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You'd think the government would phony up at least one person who died, but nope:

US Military Admits No One Died Because Of Manning's Leaks :

The report also notes that while, in the past, some have claimed that an Afghani man killed by the Taliban was a result of those leaks "the supposed informant the Taliban claimed to have executed was not in fact named in the leaked materials."

It's easy to hate Microsoft.

So you say, but to be fair, how can you hate them when they've generously retracted all the vicious slanders they've hurled at Google and other competitors over the years? Scroogled, anyone?

How can you stay angry with them when they've so publicly recanted their "235 patents", "FOSS is a cancer" and "Get the Facts" lies and done so much to redress the damage to Linux and the FOSS community?

Why would you hold them in contempt when they're reversed all the damage they caused by whiteanting ISO and blocking the adoption of genuinely open document formats? Though it's true that it would be better if they stopped issuing fake DMCA takedowns of their competitors.

And of course, there's no way in the world they could have deliberately provoked this latest contretemps by publishing a non-conforming app without informing or consulting the Google engineers who'd been working with them. That'd be really unlikely, especially given how much contrition they've shown for their past misadventures...

So are we pretending now that the United States doesn't have it's own State Media propaganda outlets? And no I'm not talking about Fox news or MSNBC. They are basically extensions of their respective political parties but not directly run by the feds.

I'm talking about Voice of America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America
They broadcast US propaganda all over the world at the behest of the state department.

But wait you say? This is only directed at foreign audiences like the middle east to counteract the state run media there?

Ah, but no... Congress just repealed the decades old "propaganda ban" and directed Voice of America to start broadcasting inside the united states:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-propaganda-ban-repealed-freeing-state-dept-to-direct-its-broadcasting-arm-american-citizens.shtml

That's right, The United States of America, beacon of freedom, land of the free, home of the brave, will now have a State media organization dedicated to manipulating the American people into believing their government is Righteous and good.

greater than 1% of our population is in prison.
We have a never ending nebulous "War on Terror"
We have a secret domestic spy network that captures all of your communications
Our government now imprisons people indefinitely without warrant, cause or judicial oversight.
Our president now orders the death of foreigners AND American citizens without any oversight what-so-ever as long as he feels they are an imminent threat.

Welcome to the the Police state.
Russia's not looking so bad now is it?

You can spin it any way you want, but you know our way of life in America is the tits. I will brag about that to the end of the Earth.
From your whole list, the biggest threat to 99.9999999% of Americans is getting caught with marijuana, and that will go away some day.

I wish everyone on this planet could brag about how good their way of life is. That's how things should be.

So are we pretending now that the United States doesn't have it's own State Media propaganda outlets? And no I'm not talking about Fox news or MSNBC. They are basically extensions of their respective political parties but not directly run by the feds.

I'm talking about Voice of America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America
They broadcast US propaganda all over the world at the behest of the state department.

But wait you say? This is only directed at foreign audiences like the middle east to counteract the state run media there?

Ah, but no... Congress just repealed the decades old "propaganda ban" and directed Voice of America to start broadcasting inside the united states:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-propaganda-ban-repealed-freeing-state-dept-to-direct-its-broadcasting-arm-american-citizens.shtml

That's right, The United States of America, beacon of freedom, land of the free, home of the brave, will now have a State media organization dedicated to manipulating the American people into believing their government is Righteous and good.

greater than 1% of our population is in prison.
We have a never ending nebulous "War on Terror"
We have a secret domestic spy network that captures all of your communications
Our government now imprisons people indefinitely without warrant, cause or judicial oversight.
Our president now orders the death of foreigners AND American citizens without any oversight what-so-ever as long as he feels they are an imminent threat.

Welcome to the the Police state.
Russia's not looking so bad now is it?

> I have been in countries with little copyright protection and guess what happens with their music and film industry?

I dunno, maybe... government shills will use their great success to claim that, er, copyright needs to be strengthened?

But please, feel free to serve up some referenced facts which actually confirm your anecdotal opinion. I'm actually quite open-minded.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/07/11/day-six-facebook-teen-jail.html

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130502/18364622931/ma-teen-arrested-held-without-bail-posting-supposed-terrorist-threat-facebook.shtml

Before you argue that that is not "protected" speech let me remind you of the point I was making about being allowed unrestricted freedom of speech in your own home joking around with your friends. The NSA is making nearly all forms of communication fullly public to be put under the microscope by law enforcement agencies looking for something to bust you on.

Also had as mission to protect whisteblowers in 2009. But Obama and Bush were more or less puppets of the people in real charge of the things, not sure how much back this goes. Anyway, people elected and reelected Bush, and elected and reelected Obama, even being evident what were their real platforms (at least, for the reelection in both cases). No matter which of the 2 main parties you picked, you are still choosing which hammer want to hit you (and everyone else) in the head

I remember a few years ago this Democratic senator making impassioned speeches for protection for whistleblowers and against Bush's wars in the middle-east, gitmo prison and NSA spying on Americans.

I wish I could remember his name.

Yeah that's sarcasm, mod me down.

It's my understanding that it is a lack of competition in the broadband marketplace which is to blame for the slow pace of advancement. When so much of urban US is serviced by two (and in many places one) provider(s), there is not much incentive to improve access and service.

I also believe that if the FCC were to re-instate the line-sharing rules they scrapped years ago, it would go a long ways towards promoting competition which would lead to improvement.

Techdirt has tons of articles and stories about the subject:

http://www.techdirt.com/search-g.php?q=line+sharing

Foreign governments have famously gotten their feathers ruffled because RIM makes it clear that there is no way to snoop those connections.

And then they caved in and allowed it to happen.

There is a way, and they've started doing it ... so, what were you saying about how super awesome the security is again and how impossible it is to snoop on?

has not been confidently identified as an American

Meaning there's a 51% chance they're foreign.

These 'future people' you speak of will certainly be able to access information easily about virtually every author ever, including the author of yours and my posts on this site.

I wouldn't count on that.

'great literature' is like 'art'...it's virtually impossible to define but has a fuzzy meaning that virtually everyone agrees on...

Actually, both are alike for the opposite reason: There's an elite cadre of people who focus on the subject who all agree that certain works are great, and the vast majority of the public looks at their choices in bewilderment and mild contempt.

More so for Art than Literature, since Literature has mostly veered away from the semi-incoherent examples of Joyce and Pynchon and still appreciates accessibility on some level, whereas Art has wholeheartedly embraced the notion that True Art is Incomprehensible to the masses.

Try starting a restaurant, or worse yet a fast-foot cart, in a heavily-regulated area. You may find it difficult (somewhere in http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2000/03/ there's a long tale of licensing woe that's all too typical) or even impossible ( http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121022/13153120790/george-mcgovern-why-politicians-who-havent-built-business-are-bad-regulating.shtml )

It hasn't hit the software industry yet, because there's as yet no good way to impose "standards".

And suddenly every patent produces negative profit just like movies.

No, the profit is exactly the same as it was before. It is simply allocated proportionately as to who invested the money into the research. If 80% public finance research then 80% back to the public. If 80% private research then 80% back to the corporation. That is exactly how business partnerships work for everything else.

You're missing his point. He is referring to "Hollywood Accounting" where in no matter how much money a movie makes, It didn't make any, according to the creative accounting. This keeps them from having to pay a percentage in royalties to nearly everyone involved in the film, as well as giving the studios additional tax write-offs.
Wiki has a nice summary
Harry Potter films made no money, despite grossing over $1 billion each.
In fact, Dave Proust still isn't getting anything from LucasFilm for playing Darth Vader because Return of the Jedi still isn't profitable.

So just like the movies, patents will suddenly not be making any money, according to creative "Hollywood Accounting."

Clappers office has previously released a statement that his answer was "least untruthful" he could make it, because the program was classified. this clearly implies that he was aware that the statement was false at the time he made it.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130610/09473723393/clapper-my-answer-to-wydens-beating-your-wife-question-data-surveillance-was-least-untruthful-answer.shtml

Today the statement is, "I misunderstood", implying that at the time, he believed the statement he made was factual.

So, which is it? These statements appear contradictory

Well, why not? It was only last year that the Republicans stopped blaming Clinton for everything.

However, on a serious note, Bush was definitely part of the problem, but only a part in a chain of what seems like increasing governmental paranoia and abuse. I still think we have more to fear from our government than we do from terrorists. For instance, the FBI was aware of a plan to assassinate organizers of the Occupy movement in Texas and did nothing about it. Think about that. A legal, non-violent protest was targeted for the ultimate in deprival of civil rights and the FBI did nothing about it.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130102/09481421547/fbi-working-with-banks-chose-not-to-inform-occupy-leadership-assassination-plot-its-leaders.shtml

Regulation is good when it forces other people to do what I want/support... Regulation is bad when it lets other people force me to do things I don't want/support.

I do love the hypocrisy of Slashdot.

I've found that in general, slashdot users tend to support regulation that leads to more freedom, and are against regulation that suppresses freedom especially when it comes to the rights of companies to impose their will on individuals. For example: supporting reform of the patent system to stop patent trolls, being against regulation that supports DRM or limits the ability of consumers to use content they own, being for regulation to enforce net neutrality, being for regulation that prevents a state from restricting where people can buy a car, etc.

Is that really being hypocritical?

Well, as a country enjoy a lot bullying. Do as I say, not as I do?

The point is that a number of people (not pointing at anyone in particular) have said something along the lines of, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."

Could you remind me which people in government were saying that? I know it is very popular on Slashdot, but I don't recall it being common coming from the national security establishment. I think I do recall them saying things along the lines of they don't target ordinary Americans, which is a very different thing.

Here's an example:

Senator Lindsey Graham:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130607/18020323369/sen-lindsey-graham-verizon-customer-im-glad-nsa-is-harvesting-my-data-because-terrorists.shtml

“I’m a Verizon customer. I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States. I don’t think you’re talking to the terrorists. I know you’re not. I know I’m not. So we don’t have anything to worry about.”

Amusing, but still not as awesome as Jack Daniel's overly polite C&D letter.

Fuckload more than any other company involved has ever done.

Ignorant morons like you shouldn't be welcome anywhere.

Why wouldn't it be taxed? There is no "on a computer" exemption to rules that we pay taxes on profitable activities...

So if you never make a profit you should be good.

Oh yeah, a Microsoft Windows PC can be trusted. Not.

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20130430/22152622896/chuck-schumer-to-introduce-patent-reform-bill-to-make-it-cheaper-to-fight-back-against-patent-trolls.shtml

The recent Pew poll indicating a majority of Americans are okay with warrantless data aggregation is merely a sign of the times to come.

No, the recent Pew poll was nothing more than a measure of how people react to biased wording. A Rassmussen poll that worded the question with a bias in the other direction got the opposite results - only 26% of the respondents were OK with the scheme.

6,199,076 and 8,112,504

Thanks for that, very informative.

These patents are pretty clear. The villains here are not really Logan, Goessling and Call - they are playing entirely by the rules as our (supposedly representative) government has set them.

The villains are the incompetent schmucks in the Patent Office who should never have allowed these patents (on grounds of obviousness and lack of "genius" as required by law) and - even more so - the greedy schmucks in the US Congress in 1870 who opened the floodgates by removing the requirement for working models, which restricted the patentability of ideas in an extremely useful and equitable way. Back in the day, if you couldn't build a model of it inside a 12inch by 12inch cube, it just wasn't patentable.

But all that aside, here's a question for Logan: When wealthy corporate patent owners shake down small businessmen and individuals, the White House is all in favor of "protecting American innovation". But recently the Obama adminstration has had strong words for "patent trolls" - at odds with Joe Biden's long history of support for absurdly strong intellectual property laws and ever-growing length of monopoly. Do you think your successful efforts to get wealthy zaibatsus like Apple to pay off your small company is the reason for the Obama/Biden White House's sudden and uncharacteristic distaste for so-called "patent trolls?"

..does not mean you have any business going through my life with a fine tooth comb.

The "Nothing to Hide" argument is a fallacy that falls apart upon examination:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110524/00084614407/privacy-is-not-secrecy-debunking-if-youve-got-nothing-to-hide-argument.shtml
https://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/

AC because I don't want my name any where near this. I like Thailand enough to bend to their law (no comment on what I think of it) to be allowed to visit in peace. Hell, I've followed stranger laws in my home country. You might want to avoid Thailand for a while...
Linky.

You just don't get it. This isn't the president. It is the out-of-control intelligence community and predates the current administration.

Wow. So you're claiming this is all Bush's fault? Hmmm...and I'm the one who doesn't get it. From:

In the process--and for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration--the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, it's all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.

You should really read the whole article. And Obama knows nothing about any of this. Yeah, right. Note the herculean effort he's making to stop it all now that it's been brought to light.

I could post dozens of more links of Obama denying and lying about what's later leaked to be true. And Obama adds the bit where he attempts to prosecute anyone who leaks as a spy to a level no other president before him has.

Don't get me wrong. I am in no way defending Bush or the Republicans or congress. They got all this rolling after 9/11. The Obama administration has taken it to a far worse level than anything Bush perpetrated.

You just don't get it. This isn't the president. It is the out-of-control intelligence community and predates the current administration.

Wow. So you're claiming this is all Bush's fault? Hmmm...and I'm the one who doesn't get it. From:

In the process--and for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration--the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, it's all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.

You should really read the whole article. And Obama knows nothing about any of this. Yeah, right. Note the herculean effort he's making to stop it all now that it's been brought to light.

I could post dozens of more links of Obama denying and lying about what's later leaked to be true. And Obama adds the bit where he attempts to prosecute anyone who leaks as a spy to a level no other president before him has.

Don't get me wrong. I am in no way defending Bush or the Republicans or congress. They got all this rolling after 9/11. The Obama administration has taken it to a far worse level than anything Bush perpetrated.

The key word is "target"; it is illegal for the FISA system to be used to target people in the US. However, we've known for a while that the US Government has a "secret interpretation" of this law which the public isn't allowed to know, for reasons that have to be kept secret but partly because, if released, the information "could result in exceptionally grave and serious damage to the national security".

One of the main suggestions for what this interpretation is is based on the precise phrasing of the law; FISA prohibits the authorisation of any acquisition of information if it "intentionally target[s] any person known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States."

So if the NSA (or whoever) gets an authorisation to acquire information on everyone so that, at a later date, they can search that information to find specific stuff on particular individuals, at the time when they acquire the data they are not "targeting" anyone, and they don't *know* that the people whose information they are gathering are located in the US.

It's a really well-crafted piece of legislation; I hope the legal draftsmen behind it got a bonus that year... it's even sneakier than all the PR statements coming out of the NSA and the tech companies involved.

So the bottom line is that this probably *isn't* illegal. But no one can tell for sure, because the people who have tried to sue over this have had their cases thrown out for various reasons.

The key word is "target"; it is illegal for the FISA system to be used to target people in the US. However, we've known for a while that the US Government has a "secret interpretation" of this law which the public isn't allowed to know, for reasons that have to be kept secret but partly because, if released, the information "could result in exceptionally grave and serious damage to the national security".

One of the main suggestions for what this interpretation is is based on the precise phrasing of the law; FISA prohibits the authorisation of any acquisition of information if it "intentionally target[s] any person known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States."

So if the NSA (or whoever) gets an authorisation to acquire information on everyone so that, at a later date, they can search that information to find specific stuff on particular individuals, at the time when they acquire the data they are not "targeting" anyone, and they don't *know* that the people whose information they are gathering are located in the US.

It's a really well-crafted piece of legislation; I hope the legal draftsmen behind it got a bonus that year... it's even sneakier than all the PR statements coming out of the NSA and the tech companies involved.

So the bottom line is that this probably *isn't* illegal. But no one can tell for sure, because the people who have tried to sue over this have had their cases thrown out for various reasons.

That you are in another country make you feel safer? What if they force your country to have laws that follow their interests?

"most of which" indeed. Content-ID is not always accurate (and happily errs in the "content" "owner"'s favor--feel free to Google, or YouTube, that problem). Nintendo can use false matches to destroy people that make original videos without Nintendo images, sounds, etc., by funneling the revenue to them.

Also, "corporate gibberish"? It's three simple sentences that are logically connected to each other.

I'll admit they look English. They're marketer doublespeak, but they do look like grammatically correct English.

At best, all this "on-going push" will "ensure" is that people are chilled at the thought of uploading something with a sound or footage that will trip Content-ID and *wham* no revenue. They also haven't said how permanently they "have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property", so people who have uploaded videos, safe in the knowledge that they've "only" been Content-ID'd and neutered by Nintendo, could be awash in copyright strikes one or two golden-parachuted CEOs later.

Of course, it's not only the fault of the fine folks who brought us 10NES and awful Wii-to-Wii U data transfers; YouTube needs to be taken to task (or at least avoided) for making the chilling Content-ID system.

Physics is patentable. Dishnetwork lost a satellite because it was cheaper to collect the insurance money than to pay the patent of a lunar flyby. Boeing owns the patent on lunar flybys

It's the same guy that proposed a ban on videogames to minors. Leland Yee: using the government to protect you from bogeymen that don't exist.

Sounds like he's aiming for a spot on Faux Newz when he 'retires' from politicking...

It's the same guy that proposed a ban on videogames to minors.

Leland Yee: using the government to protect you from bogeymen that don't exist.

(A) Already there today
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130413/16102322700/san-diego-cop-thinks-you-might-have-turned-your-cell-phone-into-gun-that-officer-safety-trumps-constitutional-rights.shtml

(B) I fully expected you to say that the biggest problem would be other people figuring out your code and sending it to your phone while you still had it.

There is still too much content I want that Netflix does not have available for streaming, making it not worth the price.

So you're not even counting towards that 33.33% of traffic. But a lot of people do and they are *paying* for this content.

Lots of demeritz to Starz, who started this "we're toooooo posh for Netflix" and now the other MAFIAA outfits Warner Bros. and MGM and Universal that will drive people to pirate their content.

If they think that people will subscribe to 10 different "streaming sites" like they do "cable packages", they are insane.

And naturally, these laws must be harmonized around the world based on the law from any individual country which gives the copyright/patent holder the most rights

Actually, when they've been foisting it onto other countries through threat of trade action, it's more like arm-twist another country into doing what the multinationals want, and then say domestic laws are out of step with the world and get them passed in the US.

But, make no mistake about it, the US diplomatic stuff for issues like this is driven by industry. So much so that countries have basically said they don't recognize the Special 301 reports because it's written by industry (yet becomes diplomatic policy).

For instance:

Canada does not recognize the 301 watch list process. It basically lacks reliable and objective analysis. It's driven entirely by U.S. industry. We have repeatedly raised this issue of the lack of objective analysis in the 301 watch list process with our U.S. counterparts.

No, no, no...you have Big Pharma all wrong...they are here to help people: "Over 120 cancer researchers and doctors have published a paper calling out Novartis specifically for its pricing on the cancer drug Gleevec (marketed as Glivec outside the US). The doctors point out that it can cost over $100,000 per year for Gleevec currently. And, Novartis has been continually jacking up the price. There had been concern when the drug was first introduced a decade ago, that it was priced way too high at $30,000, leading the company's then CEO, Daniel Vasella, to acknowledge the complaints, but to argue that it was "a fair price." Well, now the company is pricing the drug at more than three times what it thought was a fair price, and it should be no surprise that people think this is outrageous profiteering by abusing a government granted monopoly to charge way more than any fair market price would allow." http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130429/07200822872/doctors-call-out-novartis-insane-pricing-cancer-drug.shtml

man, you sure are strong on facts, huh. the "little shit" (Strong words there) made statements that you'd expect for a teenager, and that's as far as it went.
it appears you might be misleading and entirely wrong.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130502/18364622931/ma-teen-arrested-held-without-bail-posting-supposed-terrorist-threat-facebook.shtml

so watch out, because apparently this satanic symbol (if you can even call it that) = TERRORIST THREAT!

or not, because society is not as stupid as the cops who overreact, apparently. They couldn't even find anything to pin the kid with aside from his facebook.

"You might remember this case http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100331/1228088813.shtml"

Haha. Yes. I have it bookmarked under "Other Government Bullshit".

It's covered by "you can't prove the government is doing it".

You only have standing to sue to stop the government from doing something if you can establish that the government is doing 'it' to you.

You might remember this case http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100331/1228088813.shtml

So, some lawyers definitively have proof that the gov't is wiretapping calls they FOR SURE KNOW is illegal, namely, calls between some defendants and their lawyers.
So, they sue the gov't.

Lawyers: We're suing to stop the gov't from illegally listening in to our phone calls. Here is the evidence.
Judge [turns to gov't lawyer]: Your response?
Gov't Lawyer: [does the Jedi hand motion]There is no evidence.
Judge [turns to initial lawyers]: So, do you have any evidence they are listening to your calls.
Lawyers: What?
Judge: Case Dismissed.

Ron Paul is against *government* intervention and legislation on the internet

Oh really?

The studios should be charged with fraud as well though.

Looking at the examples, it seems the studios often settle or lose when they are sued.

Here's a techdirt article on the practice. I think the main reason it's still happening is that usually, those with the resources to sue are also savvy enough to ask for a percentage of gross.

IIRC, in Vegas gaming machine makers are required to write code that doesn't overtly cheat the gambler. As in, if the jackpot reaches astronomical size, the machine doesn't change the odds UNLESS that is the game, and everyone knows it. Which for video slots is not the game. the odds are supposed to stay the
same.

Haven't there been some court cases over whether software bugs could be used to recover unexpected winnings, after the gaming commission certified that the software was fair?

Oh. This, and an example of the casino, saying 'sorry, mistake, no jackpot for you'. the comments for this story include references to some classic 'outs', like disclaimers etc.

DRM free? Yes.
Watermarked? Also yes.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090113/0707133391.shtml
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic/itunes-plus-everything-you-need-to-know-49300555/

Joyent is a bait & switch company - http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120817/11083120083/bait-switch-buy-lifetime-account-as-long-as-we-exist-until-we-get-tired-you.shtml

Fortunately, Mr. Rogers was able to make this a complete scumbag deal by putting him and his wife in a position to profit by it becoming law:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130417/16253022748/oh-look-rep-mike-rogers-wife-stands-to-benefit-greatly-cispa-passing.shtml