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First of all:
RTFConstitution: ...all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land"...
The US has passed a treaty to join the UN and breaking that treaty is thus illegal.
Second:
In any case the war was illegal under international law, which was the main point, regardless of whether you think the US should or shouldn't respect its constitution or international law.

When I was in Elementary school, I *did* refuse to say the pledge. Those of us who the teacher caught were forced to say it again. I have a belief in a higher power but I also believe in separation of church and state. I cringe every time Bushco mentions something along the lines of "God is on our side" since it puts them at the level of those who they are fighting. I certainly don't believe it is the place of the House to contradict the judicial branch or interpret it as "recognizing the religious heritage of America" Everything in the resolution smacks of forcing God into today's society when in fact the writers did not see fit to include it to begin with specifically because historically, the founders were fleeing religious persecution. God only knows that history has been changed to reflect the current government's beliefs. That's how the King James Bible was so mangled in translation.

What evidence are you saying shows that McCarthy was right? For that matter, what was wrong with being a communist?

It is not likely that 90% of America likes it the way it is since statistics can pretty much be manipulated to show whatever you want. I don't see a good reason to have changed the pledge in the first place.

And several members of congress voluntarily reciting the pledge and then singing "God Bless America" sure looks to me like they want to cram it down people's throats. Mike Honda gained a lot of respect from me for being one of three representatives who did not agree with it and took a stand.

When I was in Elementary school, I *did* refuse to say the pledge. Those of us who the teacher caught were forced to say it again. I have a belief in a higher power but I also believe in separation of church and state. I cringe every time Bushco mentions something along the lines of "God is on our side" since it puts them at the level of those who they are fighting. I certainly don't believe it is the place of the House to contradict the judicial branch or interpret it as "recognizing the religious heritage of America" Everything in the resolution smacks of forcing God into today's society when in fact the writers did not see fit to include it to begin with specifically because historically, the founders were fleeing religious persecution. God only knows that history has been changed to reflect the current government's beliefs. That's how the King James Bible was so mangled in translation.

What evidence are you saying shows that McCarthy was right? For that matter, what was wrong with being a communist?

It is not likely that 90% of America likes it the way it is since statistics can pretty much be manipulated to show whatever you want. I don't see a good reason to have changed the pledge in the first place.

And several members of congress voluntarily reciting the pledge and then singing "God Bless America" sure looks to me like they want to cram it down people's throats. Mike Honda gained a lot of respect from me for being one of three representatives who did not agree with it and took a stand.

When I was in Elementary school, I *did* refuse to say the pledge. Those of us who the teacher caught were forced to say it again. I have a belief in a higher power but I also believe in separation of church and state. I cringe every time Bushco mentions something along the lines of "God is on our side" since it puts them at the level of those who they are fighting. I certainly don't believe it is the place of the House to contradict the judicial branch or interpret it as "recognizing the religious heritage of America" Everything in the resolution smacks of forcing God into today's society when in fact the writers did not see fit to include it to begin with specifically because historically, the founders were fleeing religious persecution. God only knows that history has been changed to reflect the current government's beliefs. That's how the King James Bible was so mangled in translation.

What evidence are you saying shows that McCarthy was right? For that matter, what was wrong with being a communist?

It is not likely that 90% of America likes it the way it is since statistics can pretty much be manipulated to show whatever you want. I don't see a good reason to have changed the pledge in the first place.

And several members of congress voluntarily reciting the pledge and then singing "God Bless America" sure looks to me like they want to cram it down people's throats. Mike Honda gained a lot of respect from me for being one of three representatives who did not agree with it and took a stand.

If everyone who reads Slashdot let their senators and representatives know they support HR 2239, it would have a much better chance of passing.

That is, if such legislature can still get past this administration... let's rally while we can!

Here's a link to the actual hearings page and the Computer Security Report Card 2003 (pdf file).

Here's a link to the actual hearings page and the Computer Security Report Card 2003 (pdf file).

Here says that the DHS scored a 34 ... the lowest of all the agencies surveyed. Way to go, guys!

Here is the link to the actual page containing the report card.

not trying to sound like a troll, but to all the people saying that privacy is a right, i ask you this: a right granted by whom?

fyi, the united states bill of rights says absolutely nothing about privacy. neither does the constitution. a bit scary, but its true. look it up.

the 4th amendment to the bill of rights sorta hints at privacy, but its obvious that our forefathers could not even begin forsee the type of privacy issues we deal with today.

San Antonio is also mostly hispanic and Catholic, which tends to be a liberal voting block. The only reason they voted for Bush was because he tried speaking Spanish to them (it sounded horrible).

If American people started caring about real issues, instead of falling prey to outrageous ad campaigns, then perhaps this wouldn't be as much of an issue. Sadly, I see it getting worse before it gets better.

Democracy is a horrible form of government--it's two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. If we returned to a Republic, and focused on limiting the powers of the government instead of a consistent regime of overtaxation, then I don't think this would be as much of a problem.

Furthermore, I live in Austin, and am very happy with my Republican representative in Washington.

He's very different from the other Republicans, though. After 9/11, he was one of the first to voice concerns about civil liberties (this is from Sept. 17th, 2001):

We are placing tremendous trust in our president to pursue our enemies as our commander-in-chief but Congress must remain vigilant as to not allow our civil liberties here at home to be eroded. The temptation will be great to sacrifice our freedoms for what may seem to be more security. We must resist this temptation.

Even the most rabid Democrat should stop and thank this guy for speaking up for our rights, even when party line has spoken otherwise.

Is that not what 'Patriot' means? To understand and embody the founding fathers? 'Patria' means 'lineage' in Latin which comes from 'Pater' which means 'Father'. So before you can do that you need to take one simple step. Read and understand the founding father's writing -- the Constitution, the federalist and anti-federalist papers.

I see you are Baptist from your URL. Would you believe anyone who said they were a Christian if they had never even opened the Bible, had never said the 'Lord's prayer', didn't know who Jesus was and who had never heard of the 'golden rule'?

It's not so much that people are violently opposed to the taxes that support their country, but right in the Constitution it explicitly enumerates the powers of the Federal government. As you are aware, enumeration does not mean 'a rough outline'. Enumeration means a listing of all the things that belong to it. Anything that is outside that enumeration does not belong to it.

Later in the 9th and 10th amendment to the Constitution it spells this out explicitly. More than anything, the Constitution is a binding contract between the citizens of the united States and the appointed government employees. We are obligated to foot the bill as long as they are abiding by the contract. Expecting us to pay for things we never contracted for, is a little like Darl McBride expecting us to pay him for something he neither created nor has the rights to just because he crows it from the highest tower. Expecting us to happily pay for things we never contracted for is a little like expecting us to happily pay Darl. Even if he had a shotgun to our heads we might have to, but we wouldn't be expected to like it.

I tell you that, if your are a Patriot you will come to understand that 99% of the budget expenditures of the Federal government are explicity prohibited to it by law.

So what should you do? I've looked at this situation for over a decade now and I'm pretty sure there is nothing you can do. The united States have been hijacked by the high courts since approximately 1938 when the Supreme Court decided that the 'Social Security' tax was Constitutional under the welfare clause. Of course under that line of reasoning nearly anything is within the scope of federal power. That the most 'learned' legal minds of the time had done this to us could only be interpreted as treason. Even a cursory reading of historical documents and earlier Supreme Court decisions would have made this abundantly clear.

Look at the bright side. Until this country truly devolves into a complete police state you are a free man. As long as you are truly free, not even the constitution binds you to anything. I'd say you have at least five to ten years until that happens. Until then do what you can because no com mon law binds you to a contract in breach.

No group of men can bind further generations of free men to contracts and debts just like no father can bind his son to debt. (substitutue the politically correct gender equivalent) The only thing that can be chained down by a Constitution is government.

Good luck and learn as much as you can about your rights. It's a lonely world out there once you understand what your true freedoms are. Very few people have been educated in them because history is being taught by the victors. Don't expect understanding from your fellow citizens, most men are fools who are more interested in the daily baseball scores than the destiny of their country. Bread and circuses, my man.

Don't take my word for it. Find out for yourself.

The US Constitution (brazenly published by the contract breachers themselves).

The Bill

This chart doesn't give a realistic picture. What matters more than the total $ value of the debt/surplus is the debt/surplus as a percentage of GDP. You can find such a thing here. (warning! PDF)

The basic point is that, yes, the budget looks bad, but not orders of magnitude worse than ever before, as it appears in the graph linked by the parent post. That's statistics lying for you. In fact, the current budget deficit is only about 2/3 as bad as it was in 1983. Although it is still getting worse now, and that was the trough in '83.

For a rudimentary comparison to explain why this matters: if you borrow $10,000, that might be a big debt to take on if you only make $18,000 a year, but if you make $100,000 a year, it's no big deal. How much debt you should assume is relative to your income, or at least your expected income.

I cannot believe no one has mentioned that Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich almost certainly caused this to happen by linking to the diebold memos on his US Congressional website, and by calling for a congressional investigation of Diebold's legal actions.

Kucinich appears to be one of the few politicians who will stand up for the citizen againt the corporations. He is certainly the only presidential candidate to do so....

David Goodstein, Vice Provost of CalTech on the collapse of the PhD pyramid scheme which drives science education in the USA and started to fail in the 1970s and, in his words:
http://www.house.gov/science/goodstein_04-01.htm
"The problem, to reiterate, is that science education in America is designed to select a small group of elite scientists. An unintended but inevitable side effect is that everyone else is left out. As a consequence of that, 20,000 American high schools lack a single qualified physics teacher, half the math classes in American schools are taught by people who lack the qualifications to teach them, and companies will increasingly find themselves without the technical competence they need at all levels from the shop floor to the executive suite."

it makes it easy for big corporations with deep pockets to keep the little guy from being a nuisance/competitor

It's much more than that. Often, "big corporations" aren't the licensees of the data; smaller entities are (such as is the case in many state data distribution contracts, e.g. DMV databases which are auctioned off like radio spectrum in an irresponsible manner). Subsequently, the "evil big corporation" matter is a red herring. We need to keep the eye on the fundamental - the government's aspiration to implement a Stationer's register system that requires the authority of the crown in order to access public information. Imagine the absolute power politicians will have in defining who can and cannot see public records.

Per the original post's critique link:

H.R. 3261 ...would create a new federal property right in online and offline databases (collections of information), and give the federal courts power to police the use of information in databases.

This is much more than a theft of public information (again, mirroring the FCC's approach to spectrum auctions). Much of this government information is necessary for ensuring compliance. Imagine, for instance, if driving laws were maintained in a Federal database, but access to that database required a $25,000 annual fee.

Failure to have access to this database would result in recurring noncompliance; e.g. making normal citizens recurring lawbreakers.

Certainly many politicians aspire to extend a political system that ensures all citizens are lawbreakers and subsequently dependents upon the system. Concealing public information which is necessary for legal compliance is a terrible move towards tyranny.

H.R. 3261 would allow federal courts to impose stiff penalties if someone uses information from a database that a corporation claims to own.

Almost sounds like it was written by Kafka:

"I'm sorry sir, but to divulge what crime you have been charged with, absent proper licensing and permitting of your access to the Federal crimes database, would be a crime of itself. Certainly you wouldn't wish to compound matters, would you?"

Incidentally, I see that Rep. Billy Tauzin, known as the loyal Representative from BellSouth, is a cosponsor of this bill. Good rule of thumb: if Billy's involved, it's probably not on the level.

*scoove*

Yes! Part of the solution to this problem is to eliminate any and all federal programs for which the federal government has no power to pay for or collect for! Funding for the arts, funding for education of any kind. Great first step. Keep rolling them!

Eliminate the FBI, CIA, FCC, FDA, EPA, IRS, FRB, FDIC, SEC, CFTC, NLRB, FAA, NRC, FERC, INS, OSHA, NHTSA, EEOC, BATF, DEA, CPSC, NIH, NASA, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, federal college aid grants and loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and more! None of these programs are Constitutionally acceptable, and the only way we'll return to a truly booming country is to make sure that our duly elected officials abide by their oath to uphold the Constitution. There is only one that I know of who truly does that. Dr. Ron Paul has shown that he believes in the Constitution, and I believe he has never voted for an unconstitutional bill or legislative measure.

I would love to see a federal government that will never believe in interventionism again!

It should not be possible to alter a bill by slipping in little bits that are substantially different to the primary intent.

Well, it isn't possible, in some circumstances. House amendments must be germane, or appropriate to the issue at hand. However, so such rule exists in the Senate, and non-germane Senate amendments can be added to the conference report, if desired. The conference report is a compromise bill that gets final approval from both houses and gets sent to the president. It is (supposed to be) negotiated by members of both houses, and members of both parties. However, the GOP has taken a liking to negotiating the conference report in secret, with no Democrats present. Also, the germaneness of an amendment is decided by the chair, who is usually a member of the majority party. And, because of the way the rules are written, almost any amendment to a spending bill will be germane.

Oddly, the federal highway / road system was originally predicated on Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 ("To establish Post Offices and post Roads;").

Look for Article I, Section 8, Clause 3... and yes, I know it's always been massively abused. (On the other hand, I do think the federal highway system is a good thing.)

Doesn't anybody read the WHOLE constitution any more, instead of just the parts they like?

Whoops. Sorry, that should have read "unsolicited commercial e-mails", aka, spam. Basically, I have objections to people e-mailing me, wanting to buy stuff. People wanting to sell stuff to me should stick to sending me flyers and catalogs.

The worst offenders are the bozos who "merge" e-mails with demographic info, and other data. They THINK they're doing targeted e-mails when in fact they're annoying the hell out of me by spamming my customer support addresses. Some organizations that send garbage to me are people I would have done business with... had they not made the very offensive decision to buy one of these "targeted" lists, that have my personal info, and the assumption that an e-mail address is just like a postal address.

Like I've said before, if this bill is signed into law, I'm turning on whitelisting. NOBODY will be able to reach me, unless they go through a challenge/response system (or via a web feedback form, for as long as that stays unmolested.) Yes, I'll take a hit on business, but letting all these vermin steal my time would do even more damage.

Just in case anyone is interested, the House vote was 392 in favor, 5 against, and 37 no votes. Take a look and see if your congresscritter sold out (mine did, not a surprise.)

Chances are, your Congresscritter and Senators voted YES!!! But to be absolutely sure:

• Congressional roll call vote
• Senatorial roll call vote

You want a person clueless enough to screw this up deciding what high-tech weapons systems DOD gets, or what NASA projects need funding, or about anything else having to do with the Internet? The Net isn't just about geeks anymore. It's the communications backbone on which governmental, military, and business communications depend. Imagine the kind of traffic the last Windows megavirus attack being normal on the Internet. Is this likely to improve its efficiency?

Will this help businesses (other than spam) function better? Would you like to be in a war zone and discover that you can't find what the hell you've been ordered to do because your inbox is full of "Penile Enlargement" messages, each in full compliance with S.877 with a real snailmail address on the bottom?

Most of us have been saying for years that our Congress is dangerously and fundamentally clueless about technology. The DMCA passed by comparable majorities. At least in areas where the voting machines aren't e-votescam hardware, we might have a chance to get rid of some of these idiots.

This is about to become proof visible even to Joe Sixpack that Congress does NOT know what the fuck is doing. IF Joe Sixpack is told what it means. The typical Internet user is Joe Sixpack now.

Don't depend on the media to get this story out.

Finally, here's the honor roll of every single member of Congress who voted NO. (there aren't any Senators who opposed this. Vote for these guys and support them, regardless of what you think of the rest of their political views.

• Honda
• Kucinich
• Paul
• Jackson-Lee (TX)
• Lofgren

If Joe Sixpack is getting 50 spams a day instead of 20, and he is informed that a law passed by his representatives made this possible, he'll get it. So as soon as this happens, tell your non-tech friends and families and co-workers.

Don't worry about the "Do Not Spam" registry, anyone who opts out of US spam will get it replaced by Nigerian and Chinese and Taiwanese spam. How long before spam ads for the "Do Not Spam" registry CD of "XX million e-mail addresses confirmed by the US Government" show upin your e-mail?

This is a unique opportunity. Don't let it go to waste.

If I'm getting this right, the bill is H.R.2417 and the text of it can be found here along with the ammendments. And even though the Senate disguised who passed it with a voice vote, the House did it the transparently democratic way and the vote broken down beyond yeas and nays into partys and names can be found here.

Damn, damn, damn, we're going to have to wait for the time when he's up for Election- there isn't any process at the Federal level as the Constitution doesn't provide for it.

People, go look at this tally of yeas and nays- if your Representative in Congress voted YES to this atrocity, they need to be removed from office in the next election. It doesn't matter if they didn't know about the extra provisions, they shouldn't have voted on it if they didn't agree 100% with 100% of the contents. Do what it takes to make people understand this. Do what it takes to make people vote for anyone else. Do what it takes to get people in those polls.

Since it took me more than a few minutes to find the part of the bill everyone's excited about, here's a pointer:

1. H.R. 2417 Summary and Status
2. Conference Report

In the Conference Report, the change to the definition of financial institution is in Title III, Subtitle E (Sec. 374), which begins on page 76 of the PDF. The explanatory statement for that Section begins on page 112 of the PDF.

The Section in question is really just a reference to another Section of United States Code. On top of that, the PDF of this report is not searchable (it's a scanned image). Do we have an award for Information Obfuscation in Government? Why can't we at least have these reports in hypertext, with live links to the referenced laws?

"Other portions of the funding bill eliminate annual reports to Congress on several controversial matters, such as foreign companies' involvement in the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the effectiveness of the intelligence community and antidrug efforts."

"The bill also nixes reports on how many times national security letters are used to access individuals' credit reports. "

They are for less government regulation remember? (oh wait)
They are for less spending. (oh wait)
They are for the little guy. (oh wait)

You know, for those reasons and others, I voted Republican in '96 and would have again in '00 if my car hadn't broken down on election day. I voted for the guy in my district (Jack Kingston) that voted yes.

At this moment, I am ashamed of saying that. It's as if the entire purpose of the Republican and Democratic parties have shifted completely to the opposite since Bush was elected.

The Republicans are now the liberals, wanting to change every damned law in a way that contradicts their original purpose so they can micromanage people's lives. The democrats are now the conservatives fighting to keep the laws as they were intended. God, even Bob Barr (R-GA) joined the ACLU after losing his district in the redistricting of Georgia.

Anyone wondering why this is a big deal, you need to ask yourself one question. What does the Justice Dept have to hide that makes them so determined to avoid citizen oversight? What are they doing that the people won't like?

Here's a list of who voted yea and nay.

On Friday, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich from Ohio requested that the House Judiciary Committee take notice of Diebold's misuse of the DMCA:

From Kucinich's press release:

Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), today, sent a letter to the Chairman and the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee requesting that the Committee hold a hearing to investigate abuses of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by Diebold Inc., one of the nation's largest electronic voting machine manufacturers.

Write your own Congressman, and ask him or her to call for this hearing!

Chances are, your Congresscritter and Senators voted YES!!! But to be absolutely sure,

Congresionnal roll call vote

Senatorial roll call vote And if your representatives voted YES, vote for ANYBODY else. This isn't just about screwing up our inboxes and the Internet itself. A Yes vote means that the representative is so dangerously and completely clueless about technology as to endanger us all.

You want a person clueless enough to screw this up deciding what high-tech weapons systems DOD gets, or what NASA projects need funding, or about anything else having to do with the Internet? The Net isn't just about geeks anymore. It's the communications backbone on which governmental, military, and business communications depend. Imagine the kind of traffic the last Windows megavirus attack being normal on the Internet. Is this likely to improve its efficiency?

Will this help businesses (other than spam) function better? Would you like to be in a war zone and discover that you can't find what the hell you've been ordered to do because your inbox is full of "Penile Enlargement" messages, each in full compliance with S.877 with a real snailmail address on the bottom?

Most of us have been saying for years that our Congress is dangerously and fundamentally clueless about technology. The DMCA passed by comparable majorities. At least in areas where the voting machines aren't e-votescam hardware, we might have a chance to get rid of some of these idiots.

This is about to become proof visible even to Joe Sixpack that Congress does NOT know what the fuck is doing. IF Joe Sixpack is told what it means. The typical Internet user is Joe Sixpack now.

Don't depend on the media to get this story out.

Finally, here's the honor roll of every single member of Congress who voted NO. (there aren't any Senators who opposed this. Vote for these guys and support them, regardless of what you think of the rest of their political views.

• Honda
• Kucinich
• Paul
• Jackson-Lee (TX)
• Lofgren

We know that bad decisions about technology by elected officials can endanger our jobs, the economy, public safety, and the lives of members of our armed forces. So far, it's just us that knows because the comprehension gap between us and Joe Sixpack is just far too great.

If Joe Sixpack is getting 50 spams a day instead of 20, and he is informed that a law passed by his representatives made this possible, he'll get it. So as soon as this happens, tell your non-tech friends and families and co-workers.

Don't worry about the "Do Not Spam" registry, anyone who opts out of US spam will get it replaced by Nigerian and Chinese and Taiwanese spam. How long before spam ads for the "Do Not Spam" registry CD of "XX million e-mail addresses confirmed by the US Government" show upin your e-mail?

This is a unique opportunity. Don't let it go to waste.

This bill could still die. Call your Congressional office. The staff is still there, very tired, and answering the phone.

I just did. The House is in session, debate on S.877 has concluded, and the vote will be some time in the next few hours, in the middle of the night. Congressional staffs are still in their offices at midnight. Tell them to vote NO on S.877, because it legalizes spam. CALL NOW

Yeah, except for Ron Paul and a tiny number of others, no-one even cared to read the thing before passing it.

First Energy has been a major concern of Congressman Kucinich for a while now. There is a long standing feud between Kucinich and First Energy-at this point it looks like Dennis was right about these folks.

EXTORTION - The use, or the express or implicit threat of the use, of violence or other criminal means to cause harm to person, reputation, or property as a means to obtain property from someone else with his consent. USC 18

The Hobbs Act defines "extortion" as "the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right." 18 U.S.C. S 1951(b)(2).

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998.

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18,1998.

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999.

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
Letter to President Bush, Signed by Joe Lieberman (D-CT), John McCain (Rino-AZ) and others, Dec. 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002.

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

Don't let the Aussies get all of the credit!

Title 18, Section 2319 of the US Code:

"Any person who commits an offense under section 506(a)(1) of title 17 -

(1) shall be imprisoned not more than 5 years, or fined in the amount set forth in this title, or both, if the offense consists of the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $2,500;"

You can search the US code here.

The same language is going into The FTAA Treaty, meaning all of North and South America would face prison for the same crime:

"[4.1. Each Party shall provide criminal procedures and penalties to be
applied at least in cases of willful trademark counterfeiting or infringement
of copyrights or neighboring rights on a commercial scale. Each Party shall
provide that significant willful infringements of copyrights or neighboring
rights that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain shall be
considered willful infringement on a commercial scale.

In criminal procedures, remedies available shall include imprisonment and/or
monetary fines sufficiently high to deter future acts of infringement and
with a policy to remove the monetary incentive to the infringer. Each Party
shall further ensure that such fines are imposed by judicial authorities at
levels that actually deter future infringements.]"

Mars is where we need to go. I agree that NASA does need some goal if they are ever going to do anything useful again but if they're going to set a goal, it should at least set a potentially habitable planet as a goal with the Moon as a sub goal or a proof of concept.

Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics and founder of the Mars Society has called for the mobilization of Mars exploration proponents to write their representatives on the future of post-Columbia NASA. From his announcement: 'This debate will play out over the next six months, and the result could determine the future of the American space program in our generation. Now is the time when anyone who cherishes hopes for a spacefaring future for humanity must step forward and speak up.'

This is happening alongside the recent testimony Zubrin gave to the full Senate Commerce Committee on Oct 29th (audio files here and the .pdf) and the proposed Bill from Congressman Nick Lampson TX to restore Mars as a goal and put NASA on a schedule. Here are a few sample letters if you want to write your congressman.

Mars is where we need to go. I agree that NASA does need some goal if they are ever going to do anything useful again but if they're going to set a goal, it should at least set a potentially habitable planet as a goal with the Moon as a sub goal or a proof of concept.

Robert Zubrin, president of Pioneer Astronautics and founder of the Mars Society has called for the mobilization of Mars exploration proponents to write their representatives on the future of post-Columbia NASA. From his announcement: 'This debate will play out over the next six months, and the result could determine the future of the American space program in our generation. Now is the time when anyone who cherishes hopes for a spacefaring future for humanity must step forward and speak up.'

This is happening alongside the recent testimony Zubrin gave to the full Senate Commerce Committee on Oct 29th (audio files here and the .pdf) and the proposed Bill from Congressman Nick Lampson TX to restore Mars as a goal and put NASA on a schedule. Here are a few sample letters if you want to write your congressman.

But this is a fight we have to take on locally. Find out what's used in your district. If they use black-box machines with no paper trail (virtually everyone does) then hit 'em with a big ole ream of this. Send it your city councilmember, call your Congresscritter and your Senators, bitch to your local paper, blog. Do something.

My favourite excerpts:

"I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb"." [source: http://chroot.net/s/lists/support.w3archive/200101 /msg00068.html ]

Or how about:

In response to a question about a presentation in El Paso County, Colorado: "For a demonstration I suggest you fake it. Progam them both so they look the same, and then just do the upload fro [sic] the AV. That is what we did in the last AT/AV demo." [source: http://chroot.net/s/lists/support.w3archive/199903 /msg00098.html ]

Or even:

"Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed." [source: http://chroot.net/s/lists/announce.w3archive/20011 0/msg00002.html ]

Makes me feel all warm and gooey inside, but not in that comfortable, sated, internally glowing way. In that queasy, rumbling, internally bleeding, hosting-an-Alien-baby kind of way.

Go read a basic book on aircraft. ...There are ALREADY big holes in the cabin, and you don't see passengers being sucked out do you?

The re-circulating cabin air system pulls air in from the compressor stages in the aircraft's jet engines. This outside air is pressurized and cooled and then mixed with an almost equal amount of highly filtered air from the passenger cabin. The combined outside and filtered air is blown into the cabin through overhead outlets. In the cabin, air flows in a circular pattern and exits through floor grilles or, on some airplanes, through overhead intakes. About half of the air exiting the cabin is immediately exhausted from the airplane. Fans draw the other half through special filters under the cabin floor. This filtered air is then mixed with the outside air coming in from the engine compressors and the cycle continues. (my emphasis)

Political lobbyists have to, you know... lobby politicians?

Hell, if censoring one side of a debate is lobbying, then the NCI site (and the Bush Administration) is guilty of doing the same thing for surpressing research disproving the purported breast cancer abortion link.

The HAV act (help amerca vote), created a land rush by mandating a minumum number of touchscreen voting machines by 2004. The stalking horse provision in the bill is that blind people cant use most voting systems without assistance, and people in wheel chairs have difficulties as well. Noble motivation yes, but the cure is worse than the problem.

This land rush was led by diebold with a first-to-market system. they acheived this by using off the shelf components and OS and DB. THe system has not proven reliable or safe. I wont regurgitaete the accusationsof fraud, except to mention that any time elections differ by 6 sigma from poll results someting reeks. Unfortunatley other companies ESS and Sequoia tried to keep pace. the ESS systems at least have the benefit of actually failing to boot so often that florida has abandoned them! THe Sequoia system is the best of the lot but still has its own flaw. At least the sequoia people, when pushed, seem to be trying to respond to the demand for voter verified balloting.

The good news is that After pressure by california's santa clara county (19 million dollar
contract), Sequoia voting system has agrees to implement (at no cost) a
voter verified, recountable, paper ballot in addition to the touch
screen systems.
(see here )

Already the House of representatives has a bill pending ( The Voter
Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003) that will require
all touch screen voting systems to be voter verifiable.
(see here )

Indeed the entire country of brazil, which has 400,000 electronic
voting machines has decide to replace them with voter verifiable
systems.
(see here )

A 95 page caltech and MIT study surveying many years of voting reports
that among all voting methods, the method with the single largest
average error rate is electronic voting, which is senate and
gubenatorial elections has almost TWICE the error rate of optical scan voting. This means that by enfranchising blind people we disenfranchise far more people. a bad trade.
(see here page 21 )

Indeed reality is much worse since that's just an average, since
electronic voting errors tend to be both non-random and clustered in
catastrophic events.

For example, Bernalio county in Albuquerque reported 48,000 voters went to the polls
but only 36,000 votes were registered on Sequoia voting systems.
(see here )

Similarly, many votes were lost in the latest election in florida
counties using Sequoia voting systems. Janet reno is investigating
cases where heavily democratic counties registered ZERO votes for any
democrat. Sequoia systems has presented Los Alamos FALSE information
of Seqouia systems. For example, they claimed it did not run on
windows OS. In fact WinEDS their database collection system is based
upon microsoft OS, and uses a Microsoft-based SQL DB, and the password for
this system is "password" (really!).
(see here )

You can in fact obtain this very minute on CD rom a program which will
break into any diebolds MS ACCESS based database and change results then erase all log
entries of the intrusion. It's easy to imagine that SQL can nbe attacted too either by security hoiles or user admin mistakes in the table grants.

Sequoia's Glowing reviews in florida, santa
clara and Lousianna counties are somewhat marred by the fact that the
Luosianna county agent who reviews them highly is now under indictment
for a payoff from seqouia, like wise the santa clara and florida
registrar have both been (publicly) paid off by the

At least my representative is fighting it . What about yours?

Yep, Mr. Smith was the only good politician ever to come out of Tennessee.

So, I'll ask it again. What are you doing with this information?

To contact your critter, go here and search on your zip code.

That's the The U.S. House of Representatives seach engine anyway.

I visited Tauzin's official House of Representatives website, at http://www.house.gov/tauzin/. At the bottom is a Search button, with a select list to choose how many search results you want to receive. I decided to search for "MPAA" and see if he'd mentioned them in any of his recent press releases.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any results. Not because he's trying to hide anything, but because there's nowhere to enter a search term! The "Search" button is sitting there with no way to enter what you're searching for. Brilliant, if only Google had come up with this idea!

Thank you, Rep. Tauzin, for demonstrating your vast knowledge of the digital world. You should fit right in at the MPAA.

...can be found here

Mr. KELLER. Okay. Let me walk you through a hypothetical and ask how the FBI would be involved. Next week, for example, a major movie called ''Sea Biscuit'' is going to be opening up by Universal, I think. Let's say that today it was posted on the Internet somehow, that an advance copy got out similar to what happened with ''The Hulk'' movie, and that the folks down at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida in my district found out about it through their own internal investigation. What would be their procedure for dealing with the FBI? Would they contact the Orlando FBI office, or is there some specialized FBI unit, some other location they would contact?
[...]
Mr. KELLER. I am wondering if there should be some sort of like an online intellectual property SWAT team in place that people like that could contact if they know that there is an imminent up loading of their movies, some group of FBI officials somewhere that this is their expertise, rather than some generic agent in Tampa.