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If you had $4.2 million a year to find floppy drives and Betamax players, you wouldn't have any trouble at all.

Given that this baby was steamrolled through the Congress two weeks ago, the outage seems coincidental.

Consider that Skype could not tell the users of the real reason even if they wanted to: the law mandates that the forced cooperation be kept in secret.

Unfortunately, the money was already spent. No new Internet for you. Make do with your old tubes. Nothing to see here - the bridge goes to nowhere. Leave Senator Stevens alone. Sorry.

> arrested attempting to pick up $7 million in gold that he was using to launder the money.

$7 million to do the laundry? This sounds like the work of Judge "No Pants" Pearson. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2007/08/f irst_pants_man_loses_case_nex.html

It has been pointed out multiple times that the *target* of the wiretaps are not US Persons. The *targets* are people outside the US. It has long been the job of the NSA/CIA to monitor foreign communications. There is nothing new here. The NSA wasn't involved in criminal law and law enforcement of people living in the US, so they never needed a warrant.

If you were to call a suspect that has his phone tapped under a warrant, *your* side of the conversation can be monitored. They do not need a warrant for both sides, just the side that they have cause to monitor. Furthermore, if you say something incriminating, the police could get a warrant to tap *your* phone.

The new thing that changed is that if the NSA captured a call to a person inside the US, the information could be used to get a warrant and further a criminal investigation. Previous to 9/11 this was a big no-no. When this started happening the FISA judges complained about it. They wanted groundwork before the FISA request. They felt that NSA leads are tainted. Here is an article that touches on this:

Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data

"The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen."

It's funny when US temps were up in 2006 "scientists" were claiming it was significant even though global temps were at a six(?) year low. Now they tell us that US temps are insignicant to the overall global temps.
Climate Experts Worry as 2006 Is Hottest Year on Record in U.S.
Last year was the warmest in the continental United States in the past 112 years -- capping a nine-year warming streak "unprecedented in the historical record" that was driven in part by the burning of fossil fuels, the government reported yesterday. According to the government's National Climatic Data Center, the record-breaking warmth -- which caused daffodils and cherry trees to bloom throughout the East on New Year's Day -- was the result of both unusual regional weather patterns and the long-term effects of the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. ......Climate experts generally do not make much of temperature fluctuations over one or two years, but Lawrimore said the record 2006 temperatures were part of a long and worrisome trend. For instance, NOAA said, the past nine years have all been among the 25 warmest years on record for the continental United States.

m.watkins

Including labeling fanatical Islamic terrorists who would kill them in a moment's notice "freedom fighters".

Including actively cheering for a US military defeat.

You CAN'T "support the troops" if you don't want them to win. Period. That's like claiming you're a Cubs fan but going to Wrigley and rooting for the Cubs to LOSE. That's not support - that more like sadism. Saying "support the troops - bring them home" just means you don't have the courage to back up your beliefs.

It's hard to believe there once was a time where true liberals understood that the US is not the greatest evil in the world, that there are things worth fighting and even dying for like freedom, and who wouldn't wouldn't even think of viewing potential good news indicating US military success as some sort of "problem for [Democrats]".

Your rant is based on unsupported opinion. Mine is based on demonstrable facts.

So it's just a curious coincidence that these things all occur regularly in countries governed by Sharia law?

There is no country in the world today that is governed by Sharia law. Not one. As in none. You watch too much TV.

Your ad-hominem fails. An old workmate is an Iranian Muslim who left Iran with his family and moved to Australia due to the social conditions in Iran. One of my highschool friends is a Persian Baha'i whose family left Iran due to religious persecution. A uni mate and drinking buddy, and his ex-girlfriend, are both Muslim. All of these are peaceful Muslims with somewhat 'westernised' values, at least to the point where they don't believe in amputation or stoning, but none of them have ever argued that Sharia-governed countries in the Middle East are not Islamic countries.

It wasn't an ad-hominem, more of an observation. And actually, it still stands. A Muslim who goes out drinking isn't really the kind you're likely to learn much about Islam from. Not that I begrudge him his choice, there are many members of my family who choose to not take their religion seriously, it's up to each person to choose their own destiny. However, I doubt you'll hear much about the nature of Sharia law from them, as they really don't know much about it themselves. They're very much like most Christians today, most of whom couldn't name two apostles.

So not only are U.S. copyright laws the main objection of militant Islamists, but "the Western media" actually IS engaged in a global smear campaign to convince the world that Islamic extremists have a vendetta against Western values? Please.

Copyright laws have nothing to do with it, I was illustrating a point and you've gotten all carried away.

As for the smear campaign, well I don't know what you'd call the repetition of blatantly false information that is pretty obviously designed to spread fear about imminent doom at the hands of the hordes of extremist Muslims. I never used the words "smear campaign", you did. If you had any Muslim friends who actually knew anything about their religion, they'd be more than willing to point out where CNN/Fox is dishing out the BS, and believe you me, it gets dished out in spades on ever terror related news story.

The U.S. government may be taking U.S. citizens' rights away, but those rights are still lightyears better than in Sharia-governed countries.

Again, there are no Sharia governed countries. And if the US freedoms are better than those in Saudi Arabia or Iran, only time will reveal how long that remains the case.

A tiny minority (percentage-wise) of Muslim extremists have convinced themselves that Westerners' values are sinful

True.

thus demonising all Westerners, and that Allah wants them to spread Islam to the world, by force if necessary.

False. Muslims have no interest what you do on your side of the ocean. Muslims (and indeed all third world nations) *do* care what western governments and corporations do when they come into a country and do things like effectively enslave the population for a token wage, overthrow democratically elected governments and replacing them with dictators that serve them, attempt to seize control of the public interest through bribery and corruption, experiment on hapless third worlders with new drugs in the name of profits, and... the list goes on. If you think that it is Muslims/Commies/some other extremist group who are the aggressors and the west are the victims, you need to get your head out of your ass and look around you.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was allowed to order 10 cattle futures contracts, normally a $12,000 investment, in her first commodity trade in 1978 although she had only $1,000 in her account at the time, according to trade records the White House released yesterday.

I guess you could say that Newt "moralized" about public corruption, but that was hardly hypocritical.

Wrong.

It was reported today that the factory boss who presided over the Mattel lead-painted toy manufacturing has killed himself. These factory towns are so supported by the local and national Chinese governments, that anything goes. Yes, the conditions at most factories are better than they were, but they are so far below US standards it's scary. Also, since most of the Chinese government wants to have people working in these factories to keep their economy growing, the factory bosses essentially becone the local government. We're back to the dark ages of the Industrial Revolution, but now it's government-enforced. And it's all paid for by you and me! Yay globalization!

Wow that rant went a lot of places, didn't it?

In fact, looksie at these links. http://www.mercola.com/2004/may/26/corn_syrup_diab etes.htm - Corn syrup linked to diabetes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8003-200 3Mar10?language=printer - Average American consumes, in 2001! ... about 62 pounds of corn syrup per year... no wonder we don't have that much real sugar, we replaced it with a chemical :)

Recently, defective tires manufactured in China killed two motorists.

The seafood imported from China -- and tainted with deadly chemicals -- has not yet killed any American. However, long-term consumption of the contaminated seafood will eventually cause agonizing health problems.

AT&T should immediately identify the country where its batteries were manufactured. Chances are good that a Chinese factory is the culprit.

The actual line was "there ought to be limits to freedom" dated Monday, November 29, 1999 and found on page A2 of the print version.

From:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11 /29/002r-112999-idx.html

This was in response to a parody site Bush was trying to censer during his campaign.

When asked at a news conference in May what he thought about the site, Bush let loose, saying it was produced by a "garbage man" and suggesting that "there ought to be limits to freedom" -- a line Bush's online critics have vowed to never let the world forget.

Your tax dollars at work:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/04/02/AR2007040200487.html

Next, wind will be regulated because it carries smog.

• FDR had polio
• Al Gore is an avid skier. Skiing is dangerous.
• I'll see your Reagan and raise you Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.).
• Political protesters are more likely to vote Democrat. Protesting is dangerous.

Academy of Baffled Scientists?

No, my claim is that Yoo has written bullshit legal opinions before.

Really, torture being legal?

Wow. So Armitage all by his lonesome was the "Two senior administration officials" that Novak speaks of in his column!

Impressive!

Well, someone has to be.

"Interestingly, neither of those two things has occurred"

Valerie Plame was an intelligence asset working on tracking WMD, and her identity was leaked by people in the Bush administration. This is such basic knowledge that it isn't worth rehashing.

FISA Court judge rules "key portion" of warrantless wiretapping program illegal, refuses to recertify: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/08/02/AR2007080202619_pf.html
  and
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20075751/site/newsweek /page/0/

(Hilariously, this means that either the program continued to operate illegally for "four to five months" or that the administration waited that long before telling congress they needed an *emergency* amendment to FISA or terrists would kill us all right away. Pick one.)

And an earlier ruling (later overturned):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/washington/17cnd -nsa.html?ex=1313467200&en=9c107bcba3ed54d1&ei=508 8&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"I know this is slashdot, where uninformed group-think passes for 'intellect' among masses of less-than-moderately intelligent people who desperately want to be perceived as 'smart', but at least make an effort to know what you're talking about."

Yeah, sorry that isn't working out for you so well.

Ron Paul didn't defend anything -- he didn't vote.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/110/ho use/1/votes/836/

At least the Democratic candidates all voted No.

You said:

Third, the legislation in question was needed and rushed in before Congress goes on vacation because of a new ruling by a FISA judge, which had the effect of overruling the NSA's previously established powers under FISA. In other words, a judge decided in a new ruling to overturn the way things had been previously been done. This had the effect of placing our intelligence community in a panic because it effectively crippled our ability to intercept foreign communications.

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said:

"There's been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States," Boehner told Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto in a Tuesday interview.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/08/02/AR2007080202619_pf.html

OK, let's take the conservative four months. Add in a generous one month for the appeal to the FISA court of review, which I think we can now assume the Bush administration lost. That still gives us three months when nothing was done. Weren't we in danger from terrorist attacks during this period? Did the Bush administration keep using these techniques in spite of the FISA court ruling? What changed in the last days before congress takes their much deserved vacation that caused this issue to become more important, than over the last, possibly, five months?

You said:

The brand new FISA judge ruling concerned the issue of when you know one end of the conversation is foreign, but you don't know where the other one is. In other words, should an unknown second party be assumed to be American or in the US for purposes of foreign intelligence? The new ruling said yes, but previous rulings had said no.

I would be very careful assuming you know the totality of the FISC opinion and exactly what issues are involved. You also state that more than one FISA judge had approved the this program, but all the sources I have seen have referred to only one approval. From your cited source:

"One FISA judge approved this, and then a second FISA judge didn't," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the activities of the FISA court are classified.

I would like to see your cite for multiple approvals of this program by the FISA court. I will also repeat, that it is likely the administration has already lost its appeal before the FISA review court.

You said:

But I hope the discussion is at least conducted soberly and with some attachment to the actual difficult legal and national defense questions at hand.

It is helpful to first get the facts straight.

Anyone can be wiretapped if you call a party that is under investigation with a court approved wiretap. The tap specifies only one party, but both sides can be listened in on. This is the way it has always been. The NSA can listen to anyone as long as they are outside the law of the United States. If that party happened to call into the US the NSA did not stop listening. The problem before 9/11 was that the NSA could never pass the information about the US side of the conversation to domestic law enforcement.

There was a Washington Post article that mentioned how the FISA judges were concerned about using NSA information to issue further FISA warrants on suspects inside the US. See Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data

So, this implies one could determine the SOURCE of any digital picture (taken by a camera) in the world. Even when recompressed with JPG?

That is incredible. Why isn't THAT the story here.

Ok, I can see some of you are missing it. Put this ability together with our old story about printers and all of a sudden, one more tactic to anonymously publish is gone. This cuts both ways.

Oh, that's right, a cartel. Eventually, cartels always act to stifle their competition.

See the movie, The Aviator for examples of cartels in action. Or this article on the milk cartel, Dairy Industry Crushed Innovator Who Bested Price-Control System

The government likes cartels, because cartels embiggen business, and Big Business is a great source of graft and legal graft (campaign contributions). Small business gets crushed under the weight of unfunded mandates and "well meaning" rules that have the of course unintended side effect of making it harder for small businesses to compete.

It reminds me of an old Russian saying, "Every business in the United States has it's own Mafia."

I'm not sure why so many people on Slashdot are in a rush to defend the creation of a robust video game cartel.

There's a reason I moved to Canada. Not that it is wildly better or all that different, or even free of major stupidity and scandal, but it seems to be largely (but not completely) free of retarded hatefilled shitbags. And while the gov't has a deeper hand on things here, one would expect boneheaded nanny state nonsense like the legislation in TFA from Canada, not from the USA. OH, how times have changed... The Rethugs want to blow up the planet and make everyone a classic Xian sexless mouthbreathing mallrat and the Dems want the corporations to own every piece of cultural artefacture in perpetuity, and make it all safe for the lowest and stupidest citizens and remove the responsibility that PARENTS SHOULD BE EXERCISING in favour of the nanny state.

As the Dukes of Stratosphear (XTC) crooned:

I'm the Mole in the Ministry
And you'll all bow down to me.
I'm the mole in the potting shed.
I'm the bad thoughts inside your head.
And you won't catch me...

As a little black girl once shouted into a bullhorn on the TV show "Wondershowzen":

RISE UP PEOPLE!!! RISE UP!!!

RS

On the comments link to the Washington Post article, the comments are about 5 or 10 to 1 in favor of Sejas, and people have organized a boycott of Regal Cinema. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/08/01/AR2007080102398_Comments.html

1. People who would have bought the product, but didn't because they downloaded it.
2. People who wouldn't have bought the product, but downloaded it and liked it enough to buy/recommend it to their friends.
3. People who wouldn't have bought the product, but downloaded it and didn't like it enough to buy/recommend it to their friends.

Not naive.

Greedy.

Court Rules for Cleaners In $54 Million Pants Suit

No business could stand the losses if you could demand sale and delivery of a Bugatti Veyron at 90% off list because of a misprint in a brochure.

Pierre Salinger, in his final years, spent his time chasing conspiracy theories. He downloaded emails that circulated on the internet as proof. So you have an article that cites no sources and quotes a deceased journalist who didn't need sources as the basis of this discussion? As bad as mainstream media can be, they do require something more than a dead person's gut feeling before reporting something.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9611/09/twa.salinger/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A389 28-2004Oct16.html

Electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and damming rivers. Over 50% of the available energy is lost in generation and transmission inefficiencies. The storage medium, a battery, is a highly toxic item that adds so much weight to the vehicle that internal combustion only econoboxes with diesel engines (which can burn biofuels) get comparable mileage, without the polluting manufacturing and disposal issues attendant to the electric/hybrid car's battery.

So, what is the real benefit of the hybrid/electric car? Could it be more about fashion , kind of like those oil dripping gas guzzling, pollution spewing, 1960s VW buses I see with "Love your Mother" stickers on them, than reality?

There's a great "South Park" episode about this.

Update in Washington Post. One of the critically injured people died after surgery.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/10/05/AR2006100501782.html - 14.6 million federal
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=18746 - 15.8 million state and local

So over 10%. Which probably doesn't include state and local contractors. Or the industrial part of the "military-industrial complex"...

There's nothing admirable about sustaining a destructive addiction at the expense of your family/government.

Would it be worse if your destructive activities required hundreds of thousands of tax dollars and rescuers risking their lives to save you when you screwed up? Extreme Sports

The problem being, the Republican party in general, and the Bush family in particular, have very questionable records with regard to drugs and drug policy and the U.S. relationship with China. The ability to ignore human rights abuses really crosses all political lines. Clinton doesn't really compare to the Carlyle Group as far as enriching themselves through government policy. It is sadly not new. As a marine, you may be familiar with Major General Smedley Butler, if not you may find his perspective interesting.

You don't really need to rely on "initial reports", the DOD has actually released documents since then. If you need pictures, I believe there were pictures of some of the people who were beaten and choked to death. I'm sure the Internet can provide them. And those were people in direct U.S. custody, not including programs like extraordinary rendition, or the various C.I.A. prisons. You must be living or working a spin machine of your own to be basing your thoughts on "initial reports". I'm personally puzzled by the fact that the U.S. considers Syria a sponsor of terrorism, won't engage them diplomatically on Iraq or Lebanon, yet sends "terror suspects" there to be interrogated.

The problems with the U.S. engaging in these tactics are numerous and profound.

It happened at NASA too...a political appointee, who never graduated from college (but lied about it) was rewriting text by scientists, for the SOLE purpose of inserting comments friendly to the administration's allies. Wanting to insert "theory" after every instance of "Big Bang", he wrote that "it not proven fact; it is opinion... It is not NASA's place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator... This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue." Link here. That is BS, of course. The Big Bang is a scientific issue. Period.

Also, when is the last time the government passed a law to help the petroleum industry?

I believe that would have been in 2005. Nothing like some tax breaks and environmental exemptions to go with your record profits.

I'm guess you're being sarcastic, but taking out incoming mortar, artillery, and rockets really would be a boon in most forseeable conflicts including Iraq. For instance: "BAGHDAD, July 10 -- More than two dozen mortar shells pounded the Green Zone on Tuesday, killing three people, including a U.S. military member, and injuring 18, among them five Americans, U.S. officials said."

"Can anyone offer some financial perspective.."

I don't know about airplane costs, but here is some perspective on other government upgrade projects... each upgrade involved both hardware and software systems.

The IRS attempted to update their systems (originally designed in 1962). The project began in 1999 and was spread over several 'projects.' The 1999 plan was eventually scrapped after the main database was already around 40 million over budget and way over deadline. Further attempts to modernize the system in a more compartmentalized fashion lead to the $318 million lost due to excessive tax refunds in 2006 (for tax year 2005 returns). The system responsible was also scrapped and the old one was put back into service.

Though not mentioned in the overview that I link below, a GAO report I saw a couple years ago put the total actual losses (internal/external/disaster recovery etc...) at several times the publicly reported loss numbers.

Here is a general overview: http://www.crn.com/it-channel/192502071

The FBI attempted a complete systems overhaul (agents still can only use one search term in many of their databases, and much info is still paper file only). That was finally scrapped in 2005 after $170 million in costs, and over 170,000 lines of code... the project had been in progress for three years. The Washington Post put total upgrade costs since 9/11/2001 at around $600 million.

Here is a general overview: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/08/17/AR2006081701485_pf.html

I suppose the successes don't make as much news as the failures, but the real perspective we should be looking for here is who the F*** is going to plan and manage a project that will be responsible for our air safety? The upgrade attempts that I know of all ended with the old systems being put back into place.

NASA probably gets my vote. I have heard that their software design requirements and beyond insane, and that despite the catastrophic structural failures they have endured, the shuttle software systems are beyond rock-solid. They still use multiple levels of 'readers' to proofread every line of code as you would a thesis manuscript in addition to all other testers/unit-tests/sims etc..

Regards.

Through a marvel of modern publishing, advertising and distribution, millions of people will receive or buy "The Deathly Hallows" on a single day. There's something thrilling about that sort of unity, except that it has almost nothing to do with the unique pleasures of reading a novel: that increasingly rare opportunity to step out of sync with the world, to experience something intimate and private, the sense that you and an author are conspiring for a few hours to experience a place by yourselves -- without a movie version or a set of action figures.

Washington, DC has a PC-HairSplit. The USA Congress has passed a law making "American" English the national language of the USA.

I refer you too: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/110/se nate/1/votes/198/

"Vote 198: S 1348: Inhofe Amdt. No. 1151; To amend title 4, United States Code, to declare English as the national language of the Government of the United States, and for other purposes."

It still ain't the official "LEGAL" language of the USA, but it does politically placate the masses, and therefor great feelings (means nothing) politics; therefor, I did use the terms correctly. LEGAL would require almost everything done in the USA to use "American" English.

On a related note, they announced today that they were going to stop banning lighters. Not that the shoe bomber guy used a lighter (he used matches which have never been banned), but still. Semtex is a plastic explosive, and not readily flammable. It used to be really popular with the terrorists, but they've taken steps to make it much more easily detectable.

The TSA guy was quoted in the article saying that "Taking lighters away is security theater." Nice to see someone in charge gets it, and, even more choice, in getting it, quotes Bruce Schneier's catch phrase.

You're joking, but because of this law there's literally no way for radio news station to report what Dick Cheney said to Sen. Patrick Leathy on a Senate Floor.

On behalf of Dick Cheney, go fuck yourself.

Because it's the kind of back door that the developers know full well is a risk, and so they design around that risk with things like digital signatures and techniques to confirm you're speaking to an authorised server.

That's true but my point is that an intelligence agency backdoor could have exactly the same digital signature protections etc. In other words unlike what bconway said official backdoors would would be no more a compromisable hole than Update. Keeping in mind that the NSA has two missions; to protect US intelligence (SELinix etc.) and to compromise enemy intelligence (ECHELON etc.). They wouldn't deliberately put in back doors unless the cost-benefit is good. Unfortunately the cost-benefit is very good.

At a minimum I suspect they have a sophisticated software spy package ready to be downloaded via M$ Update as needed. They'd probably stay very low profile on most PC's to avoid detection but selective "heavy" targeting would be almost undetectable. Lightweight keyword checking in the disk index process on every PC, perhaps only in certain countries/languages, is also very possible and fairly low risk; all the viruses around give them plausible deniability.

---

Windows and closed source software. The US intelligence agencies back door to every network connected country and business on earth.