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Government Asks Court to Keep ID Arguments Secret
RobXiii writes " CNN has a story on privacy advocate John Gilmore (Co-founder of the EFF) taking the federal government to court, to stop the requirement of ID for in country flights. In an ironic twist, the U.S. Department of Justice is asking the court to keep its argument for the secret law secret. How are we supposed to follow a law when the law itself can't be disclosed?"
Bob Dole lost the election, but was able to recover through the use of Viagra.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
What hypocrisy!!! Slashdot talks about "Your Rights Online" while it just blocked me from posting saying "Too many bad posts from your IP"!! So we now have a censor on slashdot!!
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner . If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email moderation@slashdot.org with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are "a46007c47b8cc22be92f05cfc2b8d53f" and "5cafcfa784832e2ea282bbcac252620d" and (optionally, but preferably) your IP number "202.xx.xx.xx" and your username "losttoy".
And guess what, I was trying to post to "Your Rights Online", my karma is positive and I have moderator points!!
The problem with the classification is that the political beliefs human beings hold is not 1-dimensional. If you're wondering about Libertarians, they aren't left or right. Many libertarians would be considered far right wing. Many would be far left wing. Some are right in the middle. This quiz tests on two dimensions. There are possibily several major axis of idealology.
You have the following groups in the Libertarian Party:
Libertarian Socialist -- essentially for self-government (classical anarchists). With the basic idea that given their own choice people would naturally form a sustainable socialist societity.
FDR Libertarian -- could be considered a contradiction of terms. Basically we should have limited government, but a "safety net" for the poor, disabled and elderly is still considered necessary.
Market Libertarian -- very pro-business. Government should not support business explicitly nor should it interfer with business. Generally this group belives that healthcare and other necessities for life can be paid by those who can afford it. And those who cannot can easily be supported by charities. This assumes that charities will get more money if people aren't being heavily taxed.
I'm sure there are other groups that I'm not even aware of. But I believe these are the major ones. (With market libertarians being the largest group)
All of these groups tends to be "classical liberals". In the 18th century they would have been considered liberal, but now they identify more with conservatives.
Libertarians all tend to have very strong opinions about rights to personal property. Including the rights of your own body, which is your own property. Government confiscation of personal property is frown on by the LP. But different Libertarians take this idea to different extremes. For example, taxes could be consider confiscation of personal property (your money, leins if you don't pay, etc). Other Libertarians accept that some taxes would have to be paid, and they would only get paid if they were mandatory.
Another important belief by US Libertarians is the sovereignty of the US constitution. Almost without exception Libertarians are for the preservation of all rights granted by the constitution and against federal action that goes outside the scope of the constitution. (For example, creation of many departments that are granted some regulatory/law-making powers. like the FCC and FAA).
Beliefs that are not nearly universal are things like pacifism, the second amendment, prayer in schools, etc.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The two axis model never worked, so it can't be breaking down.
At each election the Republicrats and the Demicans divide the political spectra (mulit-dimensional...as many as you can get people to think about). Everytime one of them stakes out a position, the other tries to manuver so as to stake out a position as close to that one as possible, but on the side which will yield more votes.
Generally, Republicans go more for positions that will yield increased money (for the party), so they can afford to buy more votes, and the Democrats tend to go for positions that will get them more votes directly. (Neither side always guesses correctly, but that's what they try.)
If your agenda is not to get elected, but rather to manuver the country's ideology, then what you do is stake out the most extreme believable position. Then your opponent will move in to a position nearly identical to yours. This should usually get you defeated, but sometimes there is a miscalculation, or people consider your opponent too cynical to believe.
This breaks down when both candidates have strong commitments along the same axis. Then a vote actually becomes a choice between philosophies.
N.B.: The third parties can play an important role here, by acting to draw off into irrelevancy voters more sympathetic, or antagonistic, to a position taken on an ideological basis. If that happens, it can prove strategically sound to fund a minor party with an ideology further away than you opponent along one of the political axii. Thus during the last election you find the Republican party subsidizing the Green candidate. This can be called gaming the system.
Personally, I find the entire process a magnificent argument against the US voting system. Condorcet voting would not suffer these flaws. (The increased complexity would necessitate a program to count the votes...but it's a pretty simple program, and even with paper ballots the tabulation is done by programs.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Um.....where in the US Constitution does it say anything about separation of Church and State? Everyone purports that this item exists yet it does not. The reference everyone points out is Amendment one (part of the Bill of Rights). It follows below:
:) IN any case, being against taht does not have to mean we hate gay people. Far from it. It meagse wea re against that specific issue. No more, no less....yet people will ervert this.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Notice it does NOT say anything about us not using things like "In God we Trust" and "With God, All Things are Possible"(which also happens to be in The Bible) in the things we do daily with our government and our government itself using such phrases. What everyone seems to forget is this is a government of the people and by the people. Right now, the majority of the people claim that they are Chrisitan or are some sect of Chrisitanity (Luthren, Baptist, Presbytarian, Catholic...whatever). When the majority claim they are atheist or Muslim, things can and do change. Religion is part of what makes a person. You hire a Muslim and they have to pray to Mecca certain times of the day and you are obligated to provide that yet Christians also do not get the same treatment yet we are the majority (all we need is a nice quiet space). Amendment I so often gets perverted to mean NO RELIGION yet that's not even why it was there for. The people who came to America were feeing Religious Persecution in England. They were sufferign at the hands of the Church of England where the King could change things on his whim. Amendment I is in the Constitution so that there is NO WAY that Congress or the President can create a Church of the United States of America and not so that there would be no religion at all. This is why its even in there. It's not there so people can whine about having "In God We Trust" on our money. In God We Trust is not establishing a Church! If you think it is, well, you need help.
Amendment I also covers my right to say this, my right to peacable (I say PEACEABLY..not NOISILY unlike some of the Bush protestors) assemble and the right to petition for redress of grievances which makes me wonder....is there a real petition (not a online one) for the repealing of the Patriot Act? It's our RIGHT to do this according to the 1st Amendment. If as many geeks would sign this as bitch about it, it would have already been repealed.
So many people will claim X is in the Constitution and Y isn't when they have never READ the Constitution. This and many other reasons of us just rolling over and letting the vocal minority speak out and get there way. This includes the MINORITY of gays who want to be like a man and a woman yet be man and man or woman and woman. Bush has stated it clearly....he IS against Gay Marriage, but not against Cival Unions. Personally, with all the trouble us heteros have with marriage I have no idea why Gays even want to mess with it!
IN any case, I am with the EFF on the main point of the frontpage story. Secret laws can never be followed and it looks like the ID check think is one of the "Secret" laws and or it may just be the airlines just using it's the LAW as an excuse. You COULD say that before, but now TSA runs the security show. Not whatever company the airlines hire. So what we all really need to know is is it a law? If it is, then we have no choice but to follow it until we get ir repealed!
Gorkman