Slashdot Mirror
Dept. of Homeland Security Enforces Expired Patent
Fouquet writes "Apparently the Department of Homeland Security does not have enough to do in keeping the US safe, and now is enforcing copyright law as well. The AP reports that a toy store owner in Oregon was requested by Homeland Security officials to remove a potentially copyright-infringing Rubik's cube-like toy from her shelves. The patent for Rubik's cube was issued in 1980, and so it is expired."
In normal cases, people will just consult a lawyer (the shop owner did call her supplier, later), or at least ask for supporting documents before they complied to requests from officials. For example, you tend to ask for a search warranty if someone wants to search your house.
However with all the terrorism and patriotism nowdays, peasants can't afford to not cooperate, "just in case" you got blamed for being terrorist or unpatriotic.
Next thing we know, IRS burst into a kindergarten arresting several 5-year-old's for not calculating and paying proper tax while playing Monopoly, just to protect the integrity of the economy and nation's financial systems. "If they can't do tax at age of 5, will you trust them to pay tax 20 years later?!"
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
(and it isnt just thugs from a competing toy chain), then we should be pretty nervous.
I was going to go for a first post, but now I am too scared to try!
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
Now this is one overlord I DO NOT welcome.....
ZZ
After he created one of the largest unneccessary beuracracies in the history of the US?
Suuuuuuurrreee... It's just to prevent terrorism. For very wide definitions of 'terrorism'.
Trademark in the title, copyright in the summary, but a patent on the Rubik's cube. These are all different you know...
Copyright != Patent, Copyright != Trademark, Trademark != Patent.
Ahh, America -- land of the moron. Where the nation's anti-terrorism forces bravely persecute toy-store owners for "violation" of expired patents.
wait up a second, are you telling me, that the homeland security agents have nothing better to do than take off a rubiks cube clone? surely there must be something.
"One of the things that our agency's responsible for doing is protecting the integrity of the economy and our nation's financial systems and obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic implications,"
a Rubiks Cube Clone??? Seriously, i could eat a bowl of alphabits and crap a better Bullshit argument.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
Apparently the Department of Homeland Security does not have enough to do in keeping the US safe, and now is enforcing copyright law as well.
The patent for Rubik's cube was issued in 1980, and so it is expired."
So, are we talking about a copyright, a trademark, or a patent?
USA seem more and more like a police state. Once I wanted to visit USA but now I wouldn't dream of setting foot in the states. I'd probably be arrested if I said something wrong.
This sounds like really great news. What next? Every person who downloads MP3s is automatically branded a 'terrorist' because they might be threatening the integrity of the economy? Even if they own the CD in question (which is analogous here, because legally there's nothing wrong with the Majick Cube either now that the Rubik's patent has expired)?
--Ryvar
Customs is part of Homeland Security and customs has been enforcing these laws for as long as I can remember. These are imported goods.
"Within six months of passing the PATRIOT Act, the Justice Department was conducting seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping provisions to extend them beyond terror cases," said Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. "They say they want the PATRIOT Act to fight terrorism. Then, within six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary citizens."
fucking awesome.
Seriously, I'm happy I live in a country that will protect me from the ROUGE RUBICS CUBE!
Puzzles are an atempt to destroy our national security! If our children had puzzels they, they might become smart, and ask questions. We can't have children asking questions now can we? They'll never make good sheeple that way!
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
Ok, who modded me troll?
/. I have to stand up for my right to make totally asinine posts completely devoid of any relevant subject matter related to the article which I haven't even read.
Come one now, this is
The American Federal government already has a law enforcement agency, that being the ever-venerated FBI. In addition, the Secret Service also acts in some cases as a law enforcement agency, providing protection for the President, government buildings like the U.S. mints, and, of course, as the chief investigator of counterfeiting schemes.
Now the DHS seems to see its role as more than a simple anti-terrorist investigative agency. They think of themselves as another arm of Federal law enforcement. To some extent, they are correct. The role they play is vital to American national security, and to reach the goals of the agency it is mandatory that they have the ability to use law enforcement tactics.
However, to stretch the fairly narrow initial charter of the DHS to include such things as "defending the national economy" is nothing short of stupid and dangerous. When the DHS was formed, their purview only included possible terrorist attacks. Now it is expanded to include just about any crime that someone deems undesirable.
The government should not have many overlapping law enforcement agencies. Indeed, this is what led to the massive intelligence failure on 9/11 with the lack of communication between the various government agencies. The DHS would be better absorbed into the FBI as a anti-terror division than to continue expanding its powers unabated.
...expiration violations aside, shouldn't the order be to stop manufacturing them, not to stop selling them? Also, isn't the owner of this (expired) patent responsible for enforcing it instead of Homeland Security just hunting them down?
"Aren't there any terrorists out there?" she said.
Terrorists? Do you think we'd be mucking around in Iraq if we knew where to find terrorists??
Now just put down the cubes and nobody gets hurt.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The Customs Service is now part of Homeland Security. Ergo, DHS agents were the ones who investigated this incident.
sulli
RTFJ.
The title of this story says expired trademark. Then it says they were complaining about copyright infringement. Then they say that the patent expired.
Trademarks, copyrights, and patents are completely different. They are *not* interchangeable terms. The laws are different, the terms are different, and they are meant to protect different things.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
Terrorist suppliers cannot be allowed to sell the tools of evil with just one click.
The terrorist must always click twice.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
but that is fucking RETARTED.
Yeah I know. I got to meet Taco this week so at least that's a plus. ;)
...rather than a patent one.
This is but one of the many examples of overpolicing, degredation of privacy, mis-allocation of US taxpayers' resources that has come from the USDOHS, and highlights the ludicrous state of the US patent system which needs a major restructure.
If there is any consollation in stories like this, it's that there is no massive terrorist threat like the Bush administration has played up and is likely to win the approaching presidential election on.
Trademarks don't expire. Trademark, copyright, and patent are entirely different things. Reading the summary you can't tell which of these areas of law was involved and you get the impression that the action was taken on expired IP.
The article states that the action was taken on the basis of a trademark. With a name like "Magic Cube" if the toy is anything at all like a Rubic's Cube then it almost certainly does infringe on the Rubic's Cube trademark.
And why all the fake wonderment about the department of Homeland Security handling the case? In case anyone missed the press release the department is not some niche organisation that deals specifically with terrorism. It's a big tarball of a whole bunch of departments and old law enforcement angencies that used to deal with all manner of federal law enforcement issues. They do lots of things besides deal with terrorism.
Oh man, I want one of those Magic Cubes so bad, which is funny, because I hated the Rubiks Cube (not because it was hard, it was just too popular).
So how about it ThinkGeek? I want "the toy the government doesn't want you to know about".
How cool would that be.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
Is it a trademark, a patent, or a copyright? I thought this was just the /. editors screwing up, but the AP seems to have done the same thing! (well, they only mentioned trademark and patent; the copyright thing seems to be a /. original) Shame on them.
Can you even trademark or copyright a toy design? The DHS spokesdroid comment suggests that it's a trademark violation. What the heck is being trademarked here? The word Cube? If so, I'll be very worried once I get over laughing hysterically...
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Perhaps all newer true Rubix cubes are embedded with some sort of micro chips/sensors, (perhaps even microphones and/or cameras!) which can detect if and how long it took a person to solve it, then these individuals are added to some sort of watch list, because they arent the typical dumb sheep the government wishes to rule. But I digress
That looks like a misleading article title to me. What happened is that DHS inherited Customs because Customs is responsible for controlling things that cross US - which is not unreasonable. But customs also apparently has some trademark enforcement duties - probably on things that are imported. Also not unreasonable - although it leads to trademark enforcement sitting under DHS which is a little weird. But the article should more rightfully have been about a shop owner who was visited by Customs agents.
Whether or not trademarks were actually being violated is a another matter.
So, what law enforcement agency do you think looks into copyright and trademark violations? Especially now that most of them are now part of the HSA?
Clear, Dark Skies
Abuse of rights, law, and tax dollars. This is why you should vote Libertarian.
Take the Advocates.org "World's Smallest Political Quiz" to find out what party you belong in based on real issues. According to them, "Take the Quiz now and find out where you fit on the political map!"
It is my belief that everyone is a Libertarian, but they they just don't know it.
Vote Michael Badnarik in 2004. Send a message to Washington and don't choose between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich.
Do people in the US actually believe there is some vast terrorist army out there that the US army is fighting? and who is poised to 'Invade the Homeland', and that there can be any meaningful protection from people hellbent on destroying shit if theyre willing to give their lives to do it?
Cos thats just plain batshit crazy. Surely youre not all so stupid as to believe that the 'Department of Homeland Security' is not there to protect Americans from anyone but each other?
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Really getting my monies worth from TM registrations, such as for CANNABIS.COM, Marihemp, and HempNation - and is so reassuring [sarcasm] to know the Dept of Homeland security, in light of heighten alert and numerous terror threats, is proactively working 24x7 to protect trademarks and patents; author of the article confused the two.
Ron Bennett
You have a chance to do something about it next Tuesday. Go vote.
We're going to have to change our name to the country formerly known as the land of the free.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Tom Delay, (R-TX), is under indictment in Texas for abusing his power as leader of the majority in the House of Representatives (ie, a powerful man) to sic Homeland Security on a group of Democrats state assemblymembers as part of a bitter redistricting battle. Regardless of the merit of the Democrat strategy, Homeland Security was clearly not appropriate, though Delay was able to use them for his purposes, without any security component.
If we let these powermad tyrants have power, they will abuse it, and maybe apologize later, after the damage is done. We have to get rid of this unaccountable department immediately, and use our National Security system to protect us. Anyone know what is the difference is between "National" Security and "Homeland" Security? Or the Department of Defense, for that matter? We're turning into squalid East Germany, where every fifth German was a "security" henchman, controlling their neighbors through surveillence and intimidation.
--
make install -not war
I was watching a movie on the american poet Poe and he was impoverished most of his life becasue he was so vocal about copyright (pro copyright) that knowbody would hire him. We have come full circle.
Both the Poster and the AP journo clearly has no clue what is going on, what the various laws are.
They mix match and mangle various laws and rumors to come up with this story.
There is nothing to see here, just random rumour and silliness.
I'm totally confused about all this. I know it cannot be copyright. And I think patent infringement would have to be proven in court before any governmental action. Which leaves trademark.
It costs something like $900 to register a trademark. I guess this shows you get your money's worth. :p
media girl
Bingo! Someone who reads and thinks. However I should point out that the government should have gone after the supplier, not the purchaser if they had a legitimate complaint. I'm certain her store isn't the only ones selling this particular toy. Were are the visits to these other stores?
First they take away my nailclippers.... but they ain't taking my ROGUE Rubics Cube....
I've figured it out. The Rubiks cube was actually invented by some commie, wasn't it? So the All-American Majick Cube would actually be HELPING our economy, by making sure part of the profits didn't go to those godless communists.
So, if the Dept of Homeland Security confiscated the American cubes.... they must be agents of the Soviet Government. Thats the only thing that makes sense.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!
screw both the main party candidates, Badnarik and libertarianism are ideals for government..
I AM voting for Badnarik Nov 2.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
The slashdot story confuses copyrights, trademarks and patents: at issue is trademark infringement (or so it seems). Copyrights have nothing to do with the story, and the patent on rubiks cubes was only mentioned by the copycat manufacturer to clarify that the patent had expired.
Specifically, the trademark probably hasn't expired (in principle trademarks don't while you defend them); A rubiks cube (or anything similar) can't infringe upon copyright (unless you're crazy enough to consider it a medium for information).
I don't like whining about bad slashdot stories; but this really is poorly presented...
--Eamon
My question is did the DHS do this in every single store selling the magic cube? Isn't an infringement on her rights to confiscate something not illegal without a proper warrent? And why didn't they contact the manufacturer first before going to the tiny little store?
This doesn't make sense. CowboyNeal's goofy and a democrat, but ususally not baited so easily.
The election's close and we're supposed to believe that Jeb's brother's agency is that incompetent and out of control.
Sheesh!
Kerry, Edwards 2004
Don't credit the Matrix, credit Descartes.
sulli
RTFJ.
If it's all red, it's always solved... until your girlfriend points out it's six different shades of red. Oy.
OK, so US Customs is enforcing a trademark violation. Fine.
What is wrong is that Customs does not have jurisdiction inside the US only coming and going from it. Once in the US, it is a civil case that would need at least a hearing or court order to remove merchandise from the store. More than likely, an authorized local authority would then execute the court order(not actual agents).
It is disturbing that Homeland Security did think that Magic Cube and Rubik's Cube are similar in name or that they don't understand what a trademark is. Most disturbing is that Homeland Security obviously does not understand the laws they are trying to enforce or how to legally enforce them.
The only 'wrong' thing going on is that Rubik or whoever reported it is intentionally damaging and interfering with Magic Cubes and Pufferbelly Toys businesses. Homeland Security should immediately return the items to Pufferbelly Toys and apologize. I don't think there is much Pufferbelly Toys can do for restitution directly against Homeland Security. It would be nice to be able to sue the government for incompetence, but then there would be no government left.
One slashdot article confusing trademarks, copyright AND patents. This has to be some kind of record, even for slashdot.
Hmmmm......
I guess its just that I'm new here.
Apparently, I ain't part of everyone.^-^ I maybeed the repeal of drug laws and the ending of corporate welfare. The rest were Agree in Personal and Disagree in Economic.
Of course, I can't vote in American elections,so this hardly matters. Cobb, Nader, or Browne for President!:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
It is hard to buy a large quantity of boron-free graphite. But plastics are known to be excellent moderators. Enuf of these cubes and with some natural(non-enriched)uranium and the agents of international terrorism could build their own nuclear reactor, even here in US!
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
I would agree that a few inconvienences are to be expected after a tragedy such as 9/11. But a few inconvienences that seriously infringe upon peoples civil rights and civil liberties?
Honestly I don't mind a few inconvienences, I'm for increased security, but forget it if my rights are going to be taken away from me (After all that's what the our soldiers have been fighting for all these years). I don't think it is as black and white as the parent suggests.
I don't think the grand parent suggests we ignore terrorists, just that the brush was too large for the job.
I'm not even going to get started on who makes a better president, because that's just a can of worms I REFUSE to open.
-JM
That's right, "boys will be boys". OK if I call DHS on you, for that suspicious glow from your basement around Midnight every night? You can explain it all to the press properly when they get there to pick through the wreckage.
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make install -not war
The article fails to mention that three of the six sides were arranged to spell out "WMD."
[I][BLOCKQUOTE]Would you really rather have a gutless weakling in charge?[/I][/BLOCKQUOTE]
Because we all know that a guy who went into Vietnam alongside other troops, in the line of fire, fighting for his country and risking his life, is more gutless than copping out and getting a free ride protecting Omaha - courtesy of one's own dad.
http://www.schneier.com/essay-038.html
Vote Bush for a better, safer America. Vote Kerry for a wealthier Kerry.
Have you seen the price of oil recently?
deus does not exist but if he does
I started telling my foriegn friends to stay the hell out of the USA a year ago.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Which one of your rights have been taken away?
"Vote Kerry for a wealthier Kerry"
So, did Bush take a vow of poverty or something? They are both Yale-educated millionares.
As far as the "few inconvieneiences," tell that to Jose Padilla, an American citizen who has been held in milatary custory for more than two years WITHOUT BEING CHARGED. If the guy is guilty, which I think he probably is, charge him with something, don't just throw him in a brig and throw away the key -- and not even give him access to a lawyer without a fight.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
I, for one, welcome our Republican Overlords.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Specifically none, but it's where I see things heading...
I agree alot of Kerry fans claim their rights have been violated. My apologies if I wasn't clear, but it's not that I have had my rights taken away from me, but it's a fear that grows a little more everyday when I see legislation such as the Patriot Act passed, and read stories such as this one.
Poeple here should understand this... Americans don't actually MAKE anything anymore. Nothing, nada. You can't buy Made in the USA if you try!
So enforcing IP laws are all that stand between _ALL_ of us geeks and unemployment.
Join the 21st century already.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
"So, did Bush take a vow of poverty or something? They are both Yale-educated millionares."
Well, Bush doesn't do nearly as many tax loopholes as Kerry. Bush pays about 30% of his income in taxes, while Kerry pays about 12%. And Kerry makes a lot more than Bush.
In addition, Kerry seems to be supported by the big billionaires who will do anything for money, like, say, George Soros.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Slashdot AC buzzwords - application to actual post.
The post to which I replied says "it's no big deal, shit happens". So I offer (rhetorically, they're almost as anonymous as you) to happen some shit to them, and see how big a deal they think it is then. Their post does, however, cover the empty carping in yours.
--
make install -not war
Have you seen that we are lucky to be paying 2-3$ for a gallon of gas? Perhaps we should go to Europe? Or even better, head back to the 1920's where Oil was similar to buying a diamond or other precious items. The inflation percentage of oil has remained relatively low compared to the inflation of other items. Count your blessings.
I think it's the fact that there is less judicial overview in this case. If one person does not have protection from search and sesure, then none of us do, because the very same thing could happen to us. They didn't have a search warrant. They didn't even investigate the claim, because a 2 minute purusal would have shown that the claim was bogus. that's why that amendment was added. This is not the first case of the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act being used for very un-terrorist activities. Bush, could you please explain to us just what a terrorist is?
Magic Cube(TM) is an active and fairly famous trademark. The Magic Cube(TM) is a toy for toddlers that makes a crapload of electronic noise when you push buttons on it.
A rubik's cube like toy is fine to import into the US, just don't call it Magic Cube(TM), GameCube(TM), or XBox(TM).
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The Bush administration has grown not only the deficit to ridiculous sizes, but also the government, itself. Another bureaucracy is just what is needed to keep this country safe... Right!
So much for the "moderate" conservative that I voted for in 2000! I think I'll vote for the Democrats this time. At least, I know where they stand!
- slackerman
"...The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders." - Erwin Rommel
It's a matter of priorities and if this our current administration's idea of a law enforcement priority, then we need change really, really bad.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The trademark "Magic Cube", as it applies to "manipulative puzzles", is owned by Atico International USA Inc. of Ft. Lauderdale, FL. You can find out stuff like that here. The manufacturer/importer of the Magic Cube puzzles in the story is the Toysmith Group of Auburn, WA. This could be nothing more than the rightful owner of a trademark pressing its case against a possibly unwitting party who didn't do any trademark research before naming their product. It probably has nothing to do with Erno Rubik, his expired patent, or any copyrights.
I'd rather have a Kerry, endorsed by an american billionaire, than Bush, endorsed by Saudi billionaires.
$8.95/mo web hosting
Which is it? A copyright, trademark, or patent?
Lumping them all together in a jumbled mess like this only helps confuse the issues that surround each.
A choice of masters is not freedom
So, the Department of homeland Security was created to simplify, organize and streamline the process of securing our homeland. Trademark violation falls under their purview now and as any newly minted, efficient government organization worth it's salt would do, they send two agents to a little toy store to scare the crap out of a shopkeeper when a simple stamp, envelope, and letterhead with the words "Cease and Desist" typed on them would have done the trick. Homeland security, why spend $0.50 when $5,000.00 will scare our citizens even more!
Here's the corruption from this week alone. Its not laziness at work here.
As of the last time I checked, Tom Delay was NOT under indictment.
His underlings, however, that's another story.
Why did I post redundantly? so the title "Delay NOT under indictment" would show up in the threaded view. Please don't mod below that of Dung Malg's post.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Why the hell are you even applying a label (Republican) to yourself then? Does it make you feel like more of a man?
Strip off the labels people. If you're already thinking for yourself (ie: you said you don't agree with everything Republicans support), then god dammit, take the next step and strip yourself of the damn labels! Tell people you are AMERICAN and be proud of that. Vote based on the issues you support, and leave it at that. The country would be better off if more people stopped playing "who's team am I on" and just cared about the core issues.
What does Customs have to do with enforcing copyright? Shouldnt that be a court issue? On what basis can they tell her to remove items from the shelf?
emt 377 emt 4
if a congressman didn't read it, or didn't understand it, then I would expect him to
VOTE NO as an automatic response....
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
We used to have the right to speedy trial, by a jury of our peers. Now the patriot act negates that, just ask the folks in holding facilities facing military court.
We used to have a right to face our accuser, now we have annomous tips, they dont leave much for us to face.
We used to have the right to be secure in our person, property and effects, now, not so much, as evidenced by this story.
Somebody else finish the list, Im too fucking depressed after that.
"Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."
Yup, it's the customs agents who are responsible for trademark violations for imported goods. Not sure who if the goods are domestic, which is the case here.
The problem here is the agents didn't do their homework. They MERELY ACCEPTED THE COMPLAINT ON FACE VALUE. This makes the agents look stupid.
If they'd done their homework, they'd know that the only potentially valid claim is a trademark claim, and in order to be clear-cut, they'd have to be something so close to "Rubik's Cube" as to cause confusion. If they'd been misspelled as "Rubick's Cubes" or even "Rubick's Boxes" I could see the feds having a case, but "Magic Cube" has no confusion. The "Cube" part is "merely descriptive" and not worthy of protection.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
And we have the right to call you on it.
How do you know the claim is bogus? Nowhere does it even say what the actual claim was. Are you the judge and jury because some slashdot article gave you inaccurate and incomplete infromation, that you can pronounce a claim bogus? For that matter, how do you know they didn't have a warrant? The article doesn't mention it either way.
proof Sorry, sometimes I can't help myself.
If he's guilty, it's of treason. Christ, it's not even an amendment, it's in the body of the constitution.
WTF is wrong with the bush administration/courts?
It's time for all Americans to band together and burn all the rubik's cubes. Destroy any written solutions you may have. If you know the solution then you should forget it, or at least kill yourself.
Otherwise the terrorists will win.
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
is it any wonder they thought this patent... er, copyright... er, trademark was still valid? look at the agency they would have needed to consult to verify the information. yes, none other than our own patent and trademark office.
no wonder they're clueless.
you don't have to outrun the bear, just the slowest person in your group.
Non citizens do not have the right to speedy trial. US citizens do, and that's why I support the US Supreme Court saying the same thing. So no that right has not been taken from you.
"We used to have a right to face our accuser, now we have annomous tips, they dont leave much for us to face"
Hyperbole. Name one case where that has happened. "We used to have the right to be secure in our person, property and effects, now, not so much, as evidenced by this story."
As I and others said in other postings in this story, this was not a Patriot act investigation, it was a Customs act. The article never mentions whether or not a warrant was present, so for us to declare that here rights were taken away is pre speculation. So no, that right has not been taken away from you either.
Next!
We cannot just ignore any and all lesser crimes/problems just because there's a big one. Terrorism is a big and scary problem, no doubt, but that doesn't mean that DHS should ignore all it's other duties and just concentrate on that. It's like saying that because we still have some murders, no other crimes matter, so the police should never investigate anything but murders until all murders are solved or murders stop happening. Clearly that's a bad idea.
See the DHS is just another governmental orignization, with many branches and duities. One of their braches is now U.S. Customs (customs.gov if you want info on them). Customs used to be a part of the treasury, but since their work is more relivant ot the new DHS, they were moved over. Well guess what? This is one of the things they do, they check out illegal imports. Now they were wrong in this case, which happens unfortunately, but that's their job. They actually aren't the terrorist finders, not their job, not what they are good at.
I know it's popular to jerk the knee and cry about the terrorists whenever law enforcement makes a mistake but remember: You are no better than the politicans trying to use it as a scare tactic when you do. It's just as bad to try and use terrorism as some sort of cut out that makes everything else ok and something to be overlooked as it is to use it as this fersome spectre to erode civil rights.
When I purchaed an amplifier from a private citizen in Canada the DHS, specifically their customs branch, opend the box up, had a good look at it, and packed it back up and sent it on to me. This is not them wasting time instead of finding terrorists, they aren't that group. This is the import package checkers doing their job. I am not going to demand they run to the Middle East and look for terrorists any more than I'm going to demand the cop directing traffic run off and try to solve a murder case.
I might have jumped the gun - Delay has so far only been served a subpoena for his Texas corporate bribery^Wfundraising crimes. On top of the three or four Congressional "admonitions" for other crimes. We still have to wait to see whether Delay's power impresses the Grand Jury as much as it does his Republican bund behind the House Ethics Committee. At least he's earning his name.
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make install -not war
I saw this on LJ last night, and if it isn't a hoax, it should get some kind of coverage beyond a thread. I note that one of the threads attached to this LJ post suggested as much, although the person concerned seems to be (sensibly) not intersted in being a centre of attention "martyr".
All very "Jose Chong's Outer Space".
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Sorry, but I just did a search for this right being taken away by the Patriot act and I found nothing. Can you point out either the text of the Act that contains this or a real example? If you do I will concede your point.
Who the fuck needs more bills passed? We have enough damn laws as it is. How about the Representatives and Senators start reading bills, go back to only being in session a few months of the year, and stop sneaking bullshit into law by hiding it under 100 pages of legal gibberish.
Hell yes congressmen should be reading the bills. It's not just their job, it's their sworn duty.
I'm also incredibly impressed that they were able to show the restraint necessary to keep from smacking this jackass upside his head.
Ever hear of Volitaire?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Despite what you may think, we have (or should I say had) a freedom of speech in this country. Get a clue you moron.
Well, in Bush's case I would use the term 'educated' loosely.
Anything NOT worth doing is NOT worth doing well...
They have a hard job: protecting the life of a very important and very well known world leader (they have other jobs too). World leaders are popular to try and off, no matter who they are, there's plenty of people who have a beef with them. They ALL have security details and these are peopel who do not take risks and do not have a sense of humour.
You can get a secret service visit by sending a threatening e-mail to basicaly any valid e-mail address at whitehouse.gov. They investigate all of it because guess what? People have not only tried to kill presidents, they have succeded on a few occasions. It's serious bussiness.
Also notice that said blogger is NOT locked up for life, in fact he didn't even get inconvenienced. Right after your little exceprt he goes on to say "as what I said could apparently be misconstrued as a threat to his life. After about ten minutes of talking to me and my family, they quickly came to the conclusion that I was not a threat to national security."
So, what happened? Well the secret service found out about someone who said they wanted the president dead in a very public venue. Ok so tey need to find out is this just some idiot venting, or is this a wacko who might be a real threat? They go, interview the guy, and in ten minutes decide there's no problem and leave.
What is the damn problem? They did this before 9/11 too. At the university where I work we get about 1 visit per year from them because some student made a threat. It doesn't end up in an arrest, just a check on the student to make sure they really are just a stupid college student, and an explination to said student that this is a bad idea.
If you read his blog you notice a lot of inconsistent ranting. He calls them the Sekkrit Service, because I guess it sounds sinister or something and talks about rights violations, yet admits they were nice about it and non threatening.
This is NOT an exmaple of law enforcement being bad or the PATRIOT act being abused (and there are plenty of examples), it's an example of the opposite. Some kid made a stupid post on his website that could be construed as a threat to the president, which is a serious thing. A couple of agents investiagted, determined he was no threat and just blowing off steam, and that is that.
If you want to argue abuses of power, pick a real example. It's not like they aren't out there.
...tha's just wrong. Completely absolutely wrong. I distinctly remember when we had a great, viable economy, a GOOD one, BEFORE almost everything was imported. BEFORE. When any random Joe Normal blue collar job was enough for a house and a car and a flock of kids and benefits and vacations and savings. Not even a high paid white collar, just a normal middle of the road blue collar, and yes, it might even have been making inexpensive toys. Just because you don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't exist. They not only could inspect the containers, they could change the laws back to where the bulk of the containers were going OUT like they used to be when we had a REAL economy that wasn't skewed towards the globalist elite millionaire crowd and calling massive debt, deficits and credit a "strong economy".
That "not be able to inspect" the containers jazz is a load, OF COURSE they could if they wanted to, they don't want to. They manage to "inspect" 80 year old ladies and crippled vets in wheelchairs at the airport. They manage to "inspect" a heap of countries over yonder, to the tune of billions of dollars a WEEK using hundreds of thousands of dudes, some of them making in excess of 600$ a day to just tote a rifle. The "war on terrorism" is a complete fraud. It's war to terrorise americans,oh, that's true, that's really true, but it's being waged by the government, and this article proved it in yet again another small way.
You had to watch it grow ever since the 60s to see it,but it's been creeping incrementalism, and a lot of folks have been warning about it for years. The past few years they have hit the nitrous button, that's the only difference. And they show no sign of relenting, or rolling anything back for that matter, just ever onward. And people have been eating it and sucking it up every step of the way. Can't look at a news site anymore without seeing more and more evidence of it. A FAN at a baseball game shot and killed by getting hit in ther eye with a riot paintball pellet? Huh? Random "courtesy" checkpoints? Huh? Cameras all over staring at you? Huh? Even that name "Homeland Security" WHAT WW2 B war movie did they drag that from? What is all this crap BUT big brotherism and state terrorism?
The goons have proven it, the slow boiling frog, most people will just slurp it down, excuse it, make believe they aren't seeing or hearing what they are seeing or hearing, every step of the way.
Huh? My logic is that the DHS has too much unaccountable power, which it is abusing in nonterrorist enforcement, derived from overreaction to a terrorist threat. It sounds like you agree with me, if I read your sarcasm. How are you turning that around to disagree with me?
--
make install -not war
The title says that they enforced an expired trademark, the text says that the toy infringed copyright and explains that the patent expired because it was patented in 1980.
;)
Obviously, the author is mixing these three disparate types of IP. They should never be confused. Copyright is the right to copy written works, a patent is a right to control an invention or an idea and a trademark is a symbol or word representing someone's business (such as FedEX or UPS or Kinko's or something).
The author *probably* means that the office of homeland security is enforcing an expired PATENT since the patent was issued in 1980, but I'm guessing.
Later, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
DHS is a multiheaded department that is also responsible for customs enforcement. If that's their job, then it is logical they do it, terrorists or no. Entire offices who specialize in finding illegal imports aren't going to be useful for gun battles against terrorist cells, no?
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Here we have trademark, copyright, and patent, all being used interchangeably. OTOH, this could be diabolically clever, I had to read the article to see if they mentioned all three there, too. And no, they only mention two.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
This sort of incident is best understood when you look at America's history. The apple don't fall too far from the tree. America was born on the backs of slaves and indentured servants.
Historically, the power of the state has almost ALWAYS been aligned with the top of the hierarchy. Back in the slave days, the government mainly worked for Master, or "Massa," the slaveowner, the rich plantation owner, or the merchant, or the rich farmer. The government was designed mainly to take care of Massa's property.
These days the corporation is our "Massa." And it don't really matter whether Massa is right or not. You best obey the Massa, or you get a taste of the whip.
And if you can afford to take Massa into court, then YOU must be Massa.
Always, always act first to protect Massa's property, whether it be a runaway slave, an indentured servant on the run, or one who has been stealing food, or a thief in the cornfield, or a shoplifter, or an IP infringer, then, and only then, ask questions, or deal with it in the courts.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
You do realize that this is exactly the type of speech the First Amendment was put in place to protect?
fish and pipes
I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of claiming that Kerry was out to enrich himself, while Bush wasn't. They're all in it for corporate interests and not to "protect the American people", why vote against Kerry on that basis?
deus does not exist but if he does
Nobody expects the homeland security! Our primary weapons are expired copyrights, and rubik's cubes...
oh damn, let me come in again.
I don't live in the US; I'm sure the price has been kept artificially low for you in the run-up to the election -- can't have a recession starting, can we? Out here in the rest of the world, we don't have any such luck, and Bush and his friends are cashing up on their self-created Gulf crisis.
deus does not exist but if he does
What we need is a standards committe to come up with a markup language that is more precise and efficient than that archaic style of speech. For example:
//FIX: Search always returns NULL
//Start monitoring but don't do anything
//with the data until court order is granted
//Considered to be a terrorist
//Determined to not be a terrorist
./'s will inherit the Earth, but it will sure be in shitty condition when we do.
#Define SuspectedTerrorist {
Posesses {
Explosives;
AssaultFirarms;
WMD;
} AND
Meta {
ThreatendGovernment;
ScrewedByUSForeignPolicy;
}
}
//Process Suspected Terrorists
if (SuspectedTerrorist instanceof entity)
{
monitor(entity)
{
if (obtainMonitorPermission(entity))
{
hFederalCourt = DueProcessStartup();
hFederalCourt.process(entity);
} else {
DestroyMonitorData();
return;
}
}
}
Seriously though, the law can't fucking be "interpreted" when you use a language that is explicit (and I don't mean lost of swearing). Stupid politicians. This is why
And your logic is multiheaded as the hydra. I point out that we agree, and you change the subject to something on which we might not. OK, how about these "specialists" following the due process which would have prevented them from interfering with legitimate commerce?
--
make install -not war
A few inconveniences are a bery small price to pay for safety and security of the state and its people.
No amount of protection from terrorism - not even if it protected us all ad infinitum - is worth one iota of my precious liberty. There is a bigger number of human lives than I can even conceptualize that were given so that I could live in a place where I have the chance to live freely. Nothing is worth voiding the fruits of their sacrifices. Nothing.
Now on to my point. The only rebuttal I have seen to complaints about the PATRIOT Act have been of the "Don't worry. Nobody will use it to do that sort of stuff."
I humbly submit this:
Even if you think Bush and the executive branch of the government under him are from the highest chorus of angels and would never do anything to hurt the citizens of the USA, it should not affect your judgement of the PATRIOT Act at all. For that matter, it should not affect your judgement of any law passed while he is in office, regardless of who passes it, who proposes it, and who votes on it. A bad law passed by a group of angels is still a bad law.
Say the president is an angel and asks the Congress (who are also a group of angels) to pass a law that provides ways of foregoing due process. Say also that the president, the leadership of Homeland Security and every law enforcement agent in the country are angels and the law is never abused even once. It is still a bad law.
It is a bad law because in the hands of a devil the law could be abused and used to hurt the people of the USA. Your rebuttal - the claim that the law is okay since it will never be abused - is entirely based on the assumption that we will have angels in public office for as long as the law is a law. If you think the terrorist threat is going to be around for a while, then you should expect the PATRIOT Act and things like it to be around for just as long. It shows no signs of going away, and a PATRIOT Act II was even proposed, I believe.
The assumption that this country will elect angel after angel is a tenuous one at best. The President is not the only one you should be worried about. What about the leadership of law enforcement and the DHS? Do you think every one of them is an angel? Have you met all of them? The "goodness" of a law should never have to be judged based on who uses it. This is something that a citizen of this country should agree on regardless of their political affiliation.
A law is a good law if 1.) it does what it sets out to do efficiently, 2.) what is sets out to do is in the public's best interest, and 3.) it can not be abused by those who would abuse it. For the PATRIOT Act, point 1 can be argued on both sides, most people will agree on point 2, but it fails miserably on point 3. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to give law enforcement a way to forego due process, but it's in the Act.
As a citizen, I will not bet the well-being of my country ride on whether or not the people in office have good intentions. I know a lot of people who don't like to see the PATRIOT Act being attacked feel that it is a personal attack on their Candidate of Choice. I mean to suggest that even if John Kerry or Clinton had pushed the PATRIOT Act through Congress, the very same people would be complaining. I definitely would. They would be complaining not because they are Republicans or Democrats, but because they are good citizens. One prerequisite to having good laws is being critial of them.
All that being said, I think it's really funny that a lot of conservatives rag on John Kerry and the liberals in Congress for voting to pass such a heinous law. Who proposed the law in the first place?
Light is filtering down from above. Would you like to use DIVE?
I thought that it was Tetris?
for giving us the Keystone Kops
Ummm, no. Most speech is protected by the First Amendment. Some speech is not. Usually, there are two canonical examples given of speech that is not protected:
1. Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.
2. Threatening to kill the President.
Another is joking about bombs while you're waiting to get aboard an airplane. These forms of speech are not protected. Anyone who does them is stupid.
Imagine you get a speeding ticket. You follow 'due process' and fight the ticket. Let's say you win (I have done this). You will be made to pay court costs, which are probably as much as the ticket. If you lose, the fine will be outrageous and the judge might slap community service or some incarceration atop of that if you piss him off too much.
That ticket is just a cop telling you he accuses you of doing this. The DHS people were doing the same thing. If they want to fight it, go to court. Expect to pay a lot of money and really be screwed if you lose, though.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
This is part of the Cornerstone Initiative, "Protecting the Homeland through Economic Security". Their site is "being revised", but their newsletter lists what they're up to.
Are trade mark cases normally looked into via the gov. Its my understanding that for patent and trademark issues the owner has to launch the law suit to follow it up...
This was how Germany was back in the 30's when they were protecting their 'Homeland' from supposed outside threats and things escalated due to politically controlled fears and the general population's 'Patriotic' attitude. Add in a bit of our own 50's 'McCarthyism' and you get an idea of where things seem to be heading. Those quaint and silly 'Constitution' and 'Bill Of Rights' look like they can be interpreted to whatever ends those in power deem necessary and if you don't like it then you're next!
That's part of the problem of thinking in terms of "IP" (intellectual property). One doesn't learn to recognize the numerous and important differences between these areas of law. These powers work differently, have different histories, last for different amounts of time, cost different amounts of money to acquire and sustain, and most importantly, they affect society in different ways. The term invites one to mash them all together as if they share some common theme and only differ from one another in minor ways, hence, once you learn the theme you can toss the terms "trademark", "copyright", and "patent" about as if there were no real differences between them.
Another big problem with that term is that we're invited to think about these (and other) disparate areas of law as "property". That framing of the issue is only one possible way to think about them, and if we are going to understand how they work now and how a better system would work, we must not prejudice our thinking by limiting it to property talk.
Digital Citizen
I can attest to this - I was in the Raleigh/Durham (NC) Airport this past weekend and saw a sign while waiting in line for security. It stated that making jokes about bombs or other security threats was not permitted and would lead to interrogation. Fun times, eh?
The Kingdom of Retarsia
I think that pre-pre war II Germany started like this, and every one around knows how it ended.
:(
Power corrupts, to say the least.
Same acts, different people, different time, but will it be same result? If so, who can save us? China? yea sure! Europe... don't think so
--
Cook
but not kitchen!
http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/magiccube.h tm#Purchase%20of%20the%20cube
So, where's the violation?
Slashdot: News for people who have absolutely no idea how the world works.
A president has very little control on the economy in general, much less the price of oil. First, the Anti-Bushites were saying he wanted cheap oil to help out all his oil friends. (I mean he is from Texas, he must have oil friends who he cares a lot more about than the country or his legacy.) Now they are saying he wants high oil prices. Now you are saying he wants high oil prices but not yet. Good greif! The only thing he could do to reduce the price of oil is to eliminate the federal gas tax (which he has not done), and not without the help of Congress. Gas prices are so high around the rest of the world because all the socialist governments put insanely high gas taxes in place. Ours are much lower, though still too high in this economy. The reason the price of oil has gone up is because there are more people around the world driving cars these days. In developing countries this number is expanding rapidly. Demand is much higher than ever in history. I was in South Korea last year and traffic was absolutely insane because everybody and his brother decided to buy a car in the last few years. OPEC also plays a role, but it is certainly not GWB pulling the strings.
If Bush had the powers you think he has, this would not even be a close race.
at least the russians made no bones about the duties of the KGB, and the NKVD and the gulags... they basically told the people 'fuck with the Party and the Party will brutally assrape you until your mouth starts bleeding'.. you knew where you stood with people like that (usually up against a wall with a last cigarette, blindfold optional)
.. just write "subversion" (or "force" if that is your choice).. i've always wanted to .. but never had the cojones
unfortunately the USGOV is telling people 'we love you, we want to help and protect you, now will you PLEASE give us your rights because we're going to take them from you anyway', and people are BUYING it. it looks like shit and smells like shit but they're buying it like it was rare perfume.
so yes if i were to return to the US (and believe me until dubya started all this shit i DID have plans) it would be to help in the liberation if the US. until then i am making plans to meet my american friends in canada or mexico
well there goes my name into the no fly list
vive la revolution
Suchetha
ps. if you really want to put your choices into the visa form why not just use that line that says "do you support the overthrow of the US Gov by force or subversion"
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
You too can fill out an Intellectual Property Snitch form and have the stormtroopers harass the enemy of freedom and democracy and motherhood and apple pie. Provide us with as much dirt as possible so we can identify the proper tactics to deter any possible violations that may occur , have occurred , or will occur.
r m.htm
(end of humor, start of straight up reality)
A quote from the site: At http://www.ice.gov/graphics/cornerstone/ipr/IPRFo
"
National IPR Coordination Center Complaint Referral Form
The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) works to protect the United States and its people by deterring, interdicting, and investigating threats arising from the movement of illegal goods into and out of the United States. The IPR Center serves as the focal point for the collections, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence involving copyright and trademark infringement, signal theft and theft of trade secrets. When reporting a suspected violation to the IPR Center provide as much detailed information as possible. The information received and analyzed by the IPR Center will be disseminated for appropriate investigative and tactical use.
NOTE: Please fill out the form as completely as possible. Although all fields are optional, completing the fields marked with an "*" will greatly enhance our ability to effectively process your complaint. This form can be used by the general public, industry, trade associations, law enforcement, and Government agencies to report IPR violations.
If you encounter any problems while trying to submit this form please contact the IPR Center Hotline at (202) 344-2410."
According to the article, the agents didn't take the cubes away, they merely watched while the store owner took the cubes off the shelves. And presumably warned her not to put them back on the shelves after they left...
Everyone knows Rubik's Cube is a smart toy that helps kids train thinking and generally extends intelligence.
Now, if kids start using it, they grow smart and intelligent. And intelligent people start to question questionable orders from the government, protest against warfare, lobby towards upbringing that makes smart kids, may listen to reason instead of blindly following propaganda...
This toy is definitely danger to homeland security.
(but such reasons can't be stated clearly so the dept had to think of some other bogus reasons like the patent or such...)
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Being rich to the tune of billions, ie the whole familily, means you get the 'greed bug', and you turn into Mr Evil, its like super grade-A heroin.
:)
Nothing is enough, thats how they work, if you have excess resources/money, everything becomes dull/boring, but running the world is the numero uno grand prize
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
has a website and is still selling magic cubes!
Please try to keep the three concepts apart. One thing is clear: the DHS should have no business enforcing any of them.
As far as I can remember threatening to kill the president or encouraging others to do so is not only not protected, it's a criminal offense punishable by jail in the US (at least if you're not a senator according to one of Michael Moores books).
"We're the Department of Homeland Security, we're here to investigate your wardrobe malfunction."
The first step in enforcing the law is knowing what the law is. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a patent is "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling". Therefore, a patent does not take away anyone's rights, it confers a right to the patent holder. It is up to the patent holder to decide whether to enforce or waive that right. Again from the USPTO, "If a patent is infringed, the patentee may sue for relief in the appropriate federal court." The maker of the Magic Cube did not violate any law, since their right to produce there product was NOT denied by law. The right to deny their product belongs to the patent holder, not the government. Therefore, even if the Rubic's cube patent was still active, the appropriate action would be for the patent holder, NOT any branch of the govt. to (optionally) file a law suit, and optionally an injuction to prevent the sale of the Magic Cube while the suit is being settled. If a judge approves that injuction, then the product may lawfully be required to be pulled from the store's shelves. Aside from the fact that the patent was expired, there was already absolutely NO legal basis for what the government personnel did.
By the perception of illusion, we experience reality
IIRC there was a tradition that the speaker of the icelandic ruling body had to recite the entire body of law from memory each year. Any that he missed out was revoked...
Best constitution on earth - don't lose it.
Something about this article sounds strange. I'd like to know who reported the story to AP? Who at AP called Homeland security?
There is so much bullshit flying around before the newswires before the election that EVERYBODY should just ignore stuff like this until after the election. Both sides are going to plant stuff to make the other look bad.
Yeah, what the fuck is Bush doing making my gas more expensive? You're an ass.
Look behind the Bush, there's a senile wrestler whose career was in the toilet for a decade because theres a photo of him shaking hands with Saddam, and a whole lot of other reasons. The only problem is none of those reasons were good enough to convince anyone outside of a small Republican faction - hence the lies to the UN, and the distraction of baiting France - unless someone really was stupid enough to think that saying "vote with us or face to consequences" to France would get any response other than a firmly extended middle digit.
I will rest well tonight, knowing that Homeland Security is protecting me from possibly illegal toys. That was a close one, too - I live in Oregon!
Store owner and reporter are both clueless.
One may trademark a log or image.
The cube's image is trademarked.
The patent protected how the cube worked.
"Most speech is protected by the First Amendment. Some speech is not."
Let's see now: '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.'
Do you want to explain where in there, exactly, the government has any right to ban any kind of speech? What part of 'Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech' is so hard to understand?
Right underneath that part, in invisible ink, it's written "The above shall not apply to speech that threatens the security of the Homeland." At least, that's the only explanation I can think of.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
They will start scrubbing out that annoying patch behind the commode thats always hard to reach.
[ I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance ] -- Isaac Asimov
Oh, now I get it!!! Homeland Security is so vastly affected by Rubik's cubes...It teaches kids about how 'cells' can connect and communicate with each other, how positions of power can shift around, and finally how to throw something (a Rubik's cube now, a person later) against a wall.
Thank God for Homeland Security! It's nice to see that someone in government is doing their job!
--<Mike>--
This is an interesting line of thought. What would happen if Bush declared Kerry and Edwards terrorists and because of his Patriot Act powers sent them incommunicado to Guantanamo, Cuba?
What could anyone do to counter this? Anyone?
Didn't something similar happen in Post-Weimar Republic Germany?
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
The 1st Ammendment doesn't protect a citizen from being responsible for what they say - there still is accountability. It only prevents the creation of a law.
Quoted from The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press:
"The First Amendment
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."
It helps to actually read the Ammendments beforehand.
[Of course it's client-server; it runs on a LAN]
What you need to do is to stop terrorists at their source not after they've gotten their goods into the harbours.
Right. I agree. But I don't think you and I are thinking of the same source.
I'm quite sure that the BEST way to stop terrorists from even becoming terroritsts would be to stop forking over millitary support for Israel, a nation run by a radical-religious war criminal that has nukes in violation of the non-proliferation treaty, a country who's treatment of arabs on it's land is even worse than the treatment of blacks in apartheid South Africa. I understood helping Israel out during the cold war, when there was a good chance the middle east would jive more closely with the USSR than us, but why do we continue to give Israel $4B in cash for weapons when they're one of the biggest arms exporters in the world? Did I mention that they conduct espionage and recon from inside our our millitary and government?
Another way to stop terror at it's source would be to stop being chummy with the House of Saud, probably one of the most decadent and corrupt governments in the world. We should keep business down to business with regimes like this, not invite them to dinner with our leaders. We shouldn't have ANY troops in countries in the middle east where we don't have good feelings amongst the populace, that's where terrorists come from.
We should have sent our forces into Afghanistan to pick-out Osama Bin-Laden, not to topple their government. My guess is that we could have done a more 'surgical extraction' by laying down defense between known Taliban forces and places where Osama may have been, then sending marines in to nail (kill or capture) Al-Qaeda and Osama while the army protected that operation from any Taliban forces.
Americans are notorious for implementing 'solutions' that cause more trouble than the problem, that's how we got Osama in the first place. Instead of stepping back and looking at the 'big picture' we expend a tremendous amount of resources and credibility trying to fix symptoms. I don't know why, but that's how we handle most problems, from welfare to medicine, education, farming, the drug war, illegal immigration, foreign policy, mass-transit, and a slew of other problems.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
...unfortunately it's also very true.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Is this what happens when Federal Agents have a quota?
I can see it now:
[ ] Thwart 2 terrorist plots.
[ ] Shutdown 5 file tradeing rings.
[x] Stop 1,500 instances of patent infringement.
Cheers,
-- The Dude
"One of the things that our agency's responsible for doing is protecting the integrity of the economy and our nation's financial systems and obviously trademark infringement does have significant economic implications," she said.
That paragraph is so ominous it is just not funny at all. Apart from the obvious things like, uhm, sending a fucking lawyer around with the cops if there is a specific charge about violating Trademark/Copyright/Patent, which nobody seems to be clear about at all in this this case, there are numerous other agencies, like the US customs etc which normally deal with this kind of charge.
But here we have a fucking quoted paragraph that sounds for all the world like some NSDAP (Nazi Party) official sounding off on "threats against the state" incluidng anything, literaly anything, which displeases the FRIENDS OF THE RULING PARTY.
SIEG HEIL, Mr Bush, mein Führer. Gott Sei Mit Uns. ("God be with us" -Official slogan of the SS)
The US has a lot of ominous undertones these days, where the conflicts of interest are so blindingly obvious that it hurts that Republicans, who supposedly support small government, simply ignore it because their Führer is a "God fearing man"
I'm no attorney, but it appears any department enforcing patents, copyrights, and trademarks like this is overstepping their jurisdiction.
These laws are written to protect products and ideas in CIVIL cases. If your protected idea or product is infringed upon, you go to CIVIL court, sue someone's ass off, get a cease and desist order and walk away with a nice fat stack of cash.
Disobeying the court's ruling might land you some criminal charges, but that requires a court order and cops.
If my understanding of this is wrong, hopefully an attorney will correct me.
-ted
The agents did not simply issue a citation (as your speeding ticket example), or deliver a demand to appear at a hearing .
They demanded, with the force of the US government, that the storekeeper remove the items from her shelves and watched while she complied. This removes opportunities to sell the product WITHOUT due process, simply based on an unverified complaint. Sounds to me like interference in a market, with the govt acting as willing agents.
Moreover, if they really wanted to actually solve the problem, they should have gone after the manufacturer or importer, then down the distribution chain.
This sort of picking on the little guy is just disgusting; they didn't even pick a sizeable retailer. Not only is it the wrong end of the distribution chain, they went after the person least likely to be able to fight.
Petty stupid people with power -- a dangerous combination.
Many of the specifics of this case don't really matter, I think. What everybody in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs to realize is that they now work in the most intimidating department of the federal government, because of stories like this and worse ones... whether true or not, the stories of people being taken away and held without bond, the blanket superuser authority of DHS officials is scary to anybody.
Because of the fear involved in their department, they need to be very careful the way they deal with the public, especially when the public they're dealing with is obviously and completely unrelated to a serious threat against the Homeland (and I'm not talking about a minor "economic" threat like selling cheap copies of toys). Of course, this won't matter to many of them, because unfortunately there are many in law enforcement at all levels who do it because of the power they can yield by flashing a badge, turning on a blue light, or calling somebody on the telephone and dropping the name of their agency.
I am voting for Bush next Tuesday for a variety of reasons (please try not to get inflamed about my choice, which might be different than yours) and I often defend the actions of the DHS (although I wasn't convinced and am still not convinced that we needed a new cabinet-level department to keep us safe) and I often defend the Patriot Act (though I have an open mind about parts of it that might need to be ammended). But I'm not going to be partisan and find an imaginary way to defend anybody from the DHS contacting a retailer and making them remove an item from their shelves without clearly and kindly demonstrating the reasons for the removal, just because I think that's supporting my candidate. These guys would have gotten all the response that they wanted from the retailer by simply saying they were with the Customs Service. Suddenly everybody who is a part of the DHS (which is a LOT of people) wants to go around name-dropping so they get an extra little fear out of everybody. It's completely unneccessary and ridiculous. I would say that many, many people in the DHS should never have to tell the public in their introductions what cabinet department they're in. It will inevitably generate more fear and intimidation than is necessary.
I believe this is not a policy problem, though. This is that rampant problem with the lower levels of law enforcement, the name dropping and ego trip problem. Unfortunately, there's little that can be done about this, except for a change in the culture, which can take decades.
RP
The posting mentions copyrights, trademarks, AND patents?! Despite what most slashdotters think, they are NOT interchangable.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Seriously...my friends and I have been talking about the possibility of a forcible uprising in the Us in the forseeable future and we all agree that if it happens, it's going to be the right-leaning people revolting against the left, if the left comes into power (i'm sort of scared of a Kerry win, there's going to be a lot of gun nuts feeling very threatened) - the leftists here tend to be gun grabber and pacifist, two traits that wouldn't be very useful if they chose to revolt. To put it in one of my buddies words - "Extreme liberals are the kind of people you can walk up to and start pushing around, and rather than push back they'll say 'why are you pushing me? let's work out our differences!'". Not to mention if they did get their hands on a bunch of assault rifles and decide to start using them, the other conservative half of the populace (think NRA) would probably pick up THEIR guns and it would be a gigantic bloodbath.
on a tangent, we've also decided that Bush is going to blatantly steal the election if he needs to, because the worst that will happen is a bunch of protests, and then when those are bloodily ended, a massive exodus to canada. Hmm..now that I verbalize that, perhaps that's what he's planning on - have all the opposition just give up and leave a homicidal madman in unopposed control of the world's most milito-economically powerful country. Fun stuff.
[disclaimer - my political ideas are an odd mix of conservo-liberalism, my voting history is about 45/45/10 D/R/I, and i already put in my absentee ballot for a 3rd party - i REALLY don't want EITHER of those yahoos in office, and I can't choose who i intensely dislike less...so i just waffled.]
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
That the owner of Rubik's Cube is a huge contributor to the Bush's campaign.
It's also pretty apparent that the Department of Homeland Security is becoming equivalent to SS troops. Carrying out personal vendettas and attacks on the behalf of the president and his party.
I certainly hope this becomes a big story, but I'd bet anything it won't.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I have no idea what a "Magic Cube" looks like in terms of color, and I don't have time to hunt down the information on the Seven Towns lawsuit or the patent.
However, there may be a genuine question whether or not Rubik's cube has a valid trademark in their cube's "trade dress." You cannot trademark anything that is functional. Therefore, anything covered by the 1980 patent *cannot* be trademarked. My guess is that the trademark extends only to the color combination on the puzzle, not to the fact that it is a cube with rotating faces. If the Magic Cube has different colors, I don't think it could be infringing even if some other "cube" puzzle did infringe.
Maybe someone with the time to do it could chase down and share the relevant facts.
"... Expired Trademark" + "...now is enforcing copyright law as well" + "The patent for Rubik's cube..." = WHAT THE FUCK
This is the most illinformed shit I've seen on Slashdot in a while. A Slashdot while that is, which is not very long. Sometimes people make a little mistake and think say for instance a trademark is covered under the same laws as copyright. Pisses me off, but it's never the end of the world. But this? The End of the World .
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
The war is not meant to be won....
0 04_0924.html
Please.
Bush says we're going to "win the war on terror".
The Bush-haters talk about how it's not possible to win a war against a noun.
Then Bush admits on a the Today show that he doesn't think you can actually completely "win" a war on "terror", but that we can certainly do a good job making many regions unfriendly to terrorists.
Then the Bush-haters - the same ones who said we can't win - go apeshit because Bush says just that.
The Kerry has even harsher rhetoric about how we are going to find, hunt down, and kill all of the terrorists, that we CAN AND WILL *win* the war on "terror", that we should be fighting and winning against Al Qaeda in all sixty nations they're operating in, and that he wants to greatly expand the US military, and talks about terror in terms that would require an even greater escalation than anything we've seen under Bush (unless, of course, he's egregiously lying).[1]
And those same Bush-haters apparently have no problem with this head-spinning contradiction.
Please, explain this to me, because I can't fucking keep up.
[1] http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2
"I think this is a bit simplistic. The senate had 735 Bills last year according to that site, with language such as:..."
No, as a senator, you ARE supposed to read it, and/or have hired trusted competent staff to read it and raise any issues. There is NO EXCUSE for a senator to say "we don't have enough time to read all the bills" -- yes, the workload is high, but that is what you ran and were elected to do, and you should at least take responsibility for your vote.
Moreover, that kind of stilted language is not an obstacle to them, as they are almost all lawyers; they are simply writing legally effective language in a way to which they are accustomed (as software engineers write code or specs).
We at least agree that more understanding and slower legislation would be better, and that the electorate's lack of intrest and education is a root cause of our dying democracy.
So the toy would have been copyright-infringing, except that its patent was granted 24 years ago, which means that its trademark is now expired.
And I thought I had figured this whole IP thing out. Man. *scratches head*
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
The writer utilizes every form of intellectual property as if they were interchangeable. It demonstrates that the writer does not understand any of them. Its kind of sad for such an intriguing story to make it to slashdot on such a poor introduction. Doesn't anyone edit these things?
I think there should be a mechanism to mod down an entire story when it is presented like this. Pretty sad.
The main error in the parent post is a failure to understand the aggregated and unworkable nature of DHS.
To create DHS, a bunch of agencies were thrown together and wrapped in a new layer of bureauracry. (I won't go into how the employees of those agencies got screwed, what with the administration taking this as an opportunity to strip away most of the civil service protections that prevent govt employees from being used quite as easily for evil purposes because their jobs are protected and they can't be capriciously threatened with firing if they don't unquestioningly act to further political agendas.) This has created turf wars, overlapping work, work that doesn't get done after attempts to eliminate overlapping work, and a host of other problems.
The FBI could never absorb that many people, so that isn't a solution, either.
I we had wanted a real, functional DHS, we should have passed enabling legislation to staff an new agency with a few thousand investigators who had broad powers to access the records of OTHER GOVT AGENCIES. They could have been tasked with, in the simplest of terms, just talking to everybody - FBI, SS, local cops, anybody they wanted to. They then could be responsible for the data mining, if you will, that would bring to the fore the kind of intelligence that's needed to prevent attacks. If, for example, someone had just put the pieces together about the 9/11 hijackers, there might have been enough info to start investigations that could have prevented the attacks.
An effective DHS would have been a bunch of professional gossip junkies who made the rounds of the various agencies, developed contacts, and then talked to each other. When too many suspicious coincidences popped up, they could call up the FBI and say "Here's something you should take a look at." A wetware google function for law enforcement, if you will.
Instead, we've just got a mess, a boondoggle, and a less-than-optimally efficient political machine.
Such a shame.
http://www.ssww.com/store/browse/grp=NVL/sbgrp=TOY /ln=PUZ/
So does this mean it should be reported?
The Red Sox won the World Series under a total lunar eclipse. The leader of the moderate Palestinians is on his deathbed. The Israeli coalition government is about to fall apart over the Gaza withdrawal plan. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has a serious case of thyroid cancer. All this less than a week before one of the most contentious US Presidential elections in history.
And now, Slashdot editors confuse copyright, trademark, and patent law all together at once, creating a sort of Grand Unified Theory of IP Confusion which was obviously the purpose of Slashdot.
So yeah, the end of the world.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
They got it from the Hart Rudman report issued in January, 2001. The Bush administration was too busy trashing the economy in early 2001 to pay attention to the important warnings in that report, but 9/11 forced them to.
This is the most insane thing ive read this week, Is this even true? why havnt any big media sources (ie TV) picked it up? how come its not even one of those "and now for a strange story" items where they send a reporter around to do a quick interview? did she have a security camera? Have any other shops been aproached? has the company been contacted by HS? has HS been contacted to actually confirm this? Was it a prank? so many questions and so few answered. I'd really love to believe this and see some more reporting on it because if its true its just insane and scary and makes no sense and would make great news.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Definitely my award for worst slashdot writeup And that's saying a LOT.
A Rubik's cube can't be copyrighted - there's no text. The INSTRUCTIONS could be...
A trademark on it could be valid - but only if it was confusingly similar - ie, if a reasonable person buying it might THINK they were buying a Rubik's cube, or something from the same company.
The patent is apparently expired, at least if can trust the article. Which we can't.
Patent law != copyright law != trademark law != trade secret law. THEY ARE ALL TOTALLY SEPERATE.
*sigh*
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
> a nation run by a radical-religious war criminal
Opinions on that differ.. matter of fact is that he is not a convicted war criminal. There was a time however when he sould nto have visited parts of Euroe due to there being a suspicion and complaints together with evidence of him being one.
> that has nukes in violation of the non-proliferation treaty.
If only it would be that simple. Israel is not a party to that treaty, and cannot be in violation of it as a result.
It would be more interesting to look at how such a situation would be dealt with if t would concern any other country then Israel.
> a country who's treatment of arabs on it's land is even worse than the treatment of blacks in apartheid South Africa.
Interestingly enough, you will find the person you just called a war criminal in agreement with you on this one.
I do know Israel and the USA have a simple to define problem in common, failing to apply their own rules in a consistent way to others.
For the rest I won't comment, anything involving Israel is bound to be extremely biassed no matter rom which side you come, and both sides seem to have made too many mistakes and violated the rights of eachother too many times to point out a curlpit.
You are incorrect here. Trademarks can become generic common-use terms, but that doesn't mean I can sell a product labeled with the trademark or a like term. "Zipper" (or "Yo Yo" for another example) is I gather an expired trademark, but "Kleenex" and "Xerox" definitely are not. I crudely understand that the criteria is that the owner of the trademark also must fail to defend the trademark.
My bet: they do so intentionally. I mean, let's look at it this way: what's Slashdot's goal? Eventually, to make money. How do you make money on a web site? Get more page views to get more ad impressions. And how do you do that...?
Say you're a Slashdot editor (no, no, not out loud! Suppose... suppose you're a Slashdot editor). You have two stories in your queue:
- SCO
- GPL violation
- Microsoft
- trademarks
- copyright
- patents
- CowboyNeal
- RIAA
- Linus
- Star Wars
- DRM
Once this puppy hits the front page, every knee-jerk froth-at-the-mouth keyboard monkey in creation is going to rush to get their say in, and flame every other froth-at-the-mouth keyboard monkey who dares disagree with them (or, heck, even some of those that do agree with them). The page count hit of this story will go through the roof.Oh, and you're late on your payments for your BMW with built-in iPod, and you're short on cash for the new PSP. So, which story are you going to pick?
So, as you see, they probably do look for inconsistencies, logical fallicies, and biased points of view in the submissions. And promptly mash the "approve" button when they find them. That button most likely makes a cha-ching! sound when pressed.
Eventually, Slashdot will manage to hit the "perfect storm" of article submissions, that including all of those words. In which case, the Slashdot editors will be able to sit back and relax as the thread goes on and on perpetually (or, at least as long as their DB server keeps from melting down).
So, as you see, it's a conspiracy! (Damn... add conspiracy to the above list.)
I like how your list takes the following form:
"
1.
2.
Oh and by the way, 3, and anyone who thinks otherwise is stupid."
Where does it end? Where can we joke about bombs? Or, if we can't joke about bombs in line, what about knifes, can I joke about them? Or shoes? Or matches? Or nail files? Or darts? Or knitting needles?
I'm serious. I like to pass the time by making fun of things and I don't want to be whisked away because I happened to say the wrong thing in the "Land of the Free".
Why are people so fucking afraid of TALK?
You certainly CAN trademark the appearence of a product. It's been like that forever. Coca-Cola has a trademark on the shape of its bottle, for instance.
"I get an absolute kick out of you RAH RAH RAH buy USA people. because you do not do what you preach, you would have to be a billionare to do so."
Yes, NOW, if you re read it I said it used to be that you didn't. And prices dropped on new things once the manufacturing got ramped up to a sufficient level, exactly like it is now, just we did it with most things when we wanted them. Admit it, you personally have no frame of reference to remember when it was possible to buy almost all american made with just a modest income level, do you? To you it's just quaint theory, you don't even think it's possible because you've never seen it working. Am I right, you've only grown up since the economy changed drastically?
Home mortgages were ten years max and a car loan was 12 or 18 months. And other prices were along those lines for domestically made manufactured goods, and it's because we did, in fact, make the stuff here and pay the middle class to do it adequately, and because the dollar shifted around from neighbor to neighbor inside the nation a lot more instead of immediately getting shipped out of the country. It improved the economy more efficiently. It worked, that's just raw past historical data, it is not merely opinion, it's the facts. Go back and look, 25 years ago or so and before the US was the worlds largest creditor nation, now we are the worlds largest debtor nation. This is the same exact time frame where we stopped making things. This is NOT a coincidence, it's the cause and effect in action. We had a higher savings rate, prices were still affordable on your normal consumer items, but they decided to change that,the millionaires decided they needed to be billionaires, so they got up this scheme to offer cheaper trinkets, knowing that it would eventually bork, but they would be set for life then, and it worked, for them.
We are right now starting to see the delayed effects of those economic decisions. We have less people with full employment, less families with full benefits packages, much higher rates of indebtedness, etc. And a lot of people tried to stop it to little avail, that I will admit.
Nothing against "trade", people just wanted fair trade and to not dramatically change what we had that was successfully working. We threw the baby out with the bathwater is the old expression.
Them chickens with the way they have borked the economy ARE going to eventually come home and roost sometime. Get thee to the economy pages and start reading about the reality of what is happening right now as opposed to the globalist shills spinoganda. You simply cannot borrow forever and expect it to keep working. And you also can't keep piling up the police state apparatus, until eventually you have to admit that yes, in fact, you've created a police state.
And to get to the REAL issue of the article, the toy has the word CUBE in it. BIG DEAL, I thought that part was obvious, I guess it wasn't so I'l line it out here with a clear example. Go to the grocery store, look at the soda section, quite a few cans with the word "cola" stamped on them,yes? But as long as they don't say "coca" in front of it it's LEGAL. LEGAL, GET IT? Saying "magic CUBE" is not a trademark infringement either then. That woman got scared, frightened, terrorised into removing the product, because the cops of whatever federal agency you want to call them now are MORONS and cheap hired gun muscle boy bullys. All they do is sieg heil and follow orders, can't think for themselves even to this basic level. They used police state scare tactics because they can and it's encouraged now.
Is it complaining when I mention that I submitted this story yesterday but it was rejected? And I got the original link from the Oregonian, too. I'm not bitter - perhaps my comments were not pithy enough for you - but I'd like some credit, too.
Yet another example of how our government is way outta control.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
It is amazing that the Customs Officer could not be bothered to actually look the trade mark up. I took this directly for the uspto web site.
Word Mark MAGIC CUBE
Goods and Services IC 028. US 022 023 038 050. G & S: Manipulative puzzles. FIRST USE: 19980500. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19980500
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 76351080
Filing Date December 20, 2001
Current Filing Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Published for Opposition October 15, 2002
Registration Number 2671747
Registration Date January 7, 2003
Owner (REGISTRANT) Atico International USA Inc. CORPORATION DELAWARE 501 S. Andrews Avenue P.O. Box 14368 Fort Lauderdale FLORIDA 33302
Attorney of Record PETER T COBRIN
Disclaimer NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "CUBE" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
Notice that this is the company...
Hey, that was a GREAT post. Use real numbers to illustrate the utter mendacity of the Bushies.
thank you and amen
No difference really.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
This is frightening. One might remember from HS US Gov't about the "commerce clause" that Congress has since (ab)used to regulate all sorts of random aspects of our daily lives that is not in their otherwise closely-defined scope. The commerce clause lets them regulate and intra-state and extra-national trade, which is argued to include/be effected by just about everything, down to abortion (population control effects trade!)
Now that the Dept. of Homeland Security is claiming to also be responsible for this... that's just scary.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Rubic's Cube and the Department of Homeland Security are in one sentence? Amazing!
Next it'll be AARP, and Bin Laden in one sentence.
Erhm... 22mm is almost an inch. That's a friggin' antivehicular cannon of the sort mounted on attack helicopters.
.22 caliber toy gun?
Or were you talking about a
Did someone say Pufferbelly?
Too late for this post to be read I'm sure, but...
So they've trademarked the appearance of the Rubiks Cube (TM)...
How?
As a corporate logo - this I can see.
As an actual product? You must be joking!
Still, and I never thought I'd say this, kudos to the lawyer who came up with this innovative solution to patent expiration.
Can anyone tell me what would happen if these toys were manufactured by a company based outside the US? Would they be banned/confiscated on importation?
Whibla.
Here's a little history lesson called "why natural gas is at an all-time high":
When did we put a ban on using natural gas to generate electricity?
Answer: Late 70s, by executive order of Jimmy Carter, in response to the Arab Oil Embargo.
When did we rescind the ban on using natural gas to generate electricity?
Answer: Early 1990s, by executive order of George H. W. Bush.
We used to develop a surplus of gas over the summer and tap into that in the winter. Now, we actually use more in the summer for air conditioning and stuff like that.
Which is better for the nation? To maintain a surplus, which will keep costs low, but increase demand for oil and coal, and in turn create more air pollution?
Or to tap into that surplus, producing clean power, lowering demand for oil and coal, but ultimately raising the cost of natural gas?
Now that the genie is out of the bottle, can we ever go back. Probably not. In the past decade we've become dependent on natural gas as a source of electricity. This was not the case 15 years ago.
While we're at it, which is the #3 oil producing country in the world? Answer: USA.
Its Oct 29 not April 1st....
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
A president has very little control on the economy in general, much less the price of oil.
Oh, see, I disagree with that completely. In most cases, you're right, business is business and it maybe deviates a few percentage points based on anything the President does.
But there is one notable exception: When the President starts a war, that can greatly affect the economy.
Personally, I'm expecting double-digit interest rates, high inflation, and high unemployment to kick in over the next five years. You know, the same cycle we saw after Vietnam.
If the Arab states put on another oil embargo, we could have problems. If OPEC decides to start selling oil to China in Yuan, we would have a huge problem. Our foreign policy has some influence on whether or not those things happen.
Indeed, I think the biggest problem facing our country right now is that Bush doesn't have the power (abroad, not at home) that he thinks he does.
report amazon to homeland security.
Magic cibe. Report every major chain in this so called violation. Raise a stink, piss off big names.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I just hope these "Homeland Security" guys never find out about New York City. They could shutdown all of Chinatown and most of the garment district.
When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.
My house is on fire, I dont have time to convince you that yours is too. If you cant fight the fire without proof in triplicate, then I guess you will just have to wait and see what happens.
"Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."
Guess so, although, if you go around screaming your house is on fire and everyone comes running to find you were lying, it makes you look pretty silly.
I'm not sure I understand this. The copyright for the Rubik's cube is expired. Doesn't that mean that other companies or individuals can make the cube and sell it? Can't the original company still make and sell the cube? How can selling the cube be infringing on the copyright if the copyright is expired?
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
Homosexual marriage is not a right that was ever given, so how can it be taken away? Abortion has absolutely nothing to with the Patriot act, so I don't see how the Patriot act could be contstrued to take that away either. Sounds like you guys on the left are really trying to stretch here.
Look at the copy of the page and go all the way to the bottom to the last product, and what do you find? It's a RUBIK'S UFO! If this retailer already sells one Rubik's product, why be cheap and sell a knock-off alternative to another?
EX POST FACTO, contracts, crim. law.
This is a technical expression, which signifies, that something has been done after another thing, in relation to the latter.
2. An estate granted, may be made good or avoided by matter ex post facto, when an election is given to the party to accept or not to accept.
3. The Constitution of the United States, art. 1, sec. 10, forbids the states to pass any ex post facto law; which has been defined to be one which renders the act punishable in a manner in which it was not punishable when it was committed. 6 Cranch, 138. This definition extends to laws passed after the act, and affecting a person by way of punishment of that act, either in his person or estate.
You are obviously white for you don't notice that any of your rights are being violated because the Patriot Act doesn't to fuck you over like it does to people of color. For example, I know a man from Syria who came to this country when he was 2 (and is now in his 30's) and is now being deported because he didn't register after 9/11. Don't give me any crap about how "well, he wasn't a citizen so he's not american so we don't have to protect his rights" because that is such bullshit. Very few people come to America with the expectation of leaving after a few years (the most common reason would be education). People move here because they want to live the american way of life, which is simply to be free. America is a melting pot, and every single person, except for Native Americans, is part of an immigrant family.
Back in the "good old days" I had the nerve (or the foolishness) to play with the ire of a certain Kook of the Month. The man called his local police department (in Colorado) and the police department of my then-ISP. The cops never contacted me, but they did call the ISP.
The owner -- Bob Carp (spit), also of TheCIA.net -- left me a frantic voice message and did not even let me download my files -- so scolding was the urine running down his legs.
This was all in 1996, when Bush was in Texas, and Clinton was running the country... Oops.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Let's see now: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Do you want to explain where in there, exactly, the government has any right to ban assault weapons?
There are lots of instances where the government has the right to ban or restrict certain kinds of speech.
and the Secret Service did nothing to bad to him. They saw his rant looked into it carefully then said have a nice day.
This is why I replied to the person that said they should have beaten the kid up a bit while they were there.
and I'll repeat it. Back when we mostly manufactured all of our own consumer products, we had a better economy by all benchmarks. I don't know what fantasy site you are getting your figures from, but we are running massive deficits. If your way worked, we would be rolling in the dough, we would have surplusses spilling out of bags all over, and I sure don't see them, WHERE are they? Got a link? Get it yet? If it "worked" we would be running near equal, but it hasn't worked as advertised, it was a scam, all we have done is switched to a credit economy, and eventually the credit runs out and we are darn close now. We not only had a better economy, WE werein a position to be the global leader in issuing credit to others, now it's reversed, we are in DEBT to others to the tune of trillions of dollars. It's more than a billion dollars a day in credit we have to beg for realistically, and promise our childrens and grandchildrens future labor on it as the collateral, and that's only possible if they have jobs, and good jobs that actually pay more than what is required for normal existence. That's nuts! It's obscene! there's your great results of the great experiment! Black and white figures, go look at them! It has exactly paralleled the explosion in imports and then outsourcing jobs throughout the economy.
Less families have full benefits now, not more. If you can prove otherwise, let's see it. Average personal debt is higher, along with our national debt. If you can prove otherwise, let's see it. Average personal savings are lower, much lower. If you can prove otherwise, let's see it. Bankruptcies are at a 30 year high, along with foreclosures. People now are taking out second mortgages just to pay the bills. I mean, I just got a "second line of credit, home equity" offer from my bank today for a quartermillion. How the heck is someone supposed to pay off their first mortgage and bills if they take out a second one for another 1/4 million and then pay interest on top of that, why would they need to? Magic fairy dust money? With what job guarantee, what income guaranty? And people are TAKING those kinds of offers because they are in quiet panic mode now, because they no longer can afford much UNLESS it's with credit. People are getting smacked uplong side the head with bill paying reality now, so what do they do? go into denial and take out whopper second mortgages. that's cuckoo! Mortgages themselves have ballooned, like I said, it used to be ten years was common, because it was quite doable to pay them off in that time frame, now 30 years are the most common AFAIK, and they have now started issuing 40 year mortgages. 40 years! Un precedented! Nothing ever like it! Car notes WERE 12 months or 18 months, not 60 or 72 months, and that's because it was easy to pay it off in that time frame with a joe average middle class blue collar job. One of those incomes was more than adequate to pay the bills,support a full family more than adequately, now most households have to have two incomes to barely stay above water. This is just economic reality history. Yes, that is what it was like back when we exported stuff because we made stuff. And way back then, we didn't buy foreign made cars as much, and the parts that went into the cars were all made here, in US machine shops. Tvs, radios, you name it, all made here, and all still affordable, AND the workers got paid reasonably well. And we all "afforded" what was for sale in the stores for smaller items.
Sorry, try as you might, you cannot make me dis remember how it used to be. And many economists, the contrarians, warned back then that switching to a service economy and outsourcing was a short sighted idea, precisely because you can't outsource normal cost of living at the same time, some things are fixed in what they cost a lot more than others, and those are the important things, "the bills". A US worker cannot compete very well when his rival has only 1/10th the living costs, I don't care how well they automate it,
Maybe now that they are under DHS instead of the US Treasury, where they used to be, that sould change. However it hasn't yet. Well just because who their boss is has changed, doesn't mean they should suddenly start ignoring their job duties.
A great many people have a file with the FBI, or the local police. More or less, if you've ever done anything to get their attention, good or bad, they create a file for you with that information. Ever been arrested for something, but not charged? You now have a file with the police which notes that arrest.
People try and make an FBI file sound like something scary, it's not. It just means the FBI has a record of something you did. There are plenty of people who have FBI files and don't know it because it's not important and they haven't checked.
This isn't something that marks you for life. You don't have to get a special tatoo that says "Has FBI file", it's not like employers can check and see. In fac,t no one would ever know except that he's running his mouth and posting it for the world to see.
I mean you can get an FBI file just by applying for security clearence or a job with the FBI. That gets you a file, with the relivant information.
It's in every way as relivant as talking about that the public school form where I graduated has a file on me. Yes, they do, and they always will unless their records are destroyed. Doesn't mean they are watching for me, it means that I was involved with them (as a student in this case) and they have a record of it.
Seriously, you mad tin-foil hatters need to calm the fuck down. Yes, the government, banks, your employers, even your friends, maintain records on you. It's life, deal with it.
but I did post in a hurry, and explain myself quite poorly, and I applaud someone who's actually an attorney clarifying stuff.
Unless I misunderstand though - there's still nothing very copyrightable about a Rubik's cube... As I understand it, for instance, they could copyright say, the patterns used on the little blocks, if they weren't solid colors. I suppose they could copyright what the Rubik's cube looks like...
I really hope you can't copyright solid colors yet.
But you can really be very similar without violating copyright, as I understand it - I suppose that my take was anything you could do to a Rubik's cube that would be copyright infringement would be trademark infringement sooner and more easily.
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Let me put this in a nutshell - how close would I have to be to a Rubik's cube to be infringing copyright, even in a fairly extreme but would win in court kindof way.
Assume you can go back in time and register whatever copyrights you'd like, if it matters. As I understand it that only matters if someone contests whether you really DID make it first, which isn't up for a lot of argument here.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
I'm really sorry that you feel liberty is more important than safety. You do realize that if it were up to the terrorists you wouldn't have either, right?
It's a good thing it's not up to them, then.
Um... Kerry bashes it, yet he voted for it. You don't find that even a tiny bit hypocritical?
Normally I would think it's hypocritical... Maybe... Things are never that black and white to me. And in this case, I don't think he's being hypocritical. The reason I don't think he's being hypocritical is that he never went against any of his principals by voting for the Act, because he did not know what was in it when he voted for it.
The stories I've heard about the passage of the PATRIOT Act mostly go like this:
Congressman (I don't remember whether or not Senators, House members or both said this): "We were given this bill and told to vote on it. We we not given time to read it. We were told that it was an emergency counter-terrorism measure and that the fate of the country rested on its passage."
I wasn't there. I don't know what happened. But in nearly every story I've heard told about the PATRIOT Act's passage, the phrases "were not given time to read it" and "were not given time to discuss it" keep coming up. I can't make the claim that any Congressman, be they Republican, Democrat, or Third Party, knew what the Act really said when they voted on it if (like all the stories say) they were not able to read it before voting. I can't reasonably expect a Congressman to know what the provisions in a law are without being able to read it. Laws are long. Laws are convoluted. Laws have tons of crap (riders) that you have to wade through before you can find the important parts. Reading and understanding a law takes time. If time is not given for that purpose, I do not hold a Congressman accountable for understanding a law.
If the members of Congress had been given adequate time to read and absorb the law and John Kerry chose to ignore that opportunity, I might feel differently. But that's not what the stories suggest.
So did John Kerry go against his principals by signing the PATRIOT Act? If he did not know what the act entailed, I don't see how he could have made a concious decision to go against his principals, and therefore I can not call him a hypocrite. I might have done the exact same thing in his place, and I hold principals which are so strongly against denial of due process and secret laws that I can't even begin to describe them.
But there's more to the story. The PATRIOT Act exists. A huge pile of paper with a law written on it does not just appear out of mid-air. That means that someone had to have written it. There was at least one person who knew what was in the PATRIOT Act at the time Congress was voting on it. There were probably many more than one. I want to know who those people are. If those people claim to love the freedoms of the US, then they are the hypocrites for even considering to propose a law which so easily shrugs them off.
If you've heard a different story as to what happened in Congress on the day the PATRIOT Act was passed, I would love to hear it (I don't mean that sarcastically at all. I really would like to know what other people think happened). Given what I think happened during the passage of the PATRIOT Act, there is certainly at least one person (probably more) out there who deserves to have his/her feet held to the fire regarding that law. I don't think John Kerry is in that group.
Light is filtering down from above. Would you like to use DIVE?
I've seen copyrights, trademarks, and patents mentioned in the summary. Which is it? Make up your mind!
I have a coworker who is also Syrian. He's not being deported, so I guess my anectdotal story cancels out yours. :)
And that's why I said below that I support the Supreme Court's recent ruling on his case that he cannot be denied the rights afforded him by the Constitution. Obviously the system of checks and balances have worked, and your rights are still intact.
The last line of the AP story mentions that the Oregonian newspaper was the source of the story:
s sf ?/base/front_page/109896512934940.xml
Here is the original story before AP edited / rewrote it:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.
It contains significant details that the AP decided not to include:
[The call came in late July or early August. A man identifying himself as a federal Homeland Security agent said he needed to talk to Cox at her store.
Cox asked what it was all about.
"He said he was not at liberty to discuss that," she said.
They agreed to meet in early August, but the agent later canceled. Cox thought the matter had blown over when the agent called back Sept. 9 to say he was coming out there. ]
Keeping in mind that this is *her* opinion of the events... So this didn't just come out of the blue... This story is 7 weeks old... it didn't just happen yesterday...
[Kice also said Homeland Security officials routinely investigate such complaints and follow up if they determine they are valid. ]
Paragraph dropped. The clear message of that paragraph is that they did make a determination that the TRADEMARK infringement was valid prior to visiting the store.
[After gaining assurances from Toysmith officials, Cox put the Magic Cube back on the shelf soon after the agents left. ]
Hmmm...
The author of the original story [printed at the bottom of the above linked page] is:
Ashbel "Tony" Green: 503-221-8202; tonygreen@news.oregonian.com if you have any questions...
Final 2006 "Proof of Global Warming" US Hurricane Count -> 0
Here is an actual cease-and-desist notice concerning a trademark infringement on a Rubik's Cube-type game. There is no mention of copyrights or patents. They claim that the "distinctive overall appearance" of the Rubik's Cube is trademarked. The same page says that product design can be trademarked. One would think that the visual appearance of the design would have to be distinctive and be important with respect to marketing and/or identifying the product (i.e. it is associated with the product and/or the manufacturer) in order to be trademarked. They also mention trade dress. This appears to apply to distinctive aspects of the total visual appearance of the product. These aspects would be associated with the product by the public. An example of trade dress is a color scheme that is associated with a specific brand.
On the Macintosh platform years ago, there was a game called Rubik's Wrap. In the game there was a repeating pattern on a 2D surface. The pattern was scrambled and would have to be unscrambled by the player, similar to a Rubik's Cube toy.
I would be terribly surprised if this idea has never occured to Mr. Bush and his cronies...
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