statutes.[3] The distinction between enacted and unenacted titles is largely academic because the Code is nearly always accurate. The United States Code is routinely cited by the Supreme Court and other federal courts without mentioning this theoretical caveat. On a day-to-day basis, very few lawyers cross-reference the Code to the Statutes at Large.
 
The authority for the material in the United States Code comes from its enactment through the legislative process and not from its presentation in the Code. For example, the United States Code inadvertently omitted 12 U.S.C. § 92 for decades, even after Congress amended it in 1982. In its 1993 ruling in U.S. National Bank of Oregon v. Independent Insurance Agents of America, the Supreme Court ruled that section 92 was still valid law.[4]
 
The LRC continues the process of revising, updating, and restating the existing body of statutory law in codified form. As the LRC completes particular areas of the law, it proposes that the Congress enact those titles of the Code as "positive law". If a particular title of the United States Code is enacted into law, the enactment repeals all previous enactments on the subject (including those found in the Statutes at Large), thereby making that title of the United States Code "legal evidence"[5] of the law in force.

United States Code downloads:
http://uscode.house.gov/download/download.shtml

But don't get me wrong, I'm not going out on a limb here to defend our law or legal system. Our legal system still sucks. Not as much as many other places, but sucks nonetheless.

1. abolish legally binding precedent. The accepted interpretation of a law should be a consensus among the legal community, not a decision of one moron 150 years ago.

Old decisions, while they may be technically binding, are usually unpersuasive unless it accords to the general legal consensus within and without the jurisdiction. Publications like the restatements of the law (which are essentially just lists of contemporary legal principles, and not actually binding law anywhere, nor adopted by legislatures) are often much more persuasive to judges and justices than ancient decisions. In other words, courts will overturn ancient precedent when they think it's appropriate; lower courts will interpret ancient precedent (that hasn't been relied on by a higher court in that jurisdiction recently) as not to apply to "modern" circumstances, and higher courts often affirm those kinds of decisions (thus overturning the precedent for that circumstance or overturning it entirely)

Also, I want to point out that you're advocating judicial activism.

2. Hire someone competent [faqs.org] to rewrite the laws, aiming for clarity and precision.

The advantages and disadvantages of clear laws have been discussed elsewhere in the comments. I'll just add that flexibility in the law gives judges an opportunity to weigh normative values of what's just for the case before them when interpreting the law and making their decisions. This is especially important for plaintiffs overcoming, and defendants succeeding at, summary judgment motions.

3. Law should be treated like software: any and all changes should be incorporated into the text, not distributed as amendments. The current legal system looks like Linux 0.01 with all the patches distributed separately up to 2.6.30, and you can win a case by confusing the judge and your opponent into forgetting a critical patch.

What you're describing is the difference (in the US federal system) between the Statutes at Large and the United States Code. Statutes at large are the bills passed by Congress (and approved by the president), in chronological order. The United States Code is the law of the United States organized by subject. Commercial annotated versions by Westlaw and LexisNexis are kept up-to-date with amendments, administrative rules, decisions, etc. The normal USC is updated every six years.

3. Make the up to date text of every law easily accessible and searchable by anyone.

http://thomas.loc.gov/
http://uscode.house.gov/
http://www.loc.gov/law/
http://www.loc.gov/law/help/guide/states.php

There's more if you're willing to look at free services not provided by the government. There's even more if you're willing to look at commercial services from Westlaw, LexisNexis, and many others.

Also, the law libraries at public law schools are (usually) open to the public. You can even discuss, at great length, your research goals with law librarians, who will lend your their expertise for free.

The fact that legal research is so hard (and so important) is why legal researchers and lawyers get paid so much. (As a side note, another key reason lawyers get paid so much, and lawsuits are so expensive, is that good legal research resources are freaking expensive. Check out the going rate for westlaw or lexisnexis. One search (of any given complexity) of all US federal cases in Westlaw is something like 140 dollars. Viewing and printing the resulting cases usually has an attached fee as well. You can pay for time instead of by action - but you're charged per minute.)

4. If you find there is no law for something new, like, say, the internet, say so. Don't torture existing unrelated laws fo fit the new situation.

Very very often judges WILL admit that, and then proceed to torture existing laws to fi

I'm amazed at the general duplicity in people's nature. When you compare the general comments of how people are aghast at a violation of their 4th amendment rights in this older article vs. this one where a large portion of the comments quickly degrade to Mormon/Utah bashing. I admire Mr. Chaffetz as a person for a variety of things including his opposition to pork, his personal commitment to avoid wasteful spending, and the willingness to be on Colbert as a conservative. Sadly, there is still real problems in America where people are not measured by the 'content of their character' but rather on the prejudices of the masses. I just hope he can keep it up among all the jeers. We'd live in a better country if all our representatives had (and kept) the sort of idealism that Mr. Chaffetz has.

...one almost has to watch most all of these news channels, and then assemble what you see in all of them to try to gleam the truth and factuality that might be in there.

... or let Jon Stewart's team of professionals summarise, analyse, criticise, and humourise it for you.

Thank you Jon and team, for saving me from the horror of television un-Daily News.

And thanks to your neighbour, Mr Colbert, for bringing us that hot cutie, the Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton.

The article is pretty short on information. In the summary you can see this:

Today the House Science and Technology Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Environment held a hearing on the need for a National Climate Service, that could meet the increased demand for climate information, the committee said.

which means this isn't Obama's idea necessarily. But, who knows what goes on in the background? Maybe the executive branch did have some influence there.

I think this is more like a state that already has Department of Child Protective Services needing a department that deals with domestic violence.

Here's the press release which also doesn't have much info on whose idea this was.

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!" There - does that meet your definition of severe, repeated, and hostile speech, you dumb bitch!

Looking at her photos that would be very hostile on the horse...

Let unequivocally state that I would not hit that! Well, at least not unless I was really, really, drunk, and I don't drink, so it is really unlikely. Heck, I'd even rather do my wife than her! There Linda... is that offensive enough for you yet?

Unfortunately, real world data says otherwise. I'd suggest reading up on Hauser's Law and consider the voluminous data that points to lower taxation increasing economic growth. In light of Hauser's Law, it should be painfully obvious that lower taxation will result in higher receipts to the Government.

My first experience installing and using linux was with Red Hat Linux 4.1. It was mostly out of curiosity as my younger brother had been using linux but I didn't expect much from a free operating system. At the time I was running Windows 95, Windows NT 4 and OS/2 Warp 4 on the same box so I was already well prepared the difficulties of a multi-boot setup and using a diversity of operating systems.

Its been awhile but I don't recall any major issues with the installation. It definitely required more tweaking than the other operating systems to get a working desktop, but as pretty much anyone in this forum knows there is a high probability of install difficulties with almost any operating system when you build a custom system rather than purchase a pre-installed system.

I don't recall the window manager I used at the time but it was a functional desktop albeit not as polished as Windows or OS/2. But something interesting happened, I found Gimp.

I had a large flatbed color scanner on a SCSI bus that I used in Windows and OS/2. In Windows I used the applications that shipped with the scanner and for OS/2 I purchased an image editing program, I don't recall the name anymore, in both cases the applications absolutely refused to use the full size of the scanner. The scanner was a full legal size 8.5x14 but the proprietary applications would only allow up to 8.5x11 scans. With a little research I found there were applications available for purchase that would use the full scan size but I was not in dire need of full legal size scans so I held off on the purchase.

When I used Gimp+SANE with the flatbed scanner it allowed complete legal size scans! My eyes were opened. In the proprietary closed source software world the extra scan size required extra cash, which seemed ludicrous and disingenuous as I doubt it required any significant code changes to implement, but in the open source world the software was written to take full advantage of the hardware's capabilities and it was FREE!

At that point I was sold. By 2003 I was only running linux based operating systems, my laptop, three desktops in the house, a couple of firewalls/routers and a few servers. During this time I have become progressively aware of the ridiculous demands of the closed source proprietary software vendors. They have become sick and demented on their own greed to the point where they've twisted the purpose of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution from "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" into some bizarre protected and perpetual revenue stream. In this upside down world created by closed source software vendors research and development capital is spent not to advance the science or art but instead to create false limitations on there proprietary applications capabilities to create equally false product price points.

US taxpayers paid for $200 billion in infrastructure so there should be limits on what Time Warner can do.
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/04/congressman-to.html
Write your congressman to support this bill
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

In the mean time, support Massa get his bill passed. If we wait, TWC will just come up with something else equally bad and US taxpayers paid for $200 billion in infrastructure so there should be limits on what Time Warner can do.
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/04/congressman-to.html
Write your congressman to support this bill
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Get it passed.

Support his bill to "encourage" what Time Warner can do with the $200 billion in infrastructure that was paid for by taxpayers.
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/04/congressman
Write your congressman to support this bill
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Get it passed.

IIRC CAN-SPAM (might as well just add some words to the name and call it the CAN-HAS-SPAM act, but whatever) makes specific exemptions for political advertisements and solicitations by nonprofits, but says nothing about whether the content is commercial or not.

Nothing?

15 U.S.C. 7703-7705 focus primarily on "commercial electronic mail messages." 15 U.S.C. 7702(2)(a) defines a "commercial electronic mail message" as (in part):

any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service (including content on an Internet website operated for a commercial purpose).

The act also regulates "transactional and relationship messages." 15 U.S.C. 7702(17) defines those in far more detail, but each portion of the definition references a commercial transaction, a commercial product or service, a commercial relationship, or an employment relationship.

In fact, CAN-SPAM uses the word "commercial" 105 times. The very title is "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing." IAAL, and I'd say it has quite a bit to say about whether the content is commercial or not.

I'm not picking on you specifically, but rather this comment, which has inexplicably been moderated up to +5 Insightful despite absolutely wrong. The theft of services argument also has significant problems -- such as the fact that you and/or your ISP have set up servers in order to accept email -- that any lawyer experienced in this area would be able to discuss.

As a practical matter, a particular act of spamming, or even non-commercial emailing, would have to be egregious before any Federal prosecutor, State prosecutor, or civil court would entertain the notion of some sort of liability. You do in fact have to accept reasonable attempts by others to communicate with you through email, postal mail, the telephone, and the like, especially if it is non-commercial communication.

The Reagan tax cuts, like similar measures enacted in the 1920s and 1960s, showed that reducing excessive tax rates stimulates growth, reduces tax avoidance, and can increase the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich. High top tax rates can induce counterproductive behavior and suppress revenues, factors that are usually missed or understated in government static revenue analysis. Furthermore, the key assumption of static revenue analysis that economic growth is not affected by tax changes is disproved by the experience of previous tax reduction programs. There is little reason to expect static revenue analysis to evaluate the economic or distributional effects of current tax reform proposals much better than it evaluated the Reagan tax program 15 years ago.

(source)

Anyway, my point stands: If you're blaming Reagan (rightly or wrongly, it doesn't really matter for the basis of this point) for the present state of the country, I have little doubt you'll be able to find cause to continue blaming Bush for our problems well into and beyond the Obama administration.

The "gaming of the system" may actually be by the lawmaker.

In reading the legislation that was proposed by Texas Representative Joe Barton, I believe you have it right. Section 1534 of HR 6 amended the Internal Revenue Code to allow for a 50 cent per gallon tax credit on alternative fuels but amazingly also added a paragraph that states in very clear terms that a taxpayer who uses an alternative fuel but does not take a tax credit will be paid 50 cents per gallon by the Secretary.

Title 26, Subtitle F, Chapter 65, Subchapter B, Section 6427, Subsection e, paragraph 2

(2) Alternative fuel
If any person sells or uses an alternative fuel (as defined in section 6426 (d)(2)) for a purpose described in section 6426 (d)(1) in such person's trade or business, the Secretary shall pay (without interest) to such person an amount equal to the alternative fuel credit with respect to such fuel.

Since a tax credit had already been amended this paragraph was added intentionally to pay out tax dollars in place of providing a tax credit. This is not an incompetent mistake of a dumb government representative.

I have no doubt that it goes back way before Bush. For all his faults, Bush seemed rather upfront about his powergrabs so I don't really feel bad naming the road after him. But you are quite correct -- we've been on this road for longer than we likely know.

It goes back at least to Woodrow Wilson. Thanks to him we have the private Federal Reserve, the income tax, etc. Plus he had the Sedition Act of 1918 to jail people who criticized him.

While I applaud the Senators' efforts to assist in securing cyberspace, historical efforts to legislate cyber-security have not proven effective. (that was tough to say with a straight face) To wit, examine the Government's own record: Currently all federal agencies are required to follow strict guidelines/policy, yet the average info-security grade given by OMB, for FY2007 was a C-. How far would you get in life if your average grade was a C-? I'd guess the average Slashdotter had better than a 1.7 average.

Further, they seem to think that if NIST establishes "measurable and auditable cybersecurity standards", then all will be right with the world. NEWSFLASH - The Fed already has that for the entire GOV, and while many agencies have improved it has not shown to be the panacea they intended. According to OMB's report out 3 weeks ago(go to page 9), the DOD, the agency with the most important security concerns and highest risk (and consequently the most stringent InfoSecurity program) is failing miserably.

Funny, if you read the FISMA top page, it refers to 'cost-effective' security programs, but nowhere does it mention effective programs...

New legislation is not the answer - holding people accountable is. [to keep this relatively short I'm not going to expand on this - you know how to find the laws]

As one previous poster noted, a bunch of us posting here is not going to change anything. So, I will end this with a call to action for all Slashdotters - write a letter to your Senator and Congressman and let them know (using clear, thoughtful words) that this is an f'ing stupid idea and that they should not support it.

Find your congressman

Find your senator

'An operator corrects the telemetry problem but forgets to restart the monitoring tool'

This from conclusions in the report by the investigating task force. This is BS, the reason the 'operator' disabled 'real-time status of the power system' was to 'conduct a manual check of the network' because they were fully aware an incident was in progress, in the middle of which he then .. incrediously ... went to lunch and forgot about it.

"We have no clue. Our computer is giving us fits, too," replied a FirstEnergy technician identified as Jerry Snickey. "We don't even know the status of some of the stuff (power fluctuations) around us."

"I called you guys like 10 minutes ago, and I thought you were figuring out what was gong on there," the MISO technician, identified as Don Hunter, complained, according to the transcripts.

'FirstEnergy's operators were unaware for over an hour that they were looking at outdated information on the status of their portion of the power grid, according to the November report'

'no such call was made or warning given. I have confirmed that by having my staff listen to control room operator tapes'

'At 14:02 EDT .. One of MISO's primary system condition evaluation tools, its state estimator, was unable to assess system conditions for most of the period between 12:37 EDT and 15:34 EDT, due to a combination of human error .. and could not issue appropriate warnings'

I think he means the screen froze ...

You know thats pointless gransd stand, fight?

They have to pay it. Legally.

McCotter knows this, if they illegally stopped the bonus, he would be up there berating them for doing that.

Of curse, he also doesn't really say anything but idle speculation.

The man want's to cut all taxes but has no plan on which government services to cut. Talk about bad fiscal decisions.

He know he will loose, so he is grandstanding so later he can say he is a 'true republican'; however when ti comes to his state, he has no problem asking for money to prop up failing business:

http://mccotter.house.gov/NR/rdonlyres/6C88FCBF-1FFD-461F-BEE9-CD9FC7913544/0/3409PressReleaseonAutos.pdf

And I love this one:
http://mccotter.house.gov/NR/rdonlyres/35F7508B-EE1D-4388-A66A-99EC5D0B4339/0/press121208.pdf

So, what ahve we learned? when his partty ias in power, it's OK to ask for money, when it's the Democrats, suddenly taxpayer money is off limits.

Does saying:Give me more money and cut taxes sound sane to anyone?

This guy is the type of politician that gives all of them a bad name.
It's not like he is even trying to compromise on the two opposites actions. he literally want's both.

Don't take quick snippets of any politician and use that as proof for some pet ideological position.

You know thats pointless gransd stand, fight?

They have to pay it. Legally.

McCotter knows this, if they illegally stopped the bonus, he would be up there berating them for doing that.

Of curse, he also doesn't really say anything but idle speculation.

The man want's to cut all taxes but has no plan on which government services to cut. Talk about bad fiscal decisions.

He know he will loose, so he is grandstanding so later he can say he is a 'true republican'; however when ti comes to his state, he has no problem asking for money to prop up failing business:

http://mccotter.house.gov/NR/rdonlyres/6C88FCBF-1FFD-461F-BEE9-CD9FC7913544/0/3409PressReleaseonAutos.pdf

And I love this one:
http://mccotter.house.gov/NR/rdonlyres/35F7508B-EE1D-4388-A66A-99EC5D0B4339/0/press121208.pdf

So, what ahve we learned? when his partty ias in power, it's OK to ask for money, when it's the Democrats, suddenly taxpayer money is off limits.

Does saying:Give me more money and cut taxes sound sane to anyone?

This guy is the type of politician that gives all of them a bad name.
It's not like he is even trying to compromise on the two opposites actions. he literally want's both.

Don't take quick snippets of any politician and use that as proof for some pet ideological position.

Heck, I would love to see every Congressman's page on Wikipedia updated with all the earmarks for their districts and states and their vote on the bill which funded them.

You mean like this?

Congressional rules already require members to report their earmarks. More such rules are in the works.

And why such hating on earmarks? Earmarks in and of themselves are a good thing because they allow members to bring very local concerns and needs into the federal budgeting process. Sometimes the executive branch doesn't quite understand the local situations on the ground. That's why Congress controls the purse strings.

As long as earmarks are disclosed and go through some kind of vetting process (which they do now), I have no problem with them.

Healthcare is dominated by application vendors who each make their own megaplatform for healthcare records. Cerner, Meditech, Siemens, et al. are all trying to keep as much of their system closed as possible, and aren't particularly interested in opening it up to third party systems. They don't particularly want open interfaces, their goal is to keep their customer locked in as much as possible.

So the healthcare IT companies get what they want, i.e. a bigger push for electronic records, selling the software they already have.

In my experience, you are right on-target with your assertions. In fact, it seems that the "Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health" or HITECH Act (PDF warning) leaves as many questions unanswered as it answers. What we do know: We involved in healthcare have the opportunity to qualify for incentive pay based on "meaningful use" of a "qualified" electronic healtcare record. Unfortunately, what "meaningful use" is, or what "qualifies" an EHR system is conveniently not addressed by the bill. We ASSUME that "qualification" means "certification under specs provided by the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT)"...and that SEEMS to be a fair assumption.

So, what does "certification" under CCHIT consist of? Basically, it seems to be likened to a laundry-list of requirements that are best described as "what the megaplatforms already do". Funny how that works out, until you start looking at the CCHIT decision-makers, e.g. Siemens and NextGen have members on the CCHIT Commission. Allscripts has a member who is a Trustee. And guess what? The Siemens, NextGen and Allscripts products all passed the CCHIT certification without requiring major rework. And other large vendors (e.g. GE, Epic) have representation and input to the CCHIT decision making process. And to add to the pain of trying to avoid one of the "big systems", the CCHIT certification requirements can be punitive for small or one-off vendors...certification costs are start at $35,000 (PDF warning), retesting requires additional payment, and 2-year recertification is mandatory. Not a big problem for a megacorp, but crushing to a small outfit that has written a non-commercial EMR.

What is truly galling, though, is a myopic refusal to realize that yes, there is life outside of a monolithic EMR. Example: In the CCHIT requirements for clinical testing, there are requirements that lay out in annoying detail how e.g. Lab tests must be ordered, tracked, commented upon, and displayed directly in the EMR itself. There is no recognition that there is any other way to accomplish this outside of the EMR. However, for decades -- long before we moved our health records to electronic format -- we used our Practice Management (scheduling, billing, etc.) system to order Lab, to check for duplicate orders, to ensure that referrals exist when required, to enforce insurance eligibility requirements, etc. NONE of which qualifies for ANYTHING under the CCHIT rules -- under those rules, your EMR must do the order, the tracking, the duplicate checking, etc. So - in order to make our EMR comply with these CCHIT requirements, we would have to pull these activities out of our Scheduling system, and force them into an EMR system which does not, and can not, handle all of the insurance- and billing-driven requirements that our Practice Management system easily fulfills. Patient satisfaction, and ultimately Quality, will be negatively impacted by such a move. But we have little choice but to do so under these CCHIT "requirements" if we are to qualify for any of the HITECH incentives (or more to the point -- avoid the penalties that kick in later in the project).

Another thing that gripes me is the way that this inc

And you're going to do WHAT? Stop using defense contractors? Train the entire world on common sense?

I have a feeling that the answer to your question is "dump a ton of money on Tiversa", since Tiversa (the firm cited in the story) is headquartered in Congressman Altmire's district.

Senators and Representatives. There you go, it doesn't get much simpler than that.
1. Follow the links
2. Cut and paste the above post
3. Slap your name on it
4. ??
5. Profit! We as a nation will profit from having one less retarded bill rammed through.

I doubt even 50% of the people polled even understand that Congress and Senate are part of the same government branch...

Actually, it's the House of Representatives and the Senate that are part of the same government branch, which is collectively referred to as the United States Congress.

If you're going to be calling half the people in the country idiots, make sure you're in the other half first ;-)

http://www.rules.house.gov/111/LegText/hr1_legtext_cr.pdf QUALIFIED PLUG-IN ELECTRIC VEHICLE is defined as a vehicle "which is propelled to a significant ex- tent by an electric motor which draws electricity from a battery which "(i) has a capacity of not less than 4 kilowatt hours (2.5 kilowatt hours in the case of a vehicle with 2 or 3 wheels), and "(ii) is capable of being recharged from an external source of electricity.-"