Slashdot Mirror

That's right: I'm 47 years old, I'm a good 30 pounds overweight, and I make my living by taking care of men who come to Las Vegas hoping for some skin time with other men -- for a fee. And in case you're ready to dismiss me as someone clinging onto the last shreds of his faded beauty, you should know that I was well into my 40s before I started hooking.

Takes all sorts apparently.

She's not being punished for expressing what she thinks. She is being punished for violating a sworn oath and thus making it impossible for the defendant to have a fair trial. I realize we live in a world where American citizens can be executed without any due process, but that policy is under attack because it violates due process. This story just adds to my worry about the constant attack on our rights at seemingly every level, from smart nefarious pricks in office, to retards on juries.

As for the punishment, $250 is an utterly insufficient fine. Even at minimum wage, it's only a week's labor at most. She should be taxed with the costs associated with the trial. To put this into a bad car analogy, it's like she intentionally smashed into another car with her own, totaling the other car, but is only being required to cover the cost of the left taillight on the victims auto.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_(software)
Recall the feds dream of malware with a deal "to ensure their anti-virus software would not detect the program"
I guess the music is like "White House Office of National Drug Control Policy" with anti drug messages in your fav tv dramas.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/drugs
Now you get a musical propaganda blast to install Norton and fight "cyber crime"
Whats next a track on p2p, the joys of an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)?

They were referring to the fact that wikileaks failed to redact the names of the informants

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/20/wikileaks/index.html

Wikileaks redacted fifteen thousand pages to avoid harming innocent people, asked the pentagon to help make sure there were none left before it went live, the pentagon denied being asked and implied that they did nothing to redact any names. You now tell me you believe they did nothing and redacted no names. Implying is a great tool for propaganda.

Here at Salon, from 12 years ago. (Hmmm, the young programmers in the article are now old...) http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/1998/05/13/feature/index.html

Most of the programming team consisted of programmers who had great facility with Windows, Microsoft Visual C++ and the Foundation Classes. In no time at all, it seemed, they had generated many screenfuls of windows and toolbars and dialogs, all with connections to networks and data sources, thousands and thousands of lines of code. But when the inevitable difficulties of debugging came, they seemed at sea. In the face of the usual weird and unexplainable outcomes, they stood a bit agog. It was left to the UNIX-trained programmers to fix things. The UNIX team members were accustomed to having to know. Their view of programming as language-as-text gave them the patience to look slowly through the code. In the end, the overall "productivity" of the system, the fact that it came into being at all, was the handiwork not of tools that sought to make programming seem easy, but the work of engineers who had no fear of "hard."

In other articles I couldn't find on the web, I do remember Ullman writing about being the young programmer who rolled her eyes at the objections of mainframe-era programmers to client/server...and then finding herself on the other side of the same story, making noises like "...but doesn't that create a lot of network traffic and latency?" at web-app programmers...as they rolled their eyes whenever they thought the client/server-era fogey wasn't looking.

At 52, I count as tar-pit fodder myself now, worse because my primary work is engineering and I could afford to drop off the keep-up train in the 90's, never learned Java. (Though I find the office can still be dazzled by humble scripts and mini-apps done in Perl and VBA/Excel; people don't care HOW you automate boring work, you just have to do it). I was discussing this issue with a 40-something friend who is a full-time programmer and did keep up; his reply was that it's more important to know that a sort cannot beat O(n log(n)) than to know the current language to write it in.

I believe that most ageism in IT is from its culture. A previous poster was, simply, dead wrong to imply that other fields like medicine and engineering do not change as rapidly as IT. They do. We now use materials, construction equipment, and techniques that did not exist a decade ago. However, as a very young business, IT was *always* stacked with young people and young bosses. It's only recently that there could be such a thing as a 60-year-old programmer. It used to be assumed no woman had the "temperament" to practice law. As people gradually discover that older programmers are (usually) still useful, I think the attitude will fade away.

More details on how Alveda King says gay marriage is genocide, and other insane Christian Taliban talk that Martin Luther King would denounce. The woman is obviously a fraud, scamming along on her famous uncle without any merit of her own - the ultimate bigot:

Alveda is dismissive of her aunt [MLK's Civil Rights partner, Coretta Scott King] who died in 2006, saying, "I've got his DNA. She doesn't, she didn't ... Therefore I know something about him. I'm made out of the same stuff."

The niece is clearly riding more "the color of her skin" than "the content of her character", spitting on her uncle's legacy.

David Garrow, a civil rights movement historian at the University of Cambridge, said that Martin Luther King Jr. was unambiguously progressive.

"King was not only not a Republican, he was well to the left of the Democratic Party of the 1960s," he said. "One could make a very strong case that King thought of himself as a democratic socialist. It's also well-documented that Dr. King was a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood, and it's well-documented that one of his five or six closest advisers, Bayard Rustin, was gay."

There's also details on how Beck scammed a nonprofit into paying for this travesty event, while Beck keeps all the profits. You Republicans are such suckers, the only surprise is that you have any money left after you sank it all into a decade of Bush/Cheney like a bonfire.

Then it will be sold to every idiot with a budget and too much power.

Not to worry then. With the economy going the way it is, nobody is going to have a budget for anything more expensive than a couple of new signs.

We think the market is massive.

100% right!

Those of us with the Salon sidebar aleady saw this in This Week in Crazy

Yes, I recall the device was called a Degeneres.

http://open.salon.com/blog/rogerf1953/2010/05/04/ellen_degeneres_lesbianism_continues_to_destroy_america

Bert

This is Obama's America, not Stalin's Russia.

Not Stalin's USSR yet, but Obama definitely represents a continued worsening of the neo-con BS Bush II took to heights once thought unsurpassable.

You may think that the reason you're dissatisfied with theObama administration is because of substantive objections to their policies: ... Or because thePresident has escalated a miserable, pointless and unwinnable war that is entering its ninth year. Or because he has claimed the power to imprison people for life with no charges and to assassinate American citizens without due process, intensified the secrecy weapons and immunity instruments abused by his predecessor, and found all new ways of denying habeas corpus. Or because he granted full-scale legal immunity to those who committed serious crimes in the last administration. Or because he's failed to fulfill -- or affirmatively broken -- promises ranging from transparency to gay rights.

Source: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/10/gibbs/index.html

This is Obama's America, not Stalin's Russia.

Not Stalin's USSR yet, but Obama definitely represents a continued worsening of the neo-con BS Bush II took to heights once thought unsurpassable.

You may think that the reason you're dissatisfied with theObama administration is because of substantive objections to their policies: ... Or because thePresident has escalated a miserable, pointless and unwinnable war that is entering its ninth year. Or because he has claimed the power to imprison people for life with no charges and to assassinate American citizens without due process, intensified the secrecy weapons and immunity instruments abused by his predecessor, and found all new ways of denying habeas corpus. Or because he granted full-scale legal immunity to those who committed serious crimes in the last administration. Or because he's failed to fulfill -- or affirmatively broken -- promises ranging from transparency to gay rights.

Source: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/10/gibbs/index.html

Doesn't support the indefinite holding of suspects without charge in internment camps. One measure of a society is how you treat undesirables, and Guantanamo bay is an indelible stain on the Bush/Cheney years.

You believe this only if you haven't been watching the news:
Obama endorses indefinite detention w/o trial:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052104045.html

Plus, Obama has graduated to assassinating Americans without any due process -- he says you're a bady, you die:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations

So yes, aside from some trivial diction things (although is it just me -- Obama doesn't sound all that articulate at all), Obama sucks as badly as Bush.

You may think that the reason you're dissatisfied with theObama administration is because of substantive objections to their policies:that they've done so little about crisis-level unemployment, foreclosures and widespread economic misery. Or because of the White House's apparently endless devotion to Wall Street. Or because thePresident has escalated a miserable, pointless and unwinnable war that is entering its ninth year. Or because he has claimed the power to imprison people for life with no charges and to assassinate American citizens without due process, intensified the secrecy weapons and immunity instruments abused by his predecessor, and found all new ways of denying habeas corpus. Or because he granted full-scale legal immunity to those who committed serious crimes in the last administration. Or because he's failed to fulfill -- or affirmatively broken -- promises ranging from transparency to gay rights.

Remember, a vote for a Democrat or a Republican is a vote for the status quo, no matter what BS they vomit during the campaign.

You may think that the reason you're dissatisfied with theObama administration is because of substantive objections to their policies:that they've done so little about crisis-level unemployment, foreclosures and widespread economic misery. Or because of the White House's apparently endless devotion to Wall Street. Or because thePresident has escalated a miserable, pointless and unwinnable war that is entering its ninth year. Or because he has claimed the power to imprison people for life with no charges and to assassinate American citizens without due process, intensified the secrecy weapons and immunity instruments abused by his predecessor, and found all new ways of denying habeas corpus. Or because he granted full-scale legal immunity to those who committed serious crimes in the last administration. Or because he's failed to fulfill -- or affirmatively broken -- promises ranging from transparency to gay rights.

Remember, a vote for a Democrat or a Republican is a vote for the status quo, no matter what BS they vomit during the campaign.

people in the "civilized" blue states elected the current president who is doing the same thing the last president did, but worse. see for reference TFA regarding *Obama* chasing after wikileaks for exposing war crimes. The same Obama who committed to transparency and legitimate criticism of policies during the election. Also, read some Greenwald. Here's a representative sample: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/10/gibbs/index.html

How's that self-righteousness working out for you?

and no NEW states secrets policy is more stringent than anything that came before

Uhm... reality check.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/congress-considers-rules-for-invoking-state-secrets.ars

- That new state secrets policy that is WAY more stringent than anything before.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090313/1456154113.shtml

- The Obama admin claiming that the details of a copyright treaty are "state secrets."

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/02/10/obama

- Obama administration invoking "state secrets" FAR MORE OFTEN than the previous administration

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/foia-filtered

- Obama administration having political appointees vetting FOIA requests intended for the Dept of Homeland Security, and making decisions on what can be released on the basis of political expediency...

The question of no "new" Gitmos - Yes, but the one we have isn't anywhere close to shut down.
The question of "no new pointless, unwinnable wars have been started" - How many are we on the brink of still?

about the freedom fighters in their backyards getting direct and indirect US aid?
Strange how this 'leak' was shown to to the US gov and given an ok.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/07/26/times_wikileaks_white_house_meeting
Now its crimes under other allies "national-security laws"?
Using foreign courts to shut down material published in the US is an interesting new tactic.
Why not just use foreign operatives to shut down leakers in foreign lands?
The Soviets and East Germans had some great missions to study.
Warm up the 'presidential finding' printer.

First off, please point out a "feminist" claiming that no woman has ever lied about being raped or sexually harassed.

Here is a nice essay on that very subject.

Did you actually read that article? My guess is that either a) you did, but you're counting on the fact that most people here won't, or b) you didn't and just assume it supports your claim. It doesn't.

The Salon article, baring any other criticisms I might make about it, provides some evidence that there is a significant number of false rape claims. It does not, however, provide any evidence of a vast feminist conspiracy to propagate the notion that no woman has ever lied about being raped. The author does seem to assume such a conspiracy at times, but she never provides any evidence of its existence. The closest she gets is this paragraph:

All too often, however, feminist rhetoric merely replaced the old stereotypes that viewed most rape complainants as scorned women or sex-crazed neurotics with an equally simplistic cliché: "Women don't lie about rape." Legal theorist Catharine MacKinnon asserts that "feminism is built on believing women's accounts of sexual use and abuse by men." Some colleges with speech codes have equated talk of false rape allegations with "discriminatory harassment." Activists may even refuse to believe "victims" who admit that they lied, suggesting that women recant out of fear or denial, and many bristle when the media publicize stories of falsely accused men.

An out-of-context quote advocating that we default to belief in women's reports of rape is quite different from stating that no woman has ever lied about it. And it's amusing to think that someone actually believes Catharine MacKinnon has extensive influence over society.

First off, please point out a "feminist" claiming that no woman has ever lied about being raped or sexually harassed.

Here is a nice essay on that very subject.

And, let be serious, if that particular person didn't go on to boast to a snitch, he probably would have had a decent chance of getting away too.

Actually, the evidence is indicating that Manning never spoke let alone boast to Adrian Lamo. Lamo just happens to work for the vigilante group Project Vigilant who monitors and logs internet conversations of over 250 million US based IP addresses per day. They picked up the chat logs between Manning and one or more MIT students, then handed them off to Lamo to take public soon after the Collateral murder video went public.

Well ok, for the sake of others following along I found an article on Salon airing out these suspicions: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/18/wikileaks

Most of this just seems to be anger directed at Lamo and Wired via proxy.

If the guy doesn't have qualms calling you, a U.S. citizen, a terrorist and placing you on a CIA hit list, and then try to deny your father the right to hire an attorney on your behalf, somehow I doubt he's going to think twice about tapping your phone without a warrant.

(1) That's unconstitutional. The New York Constitution does not grant such a power as "price fixing".

The court could certainly order that they retain only a certain percentage markup on their products for a given time, to be verified with inspectors double-checking their books.

(2) There's no need for such extremes. When the record companies were caught price-fixing CDs (thereby forming an illegal cartel), they were ordered by the courts to refund ~$25 to all their customers, so that erased any illicit profits they had earned.

You're joking right? That settlement was a COMPLETE FRAUD. Customers who had bought 5-6 dozen music CD's over a decade, at $10+ overcharge per CD, were ripped off with a measly $25 voucher to BUY MORE OVERPRICED PRODUCT. The MafiAA companies pocketed the rest, flipped the bird at the artists they regularly rip off, and laughed at how fucking stupid our legal system is.

(3) And then the free market was left to its own devices, and the cost of CDs plummeted from $13 to $9 within a year, since the cartel was no longer allowed to operate. The same will happen to LCDs too, after the price-fixing cartel is broken-up.

Have you seen the prices lately? Pretty fucking uniform - Walmart, Bestbuy, Amazon, all seem to have exactly the same price (or somewhere within 50 cents of each other) on every goddamn CD again, and new releases are hovering steadily around $18. It sounds more like the MafiAA cartel laid low for a few years and went right back to their old tricks again.

"Career politician/administrator" does not refer necessarily to an objective count of how many years she's done something, it has to do with her apparent chosen career path and the statements she has made (or not made) in pursuing that path. Law professors love to give their opinions. The reason one might choose to refrain from doing so is likely because she doesn't want to sabotage future political/administrative positions. Glenn Greenwald has a great criticism of her here. Tellingly, her biggest supporters (like Lawrence Lessig) have not really been able to attack the facts he brings up, but their main defense is "I know her and she'll make a great SC justice," which is a stupid justification to pick her.

Not just that, http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/07/26/times_wikileaks_white_house_meeting
"New York Times reporters met with White House before publishing WikiLeaks story" ie "administration "praised" New York Times reporters for their handling of leaked Afghan war material"
" They also praised us for the way we handled it, for giving them a chance to discuss it, and for handling the information with care. And for being responsible.”
"but the White House doesn't seem to have told the Times that publishing stories based on these documents would in any real way harm our troops."

Oh Whaaaa. You sound like that ridiculous whiner David Brin.

I hate to break this to you, but reality doesn't always fit our views of how the world should be. Some people are born better looking than others. Some people are born smarter than others. Some people are born with perfect looks, perfect health, and a 150 IQ. Such is life, and it's largely genetic. Life's not fair, get over it. Not everyone is capable of bench pressing 500 pounds, play professional baseball, or being a Ph.D physicist.

Lucas doesn't have to write the story you want.

There is already decent evidence to suggest that Lamo never talked to Manning, but was given the logs by this secretive private catch-all spy network "Project Vigilante" and told to turn them in.

Decent evidence? As reported by Socky McSockpuppet?

More likely story: Glen Greenwald has a huge gay crush on Bradley Manning because he'd like to have his own turncoat soldier boy toy. Also "Project Vigilant" scares the poo poo out of Glen because they'd be able to reveal the extent of his sockpuppetry.

Some of the names behind Project Vigilante:

...the list of its officials, which includes Mark Rasch, who headed the DOJ's Internet Crime Unit for 9 years; Kevin Manson, a retired Homeland Security official; George Johnson, who "develop[ed] secure tools for the exchange of sensitive information between federal agencies" for the Pentagon; Ira Winkler, a former NSA official; and Suzanne Gorman, former security chief of the New York Stock Exchange. These are people with extensive, sophisticated expertise in compiling highly invasive data about individuals' Internet activities, and more so -- given their background -- how to package it in a way that can be used by federal agencies.

From here and here.

So... perhaps it is a honeypot as well? In any case, the real operation is run backend to your ISP.

Adrian Lamo worked as an Analyst for Project Vigilant - which specializes in collecting any and all data from major ISP's where the EULA permits third parties (i.e. pretty much all of them).

Lamo also just happened to turn in chat logs for military whistleblower Bradley Manning. There is already decent evidence to suggest that Lamo never talked to Manning, but was given the logs by this secretive private catch-all spy network "Project Vigilante" and told to turn them in.

As usual, Glenn Greenwald has several interesting things to say, even though he's not that technical and ascribes far too much credence to the technical prowess and savvy of high-level government officials with "cyber" or some variant in their name.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/02/privacy/index.html

Uber told Computer World that he decided to divulge his group's role in directing Lamo to turn into an informant because he thought that Lamo's patriotic act was being unfairly disparaged.

There may be other aspects of sex affecting the brain also.

Some believe that hormones transmitting during some sex relieve depression.

The Obama administration also claims the right to simply call any US citizen a terrorist and assassinate him or her. No need for evidence, trials, or convictions. Just the say-so of some shadowy group or person. Now there's some change. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations

They already have the sound cannons that cause instantaneous and permanent hearing damage, and can rapidly cause permanent deafness.

They were used against protesters to the G20 meeting.

Just to protect against your comment being skewed as "police were causing permanent damage to protesters", the Toronto police were approved to use the LRAD in voice mode but blocked from using alert mode. Used as per their instructions and judge's orders, the devices are unlikely to cause permanent damage. Similarly, being authorized to carry guns isn't the same as shooting protesters dead.

Sources:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/828473--toronto-police-can-use-sound-cannons-but-at-lower-range
http://open.salon.com/blog/gordon_wagner/2010/05/27/lrads_--_sound_cannon_for_crowd_control
http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/loudness.html

I like how you take the time to do all that research but you don't bother doing something as simple as typing "Sonic Cannon G20" into Google. If you had you might have realized that he was probably referring to the 2009 meeting in Pittsburgh, not the 2010 meeting in Toronto.

The first link to said search:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2009/sep/25/sonic-cannon-g20-pittsburgh/

...having read what waterboarding is, I can't see any tool being rejected for being too inhumane.

You're familiar with the concept of (small d) democracy, yes?

..and BTW, its a Republic.

Did you fail fourth grade social studies?

You're spouting nonsense that only serves to promote an illegitimate subtext that somehow one political party is somehow more true than the other.

Let's review, with a little help from our friends Mr. Dictionary, and PJ O'Rourke!

Democracy: From the Greek "demokratia", meaning "popular government"
Republic: From the Latin "res publica", meaning "a public matter"

Let's dig a little deeper shall we? Democracy comes in two forms. Direct democracy is where the citizens vote (you guessed it) directly on laws. This exists in a limited form in some states of the United States, through initiatives and referendums. These are also known as "propositions." (Does your state have either initiatives or referendums? If you live in the western United States, I bet it does!) The other from of democracy is Representative democracy. In this form, citizens vote for (You guessed it!) representatives who vote on the laws. If you live in anywhere in the United States, you vote for representatives at all levels of government, local (such as city council members and mayors), state (such as assemblymen and governors), and federal (congressmen, senators, and the president)! What makes both of these forms of government democratic, is that the citizens vote for their government, and the power and legitimacy of the government derives from the people.

If a "democracy" means that people vote, then what's a republic? Simple. A republic is just a fancy word for a government that's headed by an elected official. Does that mean that all democracies are republics? No! Many prominent, stable, and well functioning democracies are not republics! Many of the democracies of Europe, and former European colonies are constitutional monarchies. This means that while the people vote for the government through the election of their members of parliament, the government is legally run by a monarch. It's just happens that in these governments, the monarch is typically a powerless figurehead, and that's what makes these governments democracies rather than absolute monarchies, such as Saudi Arabia.

BONUS QUESTION: What does "federalism" mean? A country with a federalist system of government has the powers of government split between two levels. Some powers are held by the national government (also called the "federal government") and others are delegated to state or provincial governments. Does federalism imply anything about the underlying mechanism of governing? No! While both Canada and the United States are federations, Canada is a constitutional monarchy, while the United States is a republic.

So in conclusion, you don't know what you're talking about. You don't even know the meanings of the words you're using.

i remember it too.... 10 years ago.

Probably a reason why no email client has included this feature in 10 years....

Wonder how long before Eudora sues?

These are private IT companies involved in secret intelligence. The GAO is out of this. Money spent is not reportable because it is funneled from many sources including foreign. And the Wash Post didn't break this story they borrowed material from an author who broke the story years ago. http://open.salon.com/blog/onebyland/2010/07/19/exposed_private_it_companies_in_spy_operations The real author, Shorrock, says the Wash Post turned an eye against the story. Do remember, the Russian, a Microsoft employee, deported last week for supporting the spy operation. Check the Opensalon blog link here and comment.

Ditto the US Constitution. Read it sometime. Carefully. It gives the nation-states of the US the power to completely abolish the US, and go off on their separate routes. You are trying to make a difference where none exists.

Wow. That is just so totally and completely wrong. The states of United States aren't nation-states at all. They're provinces with certain governmental tasks devolved to them, and others not. They aren't nations at all. They never were. The Constitution is not a Compact of Free Association. Delaware is not Micronesia.

You say to read the constitution "carefully," yet there's no exit clause in it. There's a method for adding states (Article IV, Section 3), but there is not an exit clause. Don't believe me? Find it. Show it.

In fact, Texas v White, held:

[T]he Union was solemnly declared to "be perpetual." And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained "to form a more perfect Union." It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?

But what about Texas seceding any time it wants, or "metastasizing" into five states?

When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.

In other words, states can't leave unless the federal government wants them to.

For all your "expertise" you have no idea what you're talking about. Next you'll be saying that the United States isn't a "democracy" but rather a "republic," without understanding the very definitions of the words. (Seriously, they cover this in 4th grade social studies. There's direct democracy and indirect (a.k.a. representative) democracy.)

Don't forget that they can assassinate.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations

Free speech is a myth.
Human rights is a dream.
Freedom isn't real.

The meaning of these three sentences is very simple. Every human on planet earth must submit to the authority of Uncle Sam or they shall be punished with jail or death.

Fortunately the US government has not decided on mass assassinations, but the authority exists under the law to make every living person submit under the threat of death.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations

This means it's no longer an option to disobey the US government. If you disobey then you'll go to jail. If you disobey in the wrong way, you may be declared a terrorist and then you go to jail and get tortured in jail. If you fight by with physical force you can be declared as an enemy combatant and then you can get assassinated.

All of the evidence against you can be kept secret. The fact that you were assassinated and didn't die in a freak accident can be kept secret. The game is submit or go to jail. And sometimes even if you submit you still go to jail if you piss too many people off.

The location is irrelevant. The scary thing is that in the US, the President can point his finger at a U.S. citizen, accuse them of being an "enemy combatant" and then throw them in jail indefinitely without trial. e.g. Hamdi, Padilla, and al-Marri

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2008/07/16/al_marri

Even scarier is the fact that several court decisions have come down in favor of these monarch-like executive powers, and that many citizens actually support this nonsense.

Why would they have to kill someone in a raid when they can kill someone with the flu, or with something which will look like natural causes? You underestimate the abilities of the government. They have biological weapons, this means viruses of all sorts which can kill in all kinds of ways without a trace or shred of evidence so that it's completely deniable. The same legal authority which allows the government to conduct raids and trample free speech is the legal authority which allows them to assassinate American citizens. It's the law that if you are considered to be a terrorist, it's open season on you.

Once the government declares you fair game, they'll put the green light on you and whoever takes you out will become a millionaire. Fortunately it's still expensive for them to do this so they don't have the ability to kill millions of people, but it should be common knowledge that the US government has the power to assassinate American citizens.

The proof is here:
  http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/04/07/can-the-u-s-government-assassinate-u-s-citizens-based-on-secret-evidence/

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations

If you think journalists are full of shit, then you'll enjoy this excellent condemnation by the always pissed off Glenn Greenwald...

some relevant links

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/09/transparency/index.html

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/07/transparency/index.html

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/30/media/index.html

some relevant links

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/09/transparency/index.html

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/07/transparency/index.html

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/30/media/index.html

some relevant links

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/09/transparency/index.html

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/07/transparency/index.html

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/30/media/index.html

Every Musician should read this, it's the truth [yes, I do know]:

Courtney Love Does the Math (2000):

http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html

TFA is heavily based on a Courtney Love speech from 10 years ago at http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html . Prettier charts in TFA, though.