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Don't read too often about the 7 year old who accidentally killed his playmate when he found his dad's toolbox unlocked.

You should work in a hospital emergency room sometime. There are plenty of kids that are seriously injured or killed playing with powertools. The reason it is not news is because it is so common.

Accidental death from firearms is at the lowest rates ever, despite the increase in population and the increase in the number of guns in circulation. All kinds of interesting stats are here.

As I already said, fraud isn't just about being dishonest.

It includes the stuff they are talking about here:

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/internet/

Maybe they should stop wasting time busting people for smoking cannabis or similar stupidity and start working harder on catching the swindlers.

You have no reason to take my advice, especially as an AC, but since you've shared a bit of your history, I'll do the same. I've had several long-term, deeply loving relationships with women, all of whom had been victims of some kind of sexual abuse, including forcible rape, date rape, "minor" child sexual abuse (single incident, no penetration, fondling only), and severe childhood sexual abuse (multiple abusers from age 5 through teen years, including blood relatives, frequent vaginal & oral penetration, cumulative physical damage leading to inability to have children).

According to RAINN One in six women are victims of sexual assault, and you appear to understand this. The statistics against falsely accusing rape are not that overwhelming.

My statement is, when one in six women are sexually assaulted, those charges are more likely to be presumed to be true at first. If it were not the case where one in six women are sexually assaulted, say, more like six in 100,000 for murder, then it would be a situation where presuming it to be true at face value wouldn't make sense.

To put this in perspective, in order to produce the same number of false accusations of sexual assault as actual occurrences of sexual assault, we would need one in six women to falsely accuse a man of sexual assault. To do the same for murder, we would need just six people in 100,000... I think I could find six people in 100,000 willing to falsely accuse someone of murder (or just "mistakenly"). Meanwhile, convincing one out of every six women to falsely accuse someone of sexual assault? I'm sorry, but I think the morals of even our society are too high for that one to be tractable.

So, let me put this into perspective for you. False accusations of rape are horrible, and they are wrong, and if they're done maliciously people need to be held accountable. However, I doubt very much so that one in sex men are falsely accused of rape. I find that HIGHLY unlikely.

Bzzt. It's a schedule I non-narcotic controlled substance, which means that, if I remember correctly, it has no 'medical use' and is strictly regulated for experiments and so forth. (Required citation via wikipedia which is backed up by CFRs I'm not going to dig up right now.) The wiki article is pretty good on the details of the regulations.

Here is the short list, and here is the comprehensive list of controlled substances.

Bzzt. It's a schedule I non-narcotic controlled substance, which means that, if I remember correctly, it has no 'medical use' and is strictly regulated for experiments and so forth. (Required citation via wikipedia which is backed up by CFRs I'm not going to dig up right now.) The wiki article is pretty good on the details of the regulations.

Here is the short list, and here is the comprehensive list of controlled substances.

oddly enough cocaine and heroin( in many forms morphine for example) can be proscribed. Cocaine is used in hospitals for surgery to slow bleeding. Grass however can not be prescribed it is NOT scheduled.

Well, 'blitzoid', your sig suggests that the legality of marijuana isn't of enormous concern to you, but, just for the record, there is a schedule III 'version' of marijuana - marinol.

I'm not quite ready to support decriminalizing cocaine, and I am strongly opposed to legalizing methamphetamine.

Bad news meth is legal (well as legal as adderall.) It's a prescribable substance. That's effectively legal. You just can't buy it at your local grocery store without a script (and I don't believe any would have it in stock given the stigma and the fact that it's rarely prescribed.) http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/scheduling.html/

Actually, there are venues where the first family's sartorial choices are of great interest.

But, as you point out, this is news for nerds, so we're interested in the technology. And the kind of technolgy PEBO uses says a lot about who he is and what kind of president he's going to be. Take that famous Blackberry of his. Apparently he pretty much ran his campaign machine through the thing. Now he's probably going to have to give it up and fall back on a laptop. And any technerd worth the name wants to know what kind of laptop, what email and IM software he's going to use, etc., etc.

PEBO's choice of an MP3 player is more personal, but it's not totally irrelevant to our assessment of the guy. He's going to make decisions that affect how we use the Internet, what kind of computers we're able to buy, even what kind of software we use. So his choices of personal technology are of more than incidental interest. If he owned an iPod, I'd think it likely that he bought into the whole techncool meme that seems to surround Apple products. If he owned some more obscure brand, than I'd gues that he's somebody like me who spends a bit of time googling about features and downloading manuals before he makes a buy decision. The fact that he uses a Zune suggests to me that he just wanted something that would download his tune from his PC to his player without a lot of hassle.

Trivia? Sure. But it still says more about the guy than his brand of underwear.

Yes but how many guns are stolen each year? According to the U.S. DOJ it is 340,000. According to the person who installed my security alarm, the item with the highest resale value on the street is a firearm.

That means that legally owned guns still contribute to violent crime once they are stolen. And don't think it won't happen to you! My father had people burn a hole in his gun safe to get his guns out because the safe was too big to move. There's no practical way with an armed populace to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Speaking as a gun owner myself, this is the dirty little secret that the NRA and the gun nuts won't admit, there's no practical way you can ever limit violent gun crime without removing the guns from the populace.

> Violating a company's EULA is not illegal. Period. Full stop.

I would have agreed with you until this happened. Wired even interviewed the jurors and found that they didn't question whether breaking a EULA should be illegal, only what "tortuous" meant. Here's the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act if you want to read it.

Here's one quote from the Groklaw story (which itself is a quote from Orin Kerr, one of Drew's attorneys)

The jury agreed that it is a federal crime to intentionally violate the Terms of Service on a website, and that Drew directly or indirectly did so, but it acquitted Drew of having violated Terms of Service in furtherance of the tortious act. That is, the jury ruled that Drew is guilty of relatively lower-level crimes for violating MySpacs Terms of Service (for being involved in the setting up of a fake MySpace account). It acquitted Drew for any role in inflicting distress on Meier or for anything related to Meier's suicide. The maximum allowed penalty for the misdemeanor violations are one year in prison for each violation, although the majority of federal misdemeanors result in a sentence of probation.

(emphasis added)

Yes, this is a bad precedent. Terrible, in fact. But someone has, in fact, been convicted merely for breaking a ToS. Worse, when MySpace reserves in that ToS the sole right to determine whether or not someone is violating it!

If you would look at the article, wikipedia states the bureau of justice statistics as the source for that number. 2,299,116 people currently incarcerated in local, state, and federal corrections facilities as of June 30, 2007 (most recent data they list), which is ~0.75% of the population.

They also source from a report from Pew (it's note #8) stating that the incarceration rate is now above 1%.

I call bullshit. Even in Europe. Reality has a center/center-right bias. Even among people who claim to be liberals, most people oppose immigration and the change that comes along with it, support what they (regionally) consider to be traditional values, and have strong religious beliefs.

The "reality has a liberal bias" quip is cute. But it's bogus. You'd have to live in a hole (ivory tower?) to actually believe it.

This is wrong.

Actually the UK is one of the world's most secular societies. We also have a greater social welfare net (including free health care) and a great deal of provision of government training (including a lot of support for university level courses - I get £6000 pa from the state and £5000 pa from the University of Cambridge). We also disallow the death penalty and allow judges to impose their own sentencing for almost all crimes. The loser generally pays all legal fees so even the poor can have legal representation for SLAPP-style cases. Our police are not armed, and firearms are indeed controlled or banned for many types of firearm. In related news, our murder rate was 1.1 per 100,000[1] compared to the US at 5.4 per 100000[2]. A single killing during the London tube bombings has resulted in three separate investigations against the police and one successful prosecution of the entire force. This level of investigation is generally supported, and no major politician has attempted to argue against it.

We support civil partnerships for homosexuals that have the legal force of marraige, and indeed discrimination on the basis of sexuality in employment is illegal. We have recently had a court case that denies the ability of religious adoption agencies to deny service to homosexual potential adopting families. Pensions and other benefits are maintained between same-sex partners.

We have openly atheistic politicians - a lack of faith is also a respected choice. We attempt to integrate Islamic culture as an equally valued partner. A smear of alleged Islamic belief would not be so much of an issue here - we have Islamic MPs and it is...not really an issue. We even have members of Parliament who were aligned with terrorist/freedom fighter conflict against the UK (IRA) and therefore refuse to swear the oath of allegiance to the Parliament and Crown but are still granted offices and funding for staff within the Commons buildings.

A full one third of Londoners were born outside the UK, and immigration continues from Eastern Europe in particular. You also state that freedom of movement is opposed, but EU nationals have complete freedom of movement, employment and abode within EU countries. This is over an entire continent, and no major parties that I am aware of desire withdrawal from the EU. All of these stances are *extremely* liberal compared to US politics (I amusingly imagine the reaction to freedom of movement in NAFTA, for example - and before you say we are more economically equal consider that we have just admitted many Eastern European states).

Given that the EU is currently economically outperforming the US, I am unsure as to what here is either a) unrealistically unsustainable or b) not liberal beyond what even an Olbermann or Moore would desire.

So it would appear that reality can indeed be defined as more than merely US centrist. That is all.

[1] Home Office (undated). 'Homicide' - long-term national recorded crime trends. Available from: http://www.crimestatistics.org.uk/output/page40.asp.
[2] Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006a). Bureau of Justice Statistics. Homicide trends in the U.S.. Long-term trends. Available from: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/totalstab.htm.

I don't remember any recent file sharing cases ending in jail time.

Wow... really? Let me refresh your memory.

The only case on that page that appears to be remotely relevant is the EliteTorrents one. But in that case, the person who went to jail was the administrator of the P2P site. Can you show us any cases where someone has been jailed for merely using P2P?

Because it looks to me like the US doesn't jail people for visiting TPB, whatever you might like to think.

China doesn't jail people for merely visiting TPB either. c_forg said "file sharing cases ending in jail time." So the case you mentioned not only adequately covers that, but it offers you a direct comparison.

China adds a rule to their firewall.

The US chooses to spend a fortune in taxpayer money hunting down, prosecuting, and imprisoning/housing/feeding people for a non-violent offense. [Said offense wasn't even a criminal one up until a decade ago.] Once released, that administrator who could have spent a lifetime being productive and paying taxes on a higher than average salary will instead spend the rest of his life as a burger flipping drag on the economy because of his felony record.

It looks to me like the US will continue begging China for loans and aid like a whiney little bitch, whatever you might like to think.

I don't remember any recent file sharing cases ending in jail time.

Wow... really? Let me refresh your memory.

The only case on that page that appears to be remotely relevant is the EliteTorrents one. But in that case, the person who went to jail was the administrator of the P2P site. Can you show us any cases where someone has been jailed for merely using P2P?

Because it looks to me like the US doesn't jail people for visiting TPB, whatever you might like to think.

I don't remember any recent file sharing cases ending in jail time.

Wow... really? Let me refresh your memory.

Nice theory, except that there is an inverse correlation between video game usage and violent crime. Don't believe me? Check out the graph:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm

That's right, the data clearly show that the more people play video games, the less violence there is. (I'm not saying that's true, I'm saying there's a correlation).

Put simply, of all the things that can spur a violent outburst, media consumption is probably the least important. If you review the communication research on this stuff back over 100 years, you'll see the same BS: People trying to link consumption of Dime Novels, radio plays, television, comic books, and movies to violent behavior.

Don't confuse information with technology. Most of the prosecutions were for exporting goods, not IP.

Not saying it doesn't happen, but keep in mind the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - Anti bribery Provisions. Given Microsoft's usage in many government agencies, I would expect them to be very cautious in anything that appears to be a bribe.

You just wait until Obama pardons Mumia...

Not to feed the trolls, but Mumia Abu Jamal was arrested and held under the authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Obama, as President of the United States, cannot pardon him for a State offense, only a federal one:

2. Federal convictions only

Under the Constitution, only federal criminal convictions, such as those obtained in the United States District Courts, may be pardoned by the President. In addition, the President's pardon power extends to convictions obtained in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and military court-martial proceedings. However, the President cannot pardon a state criminal offense. Accordingly, if you are seeking clemency for a state criminal conviction, you should not complete and submit this petition. Instead, you should contact the Governor or other appropriate authorities of the state where you reside or where the conviction occurred (such as the state board of pardons and paroles) to determine whether any relief is available to you under state law. If you have a federal conviction, information about the conviction may be obtained from the clerk of the federal court where you were convicted.

Source: http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/pardon_instructions.htm

On most cases, they mix PCP with cannabis.

Smoking PCP by mixing it with cannabis is old news. (Stupid behavior, but old news.) It's no more "modifying" cannabis or filling it with "additives", then mixing a rum and Coke is putting "additives" into Coke.

This is not just about semantics. We are talking about different kinds of criminals and you know it.

You're the one conflating "criminal" with "murderer". A criminal is simply one who breaks a law, and there are few Americans who aren't, in the strict sense, criminals.

I'm not here to defend prohibition.

That is exactly what you're doing. Or trying to do: you can't successfully defend that which is fundamentally indefensible.

My points are: It's a lie to say that you're controlling the drug and not the other way around;

It's a lie to make sweeping, ignorant, and incorrect statements about drug use. Most people control their drug use quite well. About 15% of Americans will use an "illegal" drug this year; if drugs were controlling one-sixth of our population, we'd be completely boned.

Prohibition it's not about trying to control people, just for the fun of it, but it's mostly related to avoiding a negative cultural shift that might affect weak people;

You want to help "weak" people (a characterization which raises a host of issues that I'll pass by for now) who fall into addiction by making criminals out of them? By making it more likely that they'll die from contaminated drug, or OD on drugs of unknown strength? By fueling a violent black market that increases the chance that they - or innocent bystanders - will get shot in a drug deal gone bad? Gee, what a fscking humanitarian you are.

If you want to change the culture, write books and speak out. That's your right. But stop advocating that guns to be pointed at people who use, buy, or sell drugs that you don't like. Keep your laws off my brain.

These drugs ARE illegal at the current moment, so discussing proper ways of making this law achieve it's full effect is a valid discussion.

Hmm. "X is illegal at the current moment, so discussing proper ways of making this law achieve it's full effect is a valid discussion." Let's examine that argument, such at it is, with various bindings for X:

"Being a runaway slave IS illegal at the current moment, so discussing proper ways of making the fugitive slave law achieve it's full effect is a valid discussion."

"Being a Christian IS illegal at the current moment, so discussing proper ways of making the throw-them-to-the-lions law achieve it's full effect is a valid discussion."

"Voting by black people IS illegal at the current moment, so discussing proper ways of making Jim Crow achieve it's full effect is a valid discussion."

I don't care about drug users. But I do care about laws and personal ethics.

If you cared about ethics, you'd realize that what is ethical and what is right are two very different things. "Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher." -- John J. Miller

I would never, ever, ever, deal with a criminal (no, not someone selling bootleg tapes) just to have some fun.

Wait, are you saying that you wouldn't deal with someone selling bootleg tapes, or that someone selling bootleg tapes is not a criminal? If the former, if you won't deal with sellers of bootleg tapes, underage drinkers, speeders, and the like, you're going to find that you inhabit a very small world. If the later, you're just wrong; a criminal is one who violates the law.

If you mean "violent crimina

Yes, exactly like prohibition. Just change the system slightly to tax alcohol to the sky instead of banning it, and add tens of other substances to the prohibition. See how the problem of gangs is gone now?

I think your assumption is wrong on this one. Robbery has recidivism rates after 3 years of about 70% while sex offenders are at about 12%
I have noticed a lot of people saying things similar about how sex offenders are the most likely to recommit, but when compared to the criminal population at large, I haven't seen anyone back that statement up with a reference.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm Read it and weep, nigger lover.

The chinese program is an open-ended restriction. The rules are maintained exclusively by the chinese ruling political party. There is no "law" in a real sense.

The US/NSA programs still are restricted to USC18-118. I'm sure it's taken seriously in all agencies ;) . Yes, there's been report on abuses or violations of this law, and/or a political agenda to rewrite it and releasing any protections, but that's completely different discussion and usually involves a small number of powerful [corrupt] people.

Unlike some people, Microsoft knows what "OS" means, and it's an OS: process management, drivers, the entire party.

Surely you're mistaken. If I recall correctly, several years ago Microsoft testified that their web browser was an integral part of the O/S during an anti-trust hearing or some other little nuisance distraction. Or maybe I'm just imagining that.

Hi there. Let me introduce you to the Depart of Justice Civil Rights Division, which pursues civil matters on the behalf of private entities.

Allow me to dispel your insinuations that this department is currently doing the equivalent of what is being proposed.

From their web site ...

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice was established in 1957. The Division is the program institution within the federal government responsible for enforcing federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin. Since its establishment, the Division has grown dramatically both in size and responsibility.

The Division enforces the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended through 1992; the Equal Credit Opportunity Act; the Americans with Disabilities Act; the National Voter Registration Act; the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act; the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act; and additional civil rights provisions contained in other laws and regulations. These laws prohibit discrimination in education, employment, credit, housing, public accommodations and facilities, voting, and certain federally funded and conducted programs.

Having a department whose job it is to enforce federal statutes on behalf of injured parties is in no way the same as the investigation and enforcement on behalf of large corporate interests.

The presence of the word "civil" in both titles doesn't change the fact that the federal government does not pursue "civil" cases on behalf of companies, and never has. Enforcing the "civil" rights of people is a completely different thing. I suspect you know this, but choose to ignore the distinction.

Cheers

He made the FBI's Top 10 most wanted list and is still a FBI cyber fugitive probably living in his native Morocco now.

Starting in 2003 he paid for DDoS attacks on his online Satellite TV retailer competition. These DDoS attacks did collateral damage on the various hosting and CDNs providers that these competitors turned to for support. The costs were estimated to be as high as $2,000,000 by Attorney General John Ashcroft. The prosecutor for the case, assistant U.S. attorney Arif Alikhan, head of the Los Angeles computer crimes section, said: "I think it's the first case of its kind involving a DDoS for commercial advantage or for hire, ..."

An update to older coverage. In 2005, criminal complaints against those techincally involved were dismissed

I am so tired of people always screaming for long prison terms. The priorities people have make me sad. It used to be that murder and rape were considered the worst crimes yet your bound to get less time for these than many of the new crimes that we invent. When you can take a life and get less time than for taking their money the society you live in has a serious problem.

That's like comparing apples to soda cans, which has never been very effective. That aside, a little bit of digging shows that your assumption that financial crimes are receiving higher jail terms/sentences is a bit flawed (the 'other' category is the one of interest here).

funny how many of the people who will complain about computer crime are all for having the government take stuff from other people.

Um, huh? What's this relevant to?

Racism and sexism have been damn near erased.

Really? What country do you live in?

I live in one where the black prison population per capita is six times higher than for whites, and the poverty rate for black children is more than twice that for white children. Racial profiling ("driving while black") remains a pervasive problem. Women still don't get equal pay for equal work, and efforts to criminalize abortion - and even birth control - continue apace.

Are things better than they were in this regard 100 years ago? Sure. But that's damning with faint praise.

From Bureau of Justice Statistics - Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994:

Within 3 years, 2.5% of released rapists were arrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for homicide.

So, to me, sentencing a murderer to 75 years in prison seems a bit much considering that they are unlikely to offend again. Of course, that depends on the circumstances regarding the relevant murder and the murderer's antecedents, but still, prison, for the most part, is not (or at least, should not be) solely about making its prisoners suffer, as you seem to think it should be. Rehabilitation and education (should) play major roles during a prisoner's incarceration.

I know a few woman who are continually being physically abused by their SOs (BFs and husbands).

And what about men who are continually abused by their wives and girlfriends? Where is the Violence Against Men Act since men suffer more from violence than women? Where is Phil Hartman's made for TV movie?

Saying "it's never okay to hit a woman" rather than "it's never okay to hit someone" is as lame a double standard as those who insist bitch and c*** are offlimits but have no problems calling a man a dick, prick or asshole.

You're both emotional as hell. Couldn't you tell the original post was just intended to disrupt conversation?

As far as the poster you're replying to here, whether he's a troll or not, the rape statistic is correct. White on black rapes are often in the single digits, per year.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus0502.pdf

Table #40 and #42 in the above document.

Blacks comitted 48% of the rape, half of the robberies, and two thirds of the robberies involving injury. Crimes like simple assault were closer to the proportion that they should be (considering each group's percentage of the total population), but were still biased towards black offenders.

While the black poverty rate is higher than that of whites and hispanics, there are still twice as many whites below the poverty line in the US as there are blacks. Income isn't even the primary factor, much less a dominating one.

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?rgn=1&cat=1&ind=14

If it's about revenge for past social injustices, then why are black-on-black statistics so high?

Wishing that a problem didn't exist doesn't make it go away.

Hiding information about it just makes the problem harder to fix.

Rosa Parks

Are you really going to compare graffiti -- a nuisance of a chosen action -- to a civil rights struggle? Based on the color of a person's skin?

People like Rosa Parks were heroes to all, especially to racists and passive people who needed to have their eyes open. I'm not sure who James Powderly thought he was representing but going to a foreign country and committing what is a crime in that country just makes a bunch of people uneasy.

Oh, and non-destructive graffiti is pretty damned cool.

Light is still a form of polution. Though non-destructive, it is most likely still annoying. While I agree with the cause this man was "fighting" for, I am indifferent to his ineffective methods. He would most likely be arrested in my country too.

His methods weren't opening people's eyes, they are alienating people like me who would rather see a message sent to the Chinese government that makes them think about their injustices.

I agree with the gist of your post, however we need to put it into perspective.

Terrorism is a real threat to the US and the "western" world.

There were fewer than 3,000 people killed by terrorists on American soil this century. Far more Americans were killed in combat in the Iraq war. In 2005 alone 4082 people were murdered by friends or acquaintences.

In 2003 42,643 people were killed in auto accidents.

Half a million Americans die of cancer every year, another half million die of heart disease. Personally, I'd like to see some of the "homeland security" money going to guard rails and cancer research (I'll probably be killed by the terrorists who own the tobacco companies; even though I gave up tobacco over eight years ago, I smoked cigarettes for thirty years and will likely die of lung cancer).

In Grandpa's day it was "we have nothing to fear but fear itself". Today it's OMG!!1! TEH TERRORISTS!!! WE MUST GIVE UP OUR RIGHTS!!!

If you felt a little cheated by the lack of info in the 'article' the DOJ site has more.

US Department of Justice website is down. could it be that too many users from slashdot trying to visit overloaded their website?

www.usdoj.gov

11 Timed out Destination network unreachable Timed out

If you felt a little cheated by the lack of info in the 'article' the DOJ site has more.

US Department of Justice website is down. could it be that too many users from slashdot trying to visit overloaded their website?

www.usdoj.gov

11 Timed out Destination network unreachable Timed out

-- In about 2003, Gonzalez and others found an unencrypted wireless access point at a BJ's Wholesale Club store. BJ's reported a breach of its computer networks in early 2004.

-- In 2004, other members of the ID theft ring compromised an OfficeMax wireless access point in Miami, and they were able to steal credit card data. After law enforcement officials in 2006 identified OfficeMax as the victim of a data breach, the company said it hired an outside auditor to conduct an investigation and found no evidence of a security breach. An OfficeMax spokesman didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.

So either the Secret Service was letting this go on just so they could make one bust, or they had no idea that their own informant was committing major breaches while under their supervision. Also, how stupid is this guy that he didn't even stop breaking the law after getting busted and becoming an informant? Some people are just begging to be sent to prison, and it looks like the prosecuters are going to grant his wish. For the rest of his life if they have their way.

P.S.: The Threat Level post with the info about him being an informant also contains a link to another case about another informant who was stealing social security numbers while working on a computer inside the Secret Service offices.

The usdoj.gov website seems to be down for me at the moment but should come back up eventually.

-- In about 2003, Gonzalez and others found an unencrypted wireless access point at a BJ's Wholesale Club store. BJ's reported a breach of its computer networks in early 2004.

-- In 2004, other members of the ID theft ring compromised an OfficeMax wireless access point in Miami, and they were able to steal credit card data. After law enforcement officials in 2006 identified OfficeMax as the victim of a data breach, the company said it hired an outside auditor to conduct an investigation and found no evidence of a security breach. An OfficeMax spokesman didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.

So either the Secret Service was letting this go on just so they could make one bust, or they had no idea that their own informant was committing major breaches while under their supervision. Also, how stupid is this guy that he didn't even stop breaking the law after getting busted and becoming an informant? Some people are just begging to be sent to prison, and it looks like the prosecuters are going to grant his wish. For the rest of his life if they have their way.

P.S.: The Threat Level post with the info about him being an informant also contains a link to another case about another informant who was stealing social security numbers while working on a computer inside the Secret Service offices.

The usdoj.gov website seems to be down for me at the moment but should come back up eventually.

Links to the indictments of the top two suspects:

suspect 1
suspect 2

Links to the indictments of the top two suspects:

suspect 1
suspect 2

If you felt a little cheated by the lack of info in the 'article' the DOJ site has more.

You make it sound like not just anyone can be (of those who haven't already been) declared a terrah-ist. It doesn't take much - and as with so many things these days, they don't even need a warrant to get you into "the club". All they need is for you to have a laptop and you're fair game. If you have a laptop and they haven't picked you at the airport, don't get high and mighty - remember there's literally nothing to stop them from doing it when you're 100% legal or not. Habeus Corpus and all that jazz we learned in High School is more or less out the window at this stage.

Have you seen the watch list or heard of some rules surrounding this or something?

-Matt

So I'm curious, when Clinton fired all 93 US attorneys was he filling political or career posts?

The point is every president replaces career posts with political allies, they just do it in a much more broad way than Bush did (Bush replaced 8, total.) Frankly "fire everyone and then rehire just those we like" seems like a fairly shady way to skirt the law.

BZZT! Karl, is that you?. If not, try turning the channel away from O'Reilly, because it's making you stupid.

Wikipedia:

"LexisNexis (sometimes simply called "Lexis" or "Nexis" among users) is a popular searchable archive of content from newspapers, magazines, legal documents and other printed sources. LexisNexis claims to be the "worldâ(TM)s largest collection of public records, unpublished opinions, forms, legal, news, and business information" while offering their products to a wide range of professionals in the legal, risk management, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting and academic markets."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LexisNexis

They used Lexis to do a form of background search on people. They used the information from these searches to decide who to hire. The DOJ said the way they did this is federally illegal and also against DOJ policy.

And if you're an actual RTFAer, here you go: http://www.usdoj.gov/opr/goodling072408.pdf

Now, instead of two years at summer camp, he will go to many more years of Federal Pound-me-in-the-a$$ Prison.

Contrary to popular Internet Wisdom(R), you are much more likely to get raped in a state prison than a federal one. Most sex-related crimes (rape, sexual assault, molestation, indecent exposure) are state crimes, not federal ones and so the vast majority of these wonderful people go to state prison. Similarly, most violent offenses are state, not federal.

To make it concrete, >50% of the population of state prisons were in for a violent offense versus 12% in the federal population. Roughly 12% of state prisoners are in for rape or other violent sexual assault, compared to basically 0% in the federal system. Statistics on rapes in the various system likewise bolsters the conclusion: don't get sent to state-pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

References:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p05.pdf (!PDF!)

Now, instead of two years at summer camp, he will go to many more years of Federal Pound-me-in-the-a$$ Prison.

Contrary to popular Internet Wisdom(R), you are much more likely to get raped in a state prison than a federal one. Most sex-related crimes (rape, sexual assault, molestation, indecent exposure) are state crimes, not federal ones and so the vast majority of these wonderful people go to state prison. Similarly, most violent offenses are state, not federal.

To make it concrete, >50% of the population of state prisons were in for a violent offense versus 12% in the federal population. Roughly 12% of state prisoners are in for rape or other violent sexual assault, compared to basically 0% in the federal system. Statistics on rapes in the various system likewise bolsters the conclusion: don't get sent to state-pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

References:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p05.pdf (!PDF!)

OK, well, you're both wrong.
violent crime rates
relatively stable since the peak in 1993, though has been steadily increasing since 2005

gun ownership associated with homicide
This, however, is undeniable... more guns, more homicides:

...in areas where household firearm ownership rates were higher, a disproportionately large number of people died from homicide.

Hmmmm...

At midyear 2007 there were 4,618 black male sentenced prisoners per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,747 Hispanic male sentenced prisoners per 100,000 Hispanic males and 773 white male sentenced prisoners per 100,000 white males.

Almost 6 to 1. And how many people will use these numbers to justify their racist attitudes instead of realizing who's being targeted? An economic breakdown might be even more revealing.

I think you're full of brown smelly stuff.

The ECPA only seems to apply to common carriers and public information services. I don't see any evidence it provides any liability for the sysadmins of internal networks.

If you're not IANAL, here it is:
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/wiretap2510_2522.htm

And even if so, you're being really retarded if you think that reading his bosses' email falls under the "system monitoring" provision of the law.

This is most likely the study the GP was referring to. Here is a similar study focusing just on sex offenders.