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Europeans can get out of H1Bs into green cards much much faster. The US diversity law only allows at most 10% of the immigrants every year to be from one country and so, Indians and Chinese nationals have to wait in line for their turn to come up. There is no line for Europeans.

It's a little misleading to say "Europeans"... *Every* country except for India and China has a shorter waiting list, including all other Asian and South American countries, as well as Canada and Mexico.

And even China is only about 3 years behind the rest of the world. Only India has a real problem where the current wait is 8-11 years (*not* decades).

It is decades if you are in EB3. Check the visa bulletin for April 2014 for EB3 India and compare it to the visa bulletin in April 2015. You will see that it is ~11 years in 2014 [15SEP03] and has moved only 4 months by April 2015 [08JAN04]. If you extrapolate, it is moving at the rate of ~4 months a year.

You can check it yourself:
http://travel.state.gov/conten...
http://travel.state.gov/conten...

This means that people are effectively chained to their employers for decades to the detriment of the US labor market.

Europeans can get out of H1Bs into green cards much much faster. The US diversity law only allows at most 10% of the immigrants every year to be from one country and so, Indians and Chinese nationals have to wait in line for their turn to come up. There is no line for Europeans.

It's a little misleading to say "Europeans"... *Every* country except for India and China has a shorter waiting list, including all other Asian and South American countries, as well as Canada and Mexico.

And even China is only about 3 years behind the rest of the world. Only India has a real problem where the current wait is 8-11 years (*not* decades).

It is decades if you are in EB3. Check the visa bulletin for April 2014 for EB3 India and compare it to the visa bulletin in April 2015. You will see that it is ~11 years in 2014 [15SEP03] and has moved only 4 months by April 2015 [08JAN04]. If you extrapolate, it is moving at the rate of ~4 months a year.

You can check it yourself:
http://travel.state.gov/conten...
http://travel.state.gov/conten...

This means that people are effectively chained to their employers for decades to the detriment of the US labor market.

Stating facts is "emotional"?

No, emotional is the way you state them. And your posts are full of emotion.

Since when is "emotional" an insult.

When it prevents you from thinking clearly. And you aren't thinking clearly, you are defending a politician.

Since you don't want to look up the relevant policies, here is the retention policy, here is the state department communications policy. In case the documents seem unclear to you, Scott Gration was fired by Clinton in part because of not following email procedures.

But none of that matters. Who cares if it was illegal? Nixon's "18 lost minutes" were not illegal, but that doesn't make it right. Even if somehow she thought it was ok to run her own email server, deleting half the emails and sending the rest over on paper was something she knew was bad.

Stating facts is "emotional"?

No, emotional is the way you state them. And your posts are full of emotion.

Since when is "emotional" an insult.

When it prevents you from thinking clearly. And you aren't thinking clearly, you are defending a politician.

Since you don't want to look up the relevant policies, here is the retention policy, here is the state department communications policy. In case the documents seem unclear to you, Scott Gration was fired by Clinton in part because of not following email procedures.

But none of that matters. Who cares if it was illegal? Nixon's "18 lost minutes" were not illegal, but that doesn't make it right. Even if somehow she thought it was ok to run her own email server, deleting half the emails and sending the rest over on paper was something she knew was bad.

http://www.state.gov/j/ct/list...

Libya was on there until recently, and North Korea was removed under the last load of negotiations.

But if they renounce Citizenship for tax purposes, they still have to pay tax -- "P.L. 104-191 contains changes in the taxation of U.S. nationals who renounce or otherwise lose U.S. nationality. In general, any person who lost U.S. nationality within 10 years immediately preceding the close of the taxable year, whose principle purpose in losing nationality was to avoid taxation, will be subject to continued taxation." http://travel.state.gov/conten...

The USA charges its citizens for evacuation, unlike all other countries in the world who also evacuate their citizens from trouble zones ..... for free.

Will the U.S. government pay for my travel? How much will it cost?
Departure assistance is expensive. U.S. law 22 U.S.C. 2671(b) (2) (A) requires that any departure assistance be provided "on a reimbursable basis to the maximum extent practicable.” This means that evacuation costs are ultimately your responsibility; you will be asked to sign a form promising to repay the U.S. government.

These costs have bankrupted people in the past, leaving them wishing they had not been "rescued".

US citizens are in many places treated better as a result.

US citizens are becoming systematically toxic and are treated like shit as a result, especially by the financial system. FATCA is a completely insane law and has resulted in banks around the world terminating accounts and refusing to make loans just because someone is a US citizen or has a green card. And unfortunately what many don't realise is you cannot get out of US citizenship just by paying a few thousand dollars as the summary suggests. There is a crippling exit tax that forces you to pay tax on the assumption you just sold all your assets. It's a form of capital control, except one you cannot escape from due to the long arm of the US government. Even better, USA can decide that the citizenship revocation is invalid if they think it was done for tax reasons. They can just keep forcing you to pay taxes forever, if they want to. It's basically modern slavery.

My advice to the story submitter - don't do it!!. US citizenship is already dramatically worse than citizenships in other civilised countries and it's getting worse every year. In fact it's akin to a form of slavery. US citizens abroad have no functioning representation in Congress and they are routinely exploited as a result, citizenship based taxation being only one example.

Swedish and Belgian citizenship together is a perfect combination! Why would you want anything more?

But they won't let you keep old citizenship if you decide to become a citizen of the USA.

That's absolutely not true. At one time ('80's I think), on becoming a natualized US citizen, you had to hand over your foreign passport. Not now.

Here is what the State Department has to say on the matter

it doesn't matter if it's a marketed mill... we can't ship a ball bearing certain places if you tell us it can be used on a tank. Regulations are what they are.

There are no regulations on shipping machine tools, even if they are marketed as being for the manufacture of firearms. Neither shipping a firearm manufacturing tool nor even manufacturing a firearm are the slightest bit illegal. Comparing this to ITAR stuff is unwarranted.

Does he get to use US Embassies?

How does one use an embassy?

As an expat, there are a very small number of reasons (I forget, maybe 4 or 5) that I will even be allowed into the embassy. Basically, my US passport will get me a ticket out of the country if WWIII starts, but other than that, the fact that the embassy exists is of absolutely no day-to-day use to me.

Embassy Services

That page shows a picture of a helicopter saving a US Citizen hurt in the earthquake in Haiti. US Citizens got helicopters, everybody else got Cholera. Sounds like a decent benny.

The US government funded Tor development and encourages its use as a way to avoid repressive governments and then considers its use in the US to be a suspcious act.

The irony, it burns!

Boko Haram has stated openly they are an Islamic group and are trying to form an ISIS like African Caliphate . What more do you need to see the truth?

Have a look at http://www.cfr.org/nigeria/bok... . Yes, Boko Haram is a very violent and abhorrent group (or rather a set of groups) right now, but they weren't always like that. Their current actions also have little or nothing to do with Islam (a bit like how "spreading democracy" had little to do with the Iraq war). At the same time, the Nigerian "Joint Task Force" of Nigerian police, army and private security forces (primarily funded by oil companies) is regularly accused of "summary executions, use of excessive force, and widespread arrests of suspected extremists, many based on little or no evidence" (words of the US Department of State, not mine) in the Niger delta (where Boko Haram is active). The paragraph in which that sentence appears also sketches the situation after 2009 (when Boko Haram became violent) quite well.

The JTF has been active since 2003 though, and some people directly argue (albeit in a mess of many missing/broken links that make it hard to check several argued points) that they basically made Boko Haram into what it is today with the objective of being able to justify the use of excessive force against them.

I still have to read up more on it from different sources, but from what I've read until now it seems that really has very little to do with Islam. It's just the banner they use due to their origins, just like we in the West (not just the US) justify almost all of our actions with "helping democracy", "supporting human rights", "increasing free trade" etc, even when that banner doesn't cover the actions at all. In many cases, it's mainly a cultural reference to something that the people involved (on the "aggressor's" side) can identify with as "good" or that they can relate to.

That's why we moved to fiat currencies - economic growth was being limited by the available supply of gold - if we couldn't mine more, we couldn't pay people more, so existing stock got more valuable and people stopped spending, stalling out the economy.

One correction: the move to pure fiat currencies globally was forced by Nixon's dissolution of the Bretton Woods system, which had a lot to do with the US overspending on the Vietnam War, among other things.

Communism is not so bad, the dictatorship of communist party is pretty evil.

Meaningless difference — communism is bad because of the dictatorship of the Communist Party. Wherever attempted in earnest, Communism resulted in millions of dead and utter devastation for the survivors, who are left without both human rights (a given with any Collectivist ideology) and any material wealth.

But considering the US makes coups in countries to install their own dictators in them.

Dictators can be very different. Compare Pinochet, who stepped down on his own, and left his country as Latin America's top economy, with Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez — the guys, who never step down (only carried out) and turn their countries into shitholes?

on regular basis

What "regular basis"? We haven't done that in decades!..

As for the WWII, Japan sends its thank you card on regular basis.

Oh, so the country that attacked us and got its head handed to it as a result is upset with us — and that's your argument to support the notion of our being inherently evil somehow? But, great — if really do think, we should not have been "screwing with the world" during the WW2 either, then you've made my point...

As for Europe, you only went there to protect your own interest and to grab as much of Europe as possible before Russia gets there.

Really? So, just what land did we "grab" as a result and what sort of economic benefit did we get from it?

There are still no Japanese being born with straight teeth, 70 years later

Citation needed.

If you actually cared, you entered the war in 1938 or 1939 or 1940 or 1941 ... you know?

Cared for what exactly? The war did only started in 1939, and we started helping soon afterwards.

As the other guy said, you really need to at least get through high school level history

You — and the other asshole — should stop ad hominems. Attack the argument, not the arguer next time.

Exceptional workers don't need H1Bs. H1Bs are not designed to bring talent to the US; they're (ostensibly) designed to meet a temporary demand that cannot be adequately met by the domestic workforce. That's why they are temporary permits. Talented workers get first priority in immigrating, and I welcome them along with you. I welcome anyone who immigrates here, TBH. More power to them. But that doesn't change the fact that H1Bs are being exploited, and it's negatively impacting the labor market for citizens as well.

What are you talking about? H1B to green card takes years and years. I'm Canadian, and it took me 6 years. Takes longer in India and China.

According to this: http://travel.state.gov/conten..., an EB3 (the most common classification) can't possibly get a green card today unless they started before April 2011. Which was more than 3 years ago. Even an EB2 from India has to have started 5 years ago.

And that's after a MASSIVE improvement recently. Back in April of 2011, the backlog was at least 8 years for everybody. So I guess if you extrapolate, maybe in some years you'll start seeing a 1 year for this step -- but again, this is just a step (which occurs near the end of the green card process -- this is just for the "Adjustment of Status" step)!

The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) has been working with WHO, MSF, and Red Cross since the outbreak began in march to map roads and villages in the affected areas. These maps are used by medical teams to move people, medicine, and equipment around, as well as to do "contact tracing" of infected people to see who they might also have infected. The maps are crowdsourced and released under a copyleft license like wikipedia uses. If you want to help out you can check out a task to work on on the HOT task manager and help improve the maps these organizations are using to do their work. There are some instructional videos on the MapGive site run by the US State Department which has donated a bunch of imagery for us to better map the affected areas.

Please take some time to learn how to help with this mapping and help these doctors do what they need to do.

-AndrewBuck

Oh, so it's a separate nation that Israel recognizes?

No, they are not a nation — not in Israel's opinion, not in their own, not in that of the rest of the world. When the UN split the former British mandate into two parts, Jews proceeded to establishing their own state. The Arabs, instead of likewise establishing theirs, declared war... That was because — in their own opinions — they weren't separate nations (Jordanians, Iraqis, Syrians), but simply Arabs. They lost that war — and the subsequent ones. By the end of the 20th century, Arabs have given up attacking Israel openly and switched to terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other.

That tactics seems to be succeeding...

Not a territory they claim?

No, Israel has no territorial claim to Gaza strip. Are you not embarrassed over being wrong so often?

This is an obvious troll, but to clarify, there's an agreement in place to ensure that a set amount of water will flow into Mexico. You can read more about it HERE. I was implying that if Arizona didn't use or sell its share that it would flow across the border in addition to what is guaranteed by law.

Snowden should fill out one of these for Greenwald and have him send the FOIA request:

Authorization for the Release of Records to Another Individual
http://foia.state.gov/Request/ThirdPartyAuthorization.aspx

/The link is for the State Department, but the release is part of the FOIA law and (AFAIK) applies to any FOIA requests.

http://travel.state.gov/conten...

You need to learn more about your visa system. H-1B is *not* an immigrant visa, nor a path to citizenship or even permanent residency.

You couldn't legally hire a person on an H-1B or J visa (J is for foreign exchange students and such) even if you wanted to - unless you are prepared to sponsor them, in which case, you're supposed to try hard to find a local first anyway.

It's some of those big companies, usually in software consultancy and other such BS, who seem to be taking advantage of the situation, gaming the system and giving immigrants a bad name.

http://travel.state.gov/conten...

The telegram was contributory, but the submarine attacks would have drawn the US into WWI by themselves.

https://history.state.gov/mile...

It depends a lot on your education and what country you're from. Department of State posts monthly updates giving the current "priority dates" - meaning that applications submitted on or before that date are eligible for processing - you can see the tables here (scroll down to "Employment-based preferences"). The three categories are explained here.

So for an Indian engineer with a PhD, if he submitted his application in 2004, they still haven't got to reviewing it yet Then, of course, once they start reviewing, it takes some time - anywhere from a week to several months, though most cases are wrapped up in a month. I'm a Russian with a Bachelor equivalent, and I'm still about 2 years (+ processing time) away from mine.

(Keep in mind that an application can't usually be filed right away, either - there may be need to establish the degree equivalent, do labor certification etc.)

It depends a lot on your education and what country you're from. Department of State posts monthly updates giving the current "priority dates" - meaning that applications submitted on or before that date are eligible for processing - you can see the tables here (scroll down to "Employment-based preferences"). The three categories are explained here.

So for an Indian engineer with a PhD, if he submitted his application in 2004, they still haven't got to reviewing it yet Then, of course, once they start reviewing, it takes some time - anywhere from a week to several months, though most cases are wrapped up in a month. I'm a Russian with a Bachelor equivalent, and I'm still about 2 years (+ processing time) away from mine.

(Keep in mind that an application can't usually be filed right away, either - there may be need to establish the degree equivalent, do labor certification etc.)

You know, the pact to outlaw war. Signed in 1928.

Didn't work out so well.

And even if it were signed by a significant number of nations, we could be sure the non-democratic ones would be violating the ban before the ink was even dry.

Unenforceable treaties are actually worse than worthless: they constrain good actors without deterring bad ones.

Requesting a replacement Social Security card does not explicitly *require* photo identification. All they ask for is "evidence of identity" and specifically mention scenarios where you may lack government-issued photo ID (ex. license, state-issued ID card, or passport). The government-issued photo ID just makes the process quicker/easier for them, that's all, else you're asked to provide alternate forms of identification: military record, certificate of naturalisation or certificate of birth, employee ID card, medical record or immunization record, Medicaid card, or even a life insurance policy or adoption papers. I had to do this several years ago as I lost my original social security card (I had copies, just not the actual paper card provided by the SSA).

It works the same way when getting a US passport, actually -- if you can't provide either a driver's license or state-issued ID card, you're given about 20-25 alternate forms of proof (the more you have of these the better; call the State Dept. if you want the full list, the website doesn't list off all of them). You can also fill out a DS-71 form (witness validation -- someone who's known you for 2+ years, is a US citizen or permanent resident, has valid ID (see above), and must be there with you physically at the time of passport submission).

How do I know all this crap, especially passports? Because a few months ago I went through trying to get a US passport at the local post office (a few blocks from here) -- solely for use as a form of ID -- resulted in irritation and humiliation. I do not have a driver's license (I don't drive nor have I ever) and cannot go to a DMV to get a state-issued ID card due to medical problems (hence why I wanted a passport). I'm a US citizen and was born here. The "reviewer" at the post office, despite being provided with 7 alternate forms of permitted ID, *and* with a witness (someone I've known for over 15 years who has a valid US passport and driver's license), rejected accepting my passport submission citing "the circumstances were weird [that I had no plans to travel abroad yet were asking for a passport]", speculated that "I could have found some random dude and paid {said friend} to act as a witness for a DS-71", and told me to come back "when I had a doctor's note to prove I couldn't go to the DMV to get a state ID card". To be clear: it was not a passport agency which rejected me, it was some jackass at an official "passport acceptance facility" (i.e. post office).

Because I kept questioning myself ("What did I do wrong? What forms of secondary ID weren't compliant?"), I made a call to the State Dept., which resulted in an investigation -- they were particularly interested in the fact that I was told to get a doctor's letter, since that has no bearing on anything relating to a passport and is a very tricky subject here in California. Two managers at the State Dept. both told me that the doofus should have accepted everything I had -- the DS-71 wasn't even necessary, so they say -- and sent it off to Los Angeles where it probably would have been approved. I haven't gone back there post-investigation since there's apparently no way to guarantee I'll see someone different (I worry I'll get the same guy, despite the investigation, and he'll just be an even bigger dick), and going up to San Francisco to the official passport agency isn't an option given my health.

Sorry for the long story there, but this "ID verification" thing is still fresh in my mind.

The one place that does require state-issued photo ID to get something is -- are you ready? -- a library card from a local library; they won't accept anything else, which is probably what you were getting at (you can actually use a local library card as a form of alternate ID when applying for a passport, but how do you

Oh dear, oh dear. Yes, I have to agree here; that is horrible. Terrible. Possibly even Terrorism. Ranting and raving against the US! Having her photo taken with Fidel!! Because no US politician would ever rant or rave against neighbouring counties. Or have their photo taken with dubious world leaders.

Well, that is the Slashdot rule, isn't it? Whenever the subject of Iraq comes up you can bet that someone will point out that decades ago pictures were taken of Donald Rumsfeld meeting Saddam so that "totally proves" that Saddam was put in power by the US, and was a US puppet, and .. and ... and. Or is this one of the many rules that is only operative when it is to the disadvantage of the US?

Certainly. If a politician says some mean things about the US, that TOTALLY justifies US meddling in that politician's country. There is lots of jurisprudence here, because it is exactly the time-honoured schoolyard argument that teachers like so much: "But teach, THEY started it!". (And in the same time-honoured schoolyard tradition, the original offence is of course microscopic compared to the retaliation.)

You may notice that individual nations deal with each other, there is no "teacher." But you wouldn't suggest that anyone speak out of turn, right? Not even for human rights, for those that have no voice?

state dept can do little. It is time for the govs. to stop it.

The state department is part of the government. They are specifically tasked with protection of this sort they just don't have the balls to go up against China.
http://www.state.gov/e/eb/tpp/...

here's a few numbers... 7.2 billion people on the planet at mid-2013
ref: http://www.state.gov/secretary...

61% of the *global* population in 2013 did not even use the internet.
ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

that leaves 2.8 billion internet users, of which facebook claims 1.23 billion are regular (monthly) logged in users.

i call bullshit. 44% of the total global internet-using population is NOT ON FACEBOOK. of those 1.23 billion regular (at least monthly users), i'd say at LEAST your estimate of 50%, if not two-thirds, are bullshit or fake accounts of some sort or another.

The issue wasn't that there wasn't a sufficient hospital in Ecuador, just not on the Galapagos Islands which are almost 1000 km off the coast of Ecuador. "In smaller communities and in the Galápagos Islands, services are limited, and the quality is generally well below U.S. standards." Travel.State.Gov

See Edward Snowden. Heck, just have a Federal law enforcement agency request it and the State Department will revoke your passport. Meaning all that has to happen is a Federal LEA decide you're a person of interest or "under investigation" - no charges - and you can have your ability to enter another country eliminated.

If you want to know about security clearance in the US, you can check it at http://www.state.gov/m/ds/clearances/c10978.htm

For the cost of getting security clearance, you who is an employee would not be paying but your employer. I believe the cost is varied depended on case by case. http://news.clearancejobs.com/2011/08/07/how-much-does-it-really-cost-to-get-a-security-clearance/ gives some idea about how much but it is 2 years old...

Okay, AC, if you say so. But, here's the process, so go investigate to your heart's content.

Really? I thought you had to opt OUT, not in. The fact remains that the state levies a tax and collects monies for a religion, and pays for the upkeep of churches and their staff.

"The federal government and parliament have responsibility for recognizing religious groups and paying the wages and pensions of their ministers." and "Broadly speaking, religious groups received approximately 645 million euros from the government in 2009" (source http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/171685.pdf)

So not so much separation of church and state as you would like us to think.

The DHS oversees the Visa program along with the State Department.

more info Here.

Sorry, but you are going to have to start posting something more credible, with specific links to actual statements that back that up. The only thing I can see is vague claims and nothing posting to the actual press release proving it. What I CAN find is the following:

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/

That article links to the following press release which (according to factcheck) was posted "about 10:00pm":
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/09/197628.htm

In that press release, it says "we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed". Well, on that same factcheck page, it indicates that:

"Between 4:15 p.m.-4:45 p.m.: Sean Smith is found dead"

So unless you can provide something specific, an actual link to the press release from clinton, the state department, or a credible news source, which very clearly indicates Clinton stating the deaths of specific people who, at that time, had not yet died, and I can only assume that this is just a case of conspiracy nuts "misunderstanding" a few of the facts and going off on a wild goose chase.

On that thought: as soon as I renew my passport, I'm getting one of the aluminum card/passport holders/wallets. Having RFIDs about all kinds of data available out in the open is nuts. Yes, I'm aware of LPSs, facial recognition from video, but those are still a lot harder to do than just reading an RFID.

The State Department says your RIFD enabled passport can't be read unless the passport is opened:

Skimming.” We use an embedded metallic element in our passports. One of the simplest measures for preventing unauthorized reading of e-passports is to add RF blocking material to the cover of an e-passport. Before such a passport can be read, it has to be physically opened. It is a simple and effective method for reducing the opportunity for unauthorized reading of the passport at times when the holder does not expect it.

With any Android phone having NFC capabilities, and a free app from the Google Market ,you can prove that to be another government big lie.
So the shielded holder might be a good idea.

But Which LPSs are you aware of?

That's a good point. While the US and the UK have had a formal agreement on intelligence sharing since WWII (the UKUSA agreement), they're allies of the US, with a mutual defense treaty (under NATO) with the US.

Israel is not formally an ally of the US. While the US provides "security assistance" to Israel, there's no mutual defense treaty. There was an "exchange of diplomatic notes on mutual defense assistance" in 1952, and there's the Camp David agreement (US, Egypt, Israel) from 1979 which ended the wars between Israel and Egypt. Other assistance from the US is on an ad-hoc basis, and it's mostly money, not troops.

This is significant. When some parties in Israel were talking about bombing Iran, and expecting the US to help, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told Israel that the US would not become involved. Not Congress, not the President, the head of the JCS. No treaty, no support without orders from higher.

Yes the label does make sense, especially in taking over a French colonial war in South East Asia.

I'm afraid you've got that wrong. The French lost that war and gave up their colony. The US wasn't trying to take over South Vietnam and make it a colony. The US was helping South Vietnam avoid being taken over by communist military forces loyal to North Vietnam. Australia participated in the military mission during the Vietnam War, as it had in the Korean War.

A few details about Korea you left out.

The Korean War, 1950-1953

. As the war drew to a close in August of 1945, two U.S. army colonels (one of whom, Dean Rusk, would later become Secretary of State) proposed that the Soviet Union take responsibility for accepting the surrender of Japanese troops in the part of the Korean peninsula north of the 38th parallel, whereas U.S. troops would receive the surrender south of that line. This decision resulted in the division and separation of many villages along the 38th parallel and families with ties across that line. The postwar planners had intended that the division between North and South Korea would be a temporary administrative solution. After the war, the United Nations agreed to oversee elections in the North and South in 1947 in the hopes that it would lead to the reunification of Korea under a democratically elected government. However, the Soviet Union blocked the elections in its section and instead, supported Kim Il Sung as leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In the South, the United States supported Syngman Rhee as the elected leader of the newly founded Republic of Korea (ROK). Both Kim and Rhee were nationalists dedicated to the idea of reunification, although each ruled with a different ideological vision. In 1949, under a UN agreement, both the Soviet Union and the United States withdrew their military forces from Korea, but both left large numbers of advisors on the peninsula. The two sides were to continue negotiations over elections to reunify the country, and although the United States preferred that the resulting government not be communist, in 1949 it was still not prepared to commit militarily to preventing that outcome. Both sides periodically instigated skirmishes across the 38th parallel, but the war formally began when the DPRK crossed the demarcation line and attacked the ROK on June 25, 1950. Both Korean governments had been adamant about reunifying the peninsula, and the Soviet-supported DPRK saw an opportunity to do so with a swift strike.

As to the line for the US Marine Corp hymn you quote, it notes places they fought, not territories added to the United States.

I got stopped because I have dual citizenship and the guy couldn't stop saying "We don't recognize dual citizenship here".

Some guys need to be locked in a room whose only other contents are certain documents and not let out until they truly understand those documents.

Ask John Kerry!

Last week, Secretary of State John Kerry visted Pakistan. In an interview with Geo TV he remarked on Egypt:

SECRETARY KERRY: [...] The military was asked to intervene by millions and millions of people, all of whom were afraid of a descendance into chaos, into violence. And the military did not take over, to the best of our judgment so â" so far. To run the country, thereâ(TM)s a civilian government. In effect, they were restoring democracy. And the fact is --

QUESTION: By killing people on the roads?

SECRETARY KERRY: Oh, no. Thatâ(TM)s not restoring democracy, and weâ(TM)re very, very concerned about, very concerned about that. And Iâ(TM)ve had direct conversations with President Mansour, with Vice President ElBaradei, with General al-Sisi, as have other members of our government. And Iâ(TM)ve talked to the Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, so Iâ(TM)ve been in touch with all of the players there. And we have made it clear that that is absolutely unacceptable, it cannot happen.

Now, as you know, these situations can be very confusing and very difficult. Weâ(TM)re working very hard right now with Lady Catherine Ashton, with various officials, with other foreign ministers of other countries, in order to try to see if we can resolve this peacefully. But the story of Egypt is not finished yet, so we have to see how it unfolds in the next days.

He cannot legally take it out of the country due to ITAR.

You seem a little confused.

ITAR only covers military equipment, ordnance and services. Perhaps I missed something, but servers and encrypted emails aren't included in the Munitions List which details stuff that can't be exported.

N.B: IANAL

He cannot legally take it out of the country due to ITAR.

You seem a little confused.

ITAR only covers military equipment, ordnance and services. Perhaps I missed something, but servers and encrypted emails aren't included in the Munitions List which details stuff that can't be exported.

N.B: IANAL

I remember something that happened years ago uncannily like this whole Snowden affair.

Remember a decade back, when there was a guy running for POTUS as a decorated war hero at a time we were involved in two wars? The other side made some rediculous attacks on his war record. So did he react like a war hero? Perhaps attack his assailants in some way? Heck no! He sat around for months taking no action other than whining impotently about the lack of help from his opponent who wasn't even (provably) directly involved.

This is pretty much exactly how we've been handling this whole Snowden affair. Did we just send folks out to arrest him? No. So did we instead just quitely bide our time waiting for him to try to move to some non-shithole country so we can arrest him (in the meantime, leaving him effectively in a large jail)? Nope. We just sit on our ass for months whining impotently that Russia, who we tweak at every opportunity, should go out of their way to help us. Funny how similar these situations are.

So about that incompetent POTUS candidate...I wonder whatever happened to him.

Your comment got me curious, so I went and looked it up. From a 2006 report on human rights practices published by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor:

"According to press reports, lashings were generally administered with a thin reed by a man who must hold a book under his arm to prevent him from lifting the arm too high. The strokes, delivered through a thin shirt, are not supposed to leave permanent damage but are designed to leave painful welts that bleed and bruise."

A paragraph or so above that quote is a reference from Human Rights Watch that says that the lashed do not receive medical treatment.

ITAR is a not a security clearance classification. It's an export control classification.

This is more than a little important because it means no "foreign persons" can access the data. Inside or outside the US. You can let a US person in France see the data, for example. Foreign persons is defined in 120.16 of ITAR. Check http://pmddtc.state.gov/regulations_laws/documents/official_itar/2012/ITAR_Part_120.pdf (listed as Page 467)

Basically, you can't give any ITAR data to any foreign person. If the foreign person could access the data, even if they do not, you're still breaking the law. There's a presumption of guilt if you say, leave ITAR data on a public share in your company, where foreign nationals could have accessed it. Do not put ITAR data on any disk you don't control unless it's reasonable that the provider cannot access it (ie encrypted).

If DropBox has or had one foreign national that could access your account (which is likely) and the files were unencrypted, you already committed a federal crime and should give a voluntary disclosure to DDTC They'll likely give you a slap on the wrist or more likely do nothing, especially if voluntarily disclose and implement a solution to fix the problem. You personally will not get hit with anything. Try to cover it up, and you may personally be held responsible for a) knowingly breaking the law and b) knowingly trying to cover it up. You as an individual, in addition to your company.

Back on the original topic, use a VPN (preferred) or self-host an app on a web server you control. I'd just use VPN and rsync. As a best practice, if a user is going overseas, send them with a clean laptop and tell them not to locally save any files.

Disclaimer: I worked for Export Control at a Very Large Defense Contractor (they needed a geek, I got the short straw). I am however not YOUR export control representative. While the above is correct, it is only for reference and should not be taken as legal or binding advice. Seriously, order everything you can from Society for International Affairs and attend some conferences, or your business will be shut down by DDTC for ITAR violations. You can email me using my nick at my nick dot org if you have any other ITAR questions. I used to laugh when Department of State folks said "Please don't frame the question in terms of any felonies", now I just repeat it.

A lot of the danger in these systems is not how they are used right now, it is how they might be used by someone we haven't even identified yet who's running the show in 5 or 10 or 50 years.

I agree on both points. That is why there needs to be good oversight by Congress, the executive branch, and the courts (when they are involved). Frankly I would like to see if Congressional oversight could be strengthened somehow, perhaps through the GAO - Government Accountability Office. It is regrettable, but radical Islamist violence and terrorism will be with us a long time. After 9/11 it was observed that based on historical examples this sort of problem can last decades, 20, 30, 50 years.* The American people need to be protected, both from terrorism ( which resulted in 71,803 people killed, wounded, or kidnapped in 2007), and from potential overreach or abuse from intelligence agencies. It is a delicate act governing intelligence agencies - they must be kept accountable to Congress, the President, and the Courts, but not needlessly hampered in a manner that cripples their effectiveness.

...several prominent US politicians including a man who ran for President stated publicly and unambiguously that the surviving suspect should be treated as an enemy combatant and thus excluded from the normal rules of due process.

That should be understood for what it is in essence - advocacy, and posturing, but not decision making. The Executive branch has the power, the say over how he will be treated for prosecution under existing law. Since it appears that the two brothers, and the rumored sleeper cell possibly connected to them, were linked to terrorists in Dagestan, it could open up prosecution under the Law of War in a military commission as a legal matter. As a policy matter, terrorists captured within the territory of the United States have generally been routed through the criminal justice system. Terrorists captured outside the United States have been subject to being sent to Guantanamo, although I seem to recall that several have been brought into the criminal justice system as well.

And if I may adjust your language - what happened in Boston wasn't a tragedy, it was an atrocity. It was a deliberate attack with the intent of killing and maiming innocent civilians enjoying a sporting event with an international reputation, following, and participation.

2013 Boston Marathon bombing 3 dead, 254 wounded. Fifteen victims suffered amputations, two of which had double amputations.

I think that was a good post you made.

*And with the ease of travel and international communications today, combined with the unrest in so many Muslim nations, it could easily last longer. Al Qaida's goals are very long term, so they are planning for the long haul.

Yeah, that's not difficult. Now all we do is take the upswing in the number of attacks which happen, and on what day and adjust for time. And you see what?

Right. Please feel free to remain as ignorant as you want.

If Big Business was serious about their rhetoric, they'd be trying to expand the E-visa quotas instead of the H1-B quotas.
That would allow us to truly recruit the cream of the crop instead of trying to vacuum up even more of the 1~1.5 million engineers that India graduates every year.