US Congressman Announces Plans To Probe Wikileaks

eldavojohn writes "Congressman Peter King (R-NY) is calling for a probe into Wikileaks with regard to the recent publication of half a million 9/11 pager messages. He has announced that he plans to have his Washington staff begin a preliminary investigation because Wikileaks' action 'raises security issues.' A word of caution: Congressman King has been known to make inflammatory and unpopular statements."

Comments

"Raises security issues"?

[sopssa]

As pager traffic is totally unencrypted, it's not a surprise that someone might be intercepting them. Especially on Wall Street, like the article states, because it's high valued information. Of course, pagers are pretty much used only in USA... phone/sms traffic elsewhere is better encrypted.

So will government understand that all communications over the Internet too (browsing, email, im) have to be changed over SSL? Or will they do the normal thing; ignore the problem and just arrest and sue the guy who was intercepting that traffic and/or wikileaks because they're supposedly risk to security, along with demanding more government regulation on the Internet?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Red Flayer]

The realities of the issue don't make one iota of difference. King is a right-wing demagogue... he'll say whatever he thinks will appeal to his blue-collar Irish Catholic base.

The fact that pager signals are easily intercepted and are typically sent in plain text means nothing, nor does the concept of a free press to this man. He, like many career politicians, only cares for what serves his purposes.

Maybe I'm a bit overly cynical this morning, since I've only had one cup of coffee so far... but it's men like Peter King who would gladly usher in fascism if they stood to gain from it.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I think you are being a little unfair.

Men like Peter King would gladly usher in fascism just for the warm and fuzzies it would give them. The gains would just be gravy.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Rogerborg]

Let me translate for you: the "interception" here was by the government. The "security issue" is that somebody in the government leaked that info, or (less likely) that it was swiped by someone outside the government. The real "issue" isn't that the info was leaked, its just that it revealed that the government has it.

The problem isn't that the government is unaware that pager (and intartubes) communication is insecure, it's that the people are now aware of it.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pagers are used all over the world and have been for decades.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[slim]

Let me translate for you: the "interception" here was by the government. The "security issue" is that somebody in the government leaked that info, or (less likely) that it was swiped by someone outside the government.

We don't know that.
Schneier on the issue: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/11/leaked_911_text.html

Anyone could have been logging all that pager traffic. Not necessarily government. With 2009 technology, it wouldn't even be expensive. In 2001, it would only be a little expensive.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all. Most European countries switched off their pager networks nearly a decade ago. Asian countries like Japan & Korea certainly do not have any use for pagers these days, either. The United States have clung to ancient technology like pagers because cell coverage is patchy at best.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[slim]

Pagers are used all over the world and have been for decades.

Pagers were never widespread in the UK, nor I think in mainland Europe. SMS dominated before the pager market could take off. I believe pricing issues slowed SMS adoption in the USA.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[MickyTheIdiot]

You are asking someone in government to understand something slightly technical.

YOU FAIL. Try again.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.... somewhat.

The issue is not that wiki leaks published this information. Any of us have the ability to publish this information.The REAL problem is that the government has a leak and sent this info to a public source.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[furball]

he'll say whatever he thinks will appeal to his blue-collar Irish Catholic base.

Why are we blaming him then? His voters put him in office. It's their discretion if they should not vote for him again if his actions don't meet their requirements. Political corruption and ineptness will always rise to meet society's acceptable level of corruption and ineptness.

Once they go over the level accepted by society, the politicians are removed in an appropriate manner.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that this happened nearly a decade ago. It's not like this pager traffic was captured yesterday.

I'm in the US, and the last person I know who had a pager (a doctor) has now switched to a cell phone.

I haven't had one myself since the mid '90s.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[elrous0]

No, you're not being cynical. People who think that *is* being cynical are the masses who allow these Machiavellian scumbags to rise to power in the first place. To paraphrase what a political science prof. of mine once said: "Of course a politician cares about more than getting elected. He also cares about getting reelected too."

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! Death to blue-collar Irish Catholics in New York's 3rd District!

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

...but it's men like Peter King who would gladly usher in fascism if they stood to gain from it.

So... apparently the Current Administration and some Republicans DO have something in common....

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[dnahelicase]

It's not that it matters if he has his staff "probe" into wikileaks. I encourage it as it only means that he and his staff might accidentally learn something. What does matter is that people like this are the ones that deal with issues like DMCA, ACTA, Net Neutrality, and a host of other issues they have no idea about. He will talk to his congressmen friends, and we all lose...

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[elrous0]

They probably collected it, along with a ton of security cam footage/phone logs/witness testimony/etc., as part of the 9-11 investigation. The real news to me is that the telco's were keeping such extensive logs of all their pager messages and that they were willing to turn it all over without telling the public about it (which would no doubt had been a pretty uncontroversial action if they had just been upfront about it). It points to a pattern of secrecy behind telco/government interaction that's way more disturbing than the information that has probably actually been shared.

It's like the secret rooms that the NSA has been installing at telco hubs. I think that people would have accepted that if the government had simply told the public upfront they were doing it and said "And here are some of the rules we're following to make sure innocent people aren't specifically targeted" (and knowing the CYA aspect of government, I'd bet they do actually have such rules). As for the argument that this would have somehow tipped off the terrorists, does the NSA honestly think that terrorists (at least the smart ones, who are the real threat anyway) don't ALREADY realize their calls are being monitored?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Rogerborg]

If not the government, then who? Saucer People? Mole Men? It's not a crackpot conspiracy theory to accuse the government when they've the most likely candidate, especially when they confirm it for us by stumbling into action to investigate the leak.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Culture20]

King is a right-wing demagogue... he'll say whatever he thinks will appeal to his blue-collar Irish Catholic base.

Aren't blue-collar Irish Catholics generally union members (D)?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[sribe]

As pager traffic is totally unencrypted...

It is however illegal to snoop other people's pager traffic. Why, I'll bet most of your phone calls are unencrypted...

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doth protest too much..........

He has pager traffic in the log

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

Men like Peter King would gladly usher in fascism just for the warm and fuzzies it would give them.

He's already working on that. He recently introduced legislation that would grant the Attorney General the right to infringe on your constitutional rights without due process. He thinks the Federal Government should have the right to put your name on a list and take away your right to keep and bear arms without any burden of proof whatsoever.

What's wrong with that picture?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymusing]

If not the government, then who? Saucer People? Mole Men? It's not a crackpot conspiracy theory to accuse the government when they've the most likely candidate, especially when they confirm it for us by stumbling into action to investigate the leak.

If much of the traffic was from Wall Street, then it wouldn't be hard to imagine corporate espionage, or other kinds of snooping, where recording pager traffic would be a useful addition to other schemes.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[slim]

If not the government, then who? Saucer People? Mole Men?

A L0pht type who gets off on comms hacking?
Someone hoping to glean trading tips from the chatter of financial workers?

Yeah, it could have been the government. But it could easily have been anyone. As others have pointed out, the equipment necessary is cheap and non-specialized. This stuff was floating around the RF spectrum unencrypted. Note that the entire archive is only 13MB compressed. When I say it wouldn't be expensive, I mean you could log all pager traffic for a year, for well under $1000.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

As for the argument that this would have somehow tipped off the terrorists, does the NSA honestly think that terrorists (at least the smart ones, who are the real threat anyway) don't ALREADY realize their calls are being monitored?

Bin Ladin supposedly didn't realize that we were tracking him via his satellite phone until that fact was leaked by a member of the Clinton administration. He kept using it right up until the point that the story appeared in the press.

I consider myself a civil libertarian and think that it's folly to monitor our own citizens but it's also foolhardy to think that these types of disclosures don't have any real world implications.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[j-b0y]

What? Pagers were around long long before SMS even existed. They just were never in the mass-market communication space that SMSs dominate now since they were not 'peer to peer', at least not in the most common form

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

D, R, is there any fucking difference these days? Especially in New York.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

Why are we blaming him then? His voters put him in office.

You mean the 'voters that his political party picked to ensure that a Republican would win that seat' picked him, right?

Link for people who have no idea what I'm talking about.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

Aren't blue-collar Irish Catholics generally union members (D)?

If you want to paint with a broad brush they are usually the so-called "Reagan Democrats", i.e: socially conservative democrats.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Captain Splendid]

What's wrong with that picture?

Uhh, the Dems are in charge so he should be whining like the rest of his party about unchecked socialistic power? Seriously, this:

He recently introduced legislation that would grant the Attorney General the right to infringe on your constitutional rights without due process.

would have made sense 2 years ago, but now? He's committing career suicide enabling the Dems in this fashion. Weird.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Red Flayer]

Why are we blaming him then? His voters put him in office. It's their discretion if they should not vote for him again if his actions don't meet their requirements. Political corruption and ineptness will always rise to meet society's acceptable level of corruption and ineptness.

No, his voters were given the choice of voting for him or for his opponent. The political machine and wealthy connections gave him the money to run his campaign, gave him the support to run, and most importantly, ensured he runs unopposed in the primary every election cycle... he's a breadwinner for the Republican party because of his wealthy IRA-supporting contacts.

Voters really have no choice except for candidate A or B. The rest is controlled by the political parties and the media. In districts that lean heavily towards Republican or Democrat, there is no choice for the individual voter.

Once they go over the level accepted by society, the politicians are removed in an appropriate manner.

The problem is that the level accepted by society is established by the political parties and the media. It takes a severe moral transgression like wifebeating, homosexuality (to some people in some districts), or outright theft to oust an incumbent in a not-very-divided district. Incumbents in districts like 3rd NY rarely get ousted for political reasons. "He may be a bastard, but he's OUR bastard", I believe the saying goes.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

Advocating for gun control measures in New York State is anything but "political suicide" I'm afraid. He'll sell this crap to his constituents as being "tough on terror" and the morons will eat it up hook, line and sinker. In the end the only thing that will suffer is our Constitution and civil liberties.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Red Flayer]

So... apparently the Current Administration and some Republicans DO have something in common....

What are you smoking? Peter King is a Republican Congressman who's been in office since 1992. When someone refers to "the Current Administration" they are referring to the President's Office, not Congress. In general.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bin Ladin supposedly didn't realize that we were tracking him via his satellite phone until that fact was leaked by a member of the Clinton administration. He kept using it right up until the point that the story appeared in the press.

[citation needed]

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[LWATCDR]

While it is easy to just dismiss this man is it really fair?
Yes pager traffic is unencrypted but you could make a claim that the uses have a valid assumption of privacy. Email is also not encrypted, how you like all your email published on the net?
For the most part I find Wikileaks to be nothing but tabloid press at it's worst. They have a right to freedom of the press but they are not knight in shinning armor that many people on slashdot hold them up to be. Frankly they seem to miss the difference between secret and private.
As to doing what ever appeals to his voters. Is that a bad thing? Isn't that exactly what an elected official should do? Shouldn't they be doing the will of their voters? I am sure that when an elected official does what you think is right you call him responsible. Over all this is just going to be a flame war full of fury and sound with no light.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Red Flayer]

Not on Long Island. Not in NJ, either, not for a long time. Today Irish Catholics tend to be Republicans, because of the wedge issues of abortion and other "family values" (not to mention race) the Republican party used to split that demographic away from the Democratic Party in the 90s.

Note that King's fiscal base is wealthy Irish Catholics and Jews (both tend to be conservative Republicans), but his voting base is blue-collar. That's how the Republican party works, especially in suburban areas.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[rvw]

He's already working on that. He recently introduced legislation that would grant the Attorney General the right to infringe on your constitutional rights without due process. He thinks the Federal Government should have the right to put your name on a list and take away your right to keep and bear arms without any burden of proof whatsoever.

What's wrong with that picture?

Nothing! How long would it take to put everyone on the list? That would be the biggest life-saver in the US. And it would be the biggest contribution to world peace since long.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Androclese]

I think that was his point. The Government has taken over Private Industry and ignored/site-stepped/thrown-out the laws of the of the land to do it. That is Fascism by any definition.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Red Flayer]

It is however illegal to snoop other people's pager traffic.

Source, please. Pagers use a radio broadcast, IIRC it is not illegal to snoop them, especially considering there is no security barrier to break. Plus no warrant is required for law enforcement to snoop them either, which lends credence to the idea that they are public broadcasts.

Why, I'll bet most of your phone calls are unencrypted...

Landline calls are privileged correspondence, not a broadcast (unlike pager signals). I have Verizon as a wireless carrier, so my cell calls are encrypted with CDMA. However, it's easily overcome, as you can spoof a tower signal and tell a cell phone to stop encrypting. That, however, IS illegal, as it is circumventing a security measure to prevent unauthorized access.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

I don't care what your opinion is regarding the 2nd amendment but I should think that you'd be smart enough to see in the danger in the Government having the power to take away your rights merely by placing your name on a list. No due process, no burden of proof.

This kind of fucking hypocrisy makes my blood boil. Many of the supposed civil libertarians in Congress have spent the last eight years screaming as loudly as they can about the lack of due process afforded those held in Gitmo. Now many of those same legislators line up to support legislation that grants the Government the power to strip away the rights of American citizens without according them due process. I'll ask it again, WTF is wrong with this picture?

Pot, kettle, black.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Red Flayer]

Oh, I see. Flew over my head.

But perhaps he is confused about fascism, since the state-corporate intertwining is only one aspect -- and on the other aspects, the current Admininstration is far different from the prior one (and the fascist-leaning Republicans in general).

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[OctaviusIII]

Well, unless they show they're part of a well regulated Militia, of course. It's necessary to the security of a free State, y'know!

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fail

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better, his constituents will get behind that measure while complaining that Obama wants to "take away their guns". Fucking mouthbreathing teabaggers.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

I don't think you understand his district. Most of his constituents would cheer any gun control measure. That doesn't excuse his violation of his oath of office though.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Nadaka]

What the hell are you talking about?
1: more people die from auto accidents every year in the US than die of fatal shootings.
2: more people die from tobacco related health issues (cancer, pneumonia, emphysema, etc) than of fatal shootings.
3: more people die from the seasonal flue than from shootings.
4: etc, there are more things than I can list that kill more people than guns.

The right to bear arms is this nations last line of defense against our enemies, and here is the key "both foreign and domestic". Nothing gives the police-statists a greater sense of security when sending out their jack booted thugs than a populace that does not have the means to fight back. Responsible ownership of firearms is not only a right, but I believe it is a requirement for a well functioning liberal democratic society.

If you really wanted to reduce the shooting crime rate in the US, I would suggest the following actions:
1: provide mandatory firearm safety courses in high school.
2: provide, free of charge, firearm safes and safety locks to all families owning firearms to prevent accidental use by children.
3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.
4: require all women to own and carry a firearm in public (this will also reduce the rate of sexual assault).

But hey, I am just one of those dirty freedom loving liberals.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Nadaka]

the militia during the revolutionary period (the militia referenced in the constitution) consisted of all able bodied adult white male citizens.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Rogerborg]

You know that Occam is cutting himself in his grave right now, don't you? Along the wrists.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[gtall]

Nice sentiments. However, have you ever listened to the CSpan call-in show in the morning? Have you ever wondered just how come what seems to be a significant segment of the callers have more than a screw loose? Those are the people you want to arm. They are about as well-adjusted as a squirrel after his third cup of coffee.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>Email is also not encrypted, how you like all your email published on the net?

Actually, I assume that all of my email is discoverable and could wind up being published somewhere. For that reason, I am careful what I write, and I use PGP for the more sensitive things.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Nadaka]

Fascism has more to do with leaders of industry forming a self regulating cabal. Those cabals then form the state. Though I admit, this aspect of fascism is not well defined.

Imagine what the world would be like if the heads of IBM, Intel and Microsoft had the right to regulate the computer industry. And that same cabal was also allowed to guide national information policy.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[FatSean]

So it's less of a stretch to just ignore the militia phrase rather then re-think what militia means today?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[pablo_max]

whoa whoa whoa...
I am Irish Catholic and I think the man is an ass. Not all religious folks are bigoted morons who use fear for control.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Bin Ladin supposedly didn't realize that we were tracking him via his satellite phone until that fact was leaked by a member of the Clinton administration. He kept using it right up until the point that the story appeared in the press.

Lolz

it's also foolhardy to think that these types of disclosures don't have any real world implications.

It's even more foolhardy to be so credulous.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[FatSean]

Taken over? All of private industry? Your hyperbole doesn't help. The Military-Industrial Complex snickers from 'round the corner. Shame Obama doesn't have the stones to cut military spending in these hard times.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[vishbar]

3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.
4: require all women to own and carry a firearm in public (this will also reduce the rate of sexual assault).

Ooookay.

But hey, I am just one of those dirty freedom loving liberals.

Except for the freedom not to carry a firearm, I guess.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[baKanale]

The only reason it's not political suicide is because he's in New York's 3rd Congressional District, which is on Long Island. Long Island and New York City are much more liberal than most of the state. New York is only a "blue state" because the city vastly outnumbers everyone else, a fact that many people up in Central and Western NY generally resent. Nearly anywhere north of the city and he'd be tarred and feathered in about five minutes.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[LWATCDR]

I do also but we are in the minority. Most people will assume that pages and emails are private. I for one do not need to see pages sent between parents wondering if there children are safe or between husbands and wives wondering if the spouse got out of the tower alive.
Yes I know technically that emails are as public as post cards and that pages are not encrypted but most people don't. In this as is many cases Wikileaks is just being a tabloid.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[HungryHobo]

and? freedom of speach gives every youtube commenter and conservative radio host air time. These are the people you want to let speak to everyone?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

a fact that many people up in Central and Western NY generally resent.

Yeah, I live in Binghamton, so I know all about it.

I don't know as if you can claim it's only a blue state because of the city though. Schemer and Spitzer won virtually every county (the former all but one, the latter all but two) in the last statewide elections. It would definitely be a more moderate state without the city though.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Kierthos]

The Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009?

Man, he's never going to get anywhere with that unless he renames it have a snazzy acronym.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Kidbro]

3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.
4: require all women to own and carry a firearm in public (this will also reduce the rate of sexual assault).

So, that would be everybody? Any particular reason why you chose to explicitly mandate the same rule twice, for two equally large, arbitrarily chosen subsets of the population, or is it just some weird sexist tradition of yours?

I like how you love my freedom by wanting to force me to carry a pound of metal around whenever I leave my home, by the way.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Nadaka]

I was using it as an example of what might be done to fix the irrational and uneducated fear of the parent poster. I don't actually believe mandatory carry is compatible with the principal of the constitution and freedom. However, compared to removing the right to carry arbitrarily and without due process for everyone, I would see it as a lesser evil.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten to one he's also against health care.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Nadaka]

I mentioned it twice because the few communities that I know have enacted mandatory carry did so only for men. I found this odd, considering women are far more likely to be victimized than men. Also see my other comment on mandatory carry above.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Exception Duck]

Excellent point. mod parent up.

Why not embed a small tracking device in the guns you require people to carry.

That way if somebody doesn't have a valid tracker or if they break the law - it can just start beeping - then everyone can just shoot the freedom hating terrorist.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather annoying and hypocritical, given his support for Irish nationalist terrorists.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Bassman59]

Ten to one he's also against health care.

More like even money that he's against health care. He's a mouthbreathing teabagger, nothing more.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Reziac]

Investigating WikiLeaks is the wrong approach. If you have a security leak, you don't fix it by throttling those who intercept or report it -- there will ALWAYS be another to take their place, and all you wind up doing is publicizing the leak. (Ooops, too late!)

Rather, you fix it by stopping the leak at its source -- within your own organization and the tech it uses.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So that rules out women, nonwhites, and those who aren't able bodied enough to have been in a militia back then (some obese people might be in this category)?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[IndustrialComplex]

You know that Occam is cutting himself in his grave right now, don't you? Along the wrists.

Is the theory that some bored telecom guy collected this data more complicated than the government collecting this data? In fact, it is quite possible and likely that SEVERAL sources have this pager data.

We have actual evidence of people collecting data on open WIFI spots, it shouldn't be surprising that someone might have collected this data for any number of purposes.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[cmdr_klarg]

3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.
4: require all women to own and carry a firearm in public (this will also reduce the rate of sexual assault).

Sorry, there are too many stupid, panicky types out there to make me agree to that.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Reziac]

"If you choose not to defend yourself, you have no right to complain if someone robs or assaults you."

There, that'll give the lefty liberals something to scream about. ;)

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[mikael]

As one spin-doctor said, "Never let the facts get in the way of a good political campaign".

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The real news to me is that the telco's were keeping such extensive logs of all their pager messages..."

I don't think you understand what unencrypted means in the context of OTA broadcasting.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[vxice]

Either way this was traffic that was not meant to be public. This is the same as someone recording thousands of phone calls and publishing. What would you have said if the NSA had released its reports detailing everyone's phone calls lengths and destination. This guy may be using the event for the wrong reason but it was still wrong for those pages to be released.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[melikamp]

An illustration.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[s73v3r]

I'll ask it again, WTF is wrong with this picture?

That your sarcasm detector is apparently broken?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[LateArthurDent]

You know that Occam is cutting himself in his grave right now, don't you? Along the wrists.

Yeah, but not for the reason you think. Pet peeve of mine, I've corrected many people who got their knowledge of Occam's Razor from watching Contact. Occam's Razor does not say that the simplest explanation is the most likely to be the correct one. It says that, all things being equal, if two theories both make predictions which match observations, there's no sense in using the more complex one. If the theory with less variables get you the same result, you should use it, even if the more complex theory is the one that actually matches the true mechanism you're attempting to model. The moment you find some way to differentiate the theories with observations, then you use that to make your choice.

After all, Newton's laws of motion are way simpler than Einstein's theories of relativity. Without observations in situations where the relativistic effects are significant, they give the same results. Occam's Razor tells you to keep using Newton's laws until you have observations for which relativity's predictions are better (and we have those, obviously).

In your case, without actual evidence that the government was or was not involved, Occam is completely irrelevant. That's without even touching on the fact that it's extremely debatable to which theory is 'simpler.' I personally think random dude with cheap equipment recording unencrypted RF traffic to get stock tips is the theory with less variables, but I can see the government doing it too.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

5: End the war on drugs.

When people are responsible for enforcing their own property rights, you have Hobbes's "war of all against all", which is precisely what we're seeing in the inner city.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

The militia today consists of all able-bodied males between 18 and 40 whom aren't members of the military or reserves.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[rockout]

Yes, I would gladly let every youtube commenter and conservative radio host speak to everyone in exchange for the callers into conservative radio shows not being allowed handguns and automatic weapons.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[drerwk]

As I posted further on: http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1461912&cid=30282926
I think it is illegal to snoop even clear text per the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act [wikipedia.org]. "ECPA prohibits unlawful access and certain disclosures of communication contents. " See also: John and Alice Martin http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/24/us/florida-couple-are-charged-in-taping-of-gingrich-call.html [nytimes.com]

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[rtfa-troll]

For the most part I find Wikileaks to be nothing but tabloid press at it's worst. They have a right to freedom of the press but they are not knight in shinning armor that many people on slashdot hold them up to be. Frankly they seem to miss the difference between secret and private.

I think the point here is that the boundary between secret and private is somewhere completely different from where most people think it is. Most people don't understand the privacy of their email or their pager message. They think that a) they have nothing interesting to say and so their privacy is safe and b) their messages are safe from people that would like to do them harm. What they don't understand is that a) lots of people who work in the ISP/Teleco could want to do them harm by breaking into their house when they go out and that b) those people can use mass scanning to find the data they want.

This breakdown of privacy barriers is not something which has grown up through accidental private action and the "free market" or whatever. It's something which has been deliberately created by people such as the NSA stopping the wide availability of crypto systems. This is a story which needs to be told, and only by mass availability of mass data can anyone begin to undersand it.

IMHO These people's privacy was broken when the paging messages were sent out to the whole country unencrypted. Not when Wikileaks posted them. You should be investigating the people responsible. E.g. the pager company or, for example, the NSA.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[GameboyRMH]

The Denying Explosives and Firearms to Evil Atrocious Terrorists Act of 2009.

AKA DEFEAT act. Short, unique, still has the T-word in it with a scary adjective. The only downside is that, while sugar-coating is no longer necessary these days, hilariously ironic backronyms (PATRIOT) are still preferable to descriptive ones such as this.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[darth dickinson]

But hey, I am just one of those dirty freedom loving liberals.

Hence the "Flamebait" mod. Seriously, that particular mod seems only to say "I Disagree" nowadays...

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Nadaka]

Its not an inappropriate mod. I suppose I did "fight fire with fire" a bit, though I suppose anything with political content at all could be considered flaimbait by someone.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Sylver Dragon]

While I agree that this type of thing is worth shouting about, I think you may have just gone off half-cocked at the wrong person.
Here, take these:
<Sarcasm>
</Sarcasm>
and apply as needed.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anomalyst]

Read Robert A. Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon" for an interesting extrapolation of an openly armed society (including the right to go unarmed).

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

I honestly don't detect sarcasm in his post. Neither did the mods, apparently.

If he was trying to be a wiseass then I guess I'm a jerk. Oh well, what can you do?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Sylver Dragon]

US CODE: Title 10, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 13, SubSection 311:[1]

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

(b) The classes of the militia are—

(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and

(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Ok, I'm male, over 17 years of age and under the age of 45, not part of the National Guard, and Section 313 of Title 32 doesn't apply to me (it actually applies to the National Guard) and I'm a US Citizen. That makes me part of the "unorganized militia". Now, where's my fucking M-16?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[el_tedward]

Encryption isn't really an end all solution. Some things should of course always be encrypted by default, but not everything needs to or should be encrypted. For example, if I encrypted everything moving around on an internal network, my firewalls, IDS, and IPS would suddenly become much less useful. There aren't any and likely won't be any useful encryption methods that give you the diagnostic and security information you'll get from unencrypted traffic.

It's about finding a balance between what should be encrypted by default, what I shouldn't be able to do without encrypting everything, and what I should be left with to encrypt if I feel like what I'm doing is important enough to encrypt. I should HAVE to encrypt my online banking traffic, but if ALL of my email suddenly became encrypted without google being able open it up, I would start finding a lot more spam in my inbox.

I'm given the option to connect to gmail by https 100% of the time, which is nice, but I don't want to find that 80% of the email I get is from people who haven't been updating windows or the Norton antivirus that came with their computer they got from bestbuy.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a good point, for some reason I do agree, but you gotta admit it's a hell of a lot harder to kill someone with speech than it is with firearms.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[mpe]

As pager traffic is totally unencrypted, it's not a surprise that someone might be intercepting them. Especially on Wall Street, like the article states, because it's high valued information.

How would you pick up only the pager traffic for pagers in Lower Manhatten? As opposed to that for most of North America.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[mpe]

No, his voters were given the choice of voting for him or for his opponent. The political machine and wealthy connections gave him the money to run his campaign, gave him the support to run, and most importantly, ensured he runs unopposed in the primary every election cycle... he's a breadwinner for the Republican party because of his wealthy IRA-supporting contacts.

He's funded by terrorists? Or does IRA mean something other than Irish Republican Army here.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[coaxial]

He recently introduced legislation that would grant the Attorney General the right to infringe on your constitutional rights without due process.

would have made sense 2 years ago, but now? He's committing career suicide enabling the Dems in this fashion. Weird.

Unchecked power is dumb every year.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[yamfry]

3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.

I like to swim.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[mpe]

Yes pager traffic is unencrypted but you could make a claim that the uses have a valid assumption of privacy. Email is also not encrypted, how you like all your email published on the net?

Email generally isn't sent by broadcasting it to large parts of the planet. Most pagers being selective call radio receivers.

For the most part I find Wikileaks to be nothing but tabloid press at it's worst. They have a right to freedom of the press but they are not knight in shinning armor that many people on slashdot hold them up to be. Frankly they seem to miss the difference between secret and private.

We now know that someone was intercepting and recording pager traffic, in the US, more than 8 years ago. What we don't know is when this actually started, if it is still happening or where else in the world this sort of thing may have happened...

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[coaxial]

3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.
4: require all women to own and carry a firearm in public (this will also reduce the rate of sexual assault).

Isn't that also just as terrifying, if not more terrifying than a police state? Why should I have to worry about every time I walk into a bar, and there's some drunk asshole picking a fight with another drunk, that lead is going to start flying? I always thought a gun was a like condom, you don't bring one unless you plan on using it.

Whenever I hear about people arguing that everyone to start carrying guns, I think back to this incident in Texas back in the early aughts, where two suburban soccer moms with concealed carry guns starting shooting at each other during a road rage incident.

Random crime just doesn't happen all that often, and it always seems to me that people that want more guns, more "protection" are overly scared to walk outside their house.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[coaxial]

Source, please. Pagers use a radio broadcast, IIRC it is not illegal to snoop them, especially considering there is no security barrier to break. Plus no warrant is required for law enforcement to snoop them either, which lends credence to the idea that they are public broadcasts.

It is illegal to record pager messages, as it constitutes a wiretap. A cellular phone is also a radio, but that doesn't mean that's a radio station. The difference is that a a radio station is intended for a wide audience, while a cellular phone call is a private conversation. It was also illegal to listen into the old unencrypted analog cordless phones that operated in the Mhz range and so could be picked up on police scanners.

You're simply mistaken to believe pagers taps don't require a warrant. It's a search, and was held as a wiretap as recently as 2008 by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Quon v. Arch Wireless Oper. 2008.. Even EPIC lists "pagers" as one of the things they track in wiretap statistics.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

>3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.
Require? No. Allow all men to have whatever weapons they want? Yes.

>4: require all women to own and carry a firearm in public (this will also reduce the rate of sexual assault).
Oh what, so they can shoot, murder, men? HELL NO. I don't like agressive women nor armed women, they are not attractive and are a danger to men.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[mpe]

Let me translate for you: the "interception" here was by the government. The "security issue" is that somebody in the government leaked that info, or (less likely) that it was swiped by someone outside the government. The real "issue" isn't that the info was leaked, its just that it revealed that the government has it.

Even if this was intercepted by A government it need not have been the US Government. They need not have been any government and need not even have done so in the US, radio signals not being stopped by international borders. For all anyone knows the interception could have happened at the Burkina Faso Embassy in Ottawa or such like...

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I split my time between Buffalo and Rochester. It gets redder around here but the area is still heavily Democrat I find.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Taevin]

"If you choose not to defend yourself, you have no right to complain if someone robs or assaults you."

Yeah, I'm really getting sick of little old ladies wasting police time just because they got mugged.

Granny should hit the gym and fight back or just shut her fucking mouth.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Shakrai]

Granny should hit the gym and fight back

Granny is the perfect example of somebody who needs a gun.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

No patriotic conservative wants to be known as a DEFEATist. They should rename it to the Denying Explosives and Firearms to Evolutionists, Communists, Atheists, Terrorists, and Effeminates. The DEFECATE Act of 2009, an act which I think he and his buddies intend to commit on the country. I've heard that Constitution parchment makes an excellent wipe...

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Tynin]

You aren't allowed to have a gun in a bar. At least not in Florida. Generally speaking, you aren't allowed to be drunk and carrying a weapon either, even if you have a CCW. To refute your last sentence, I choice to carry because, at least in the USA, the police have no duty to protect individuals. So for me, I value my right to carry and protect my family since I know the police may not be able to. Even my wife has a CCW as you are correct, she is a bit scared about going out of the house at night as we do live in a moderately bad area of town. Now excuse me, I need to get back to making reloads and cleaning my AR-15 as their is a match this weekend :)

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[coaxial]

You aren't allowed to have a gun in a bar. At least not in Florida. Generally speaking, you aren't allowed to be drunk and carrying a weapon either, even if you have a CCW.

You're not allowed to drive drunk either, but it still happens. I pose that it's less likely for a drunk to have gun, if the person didn't have the gun with them before they had one too many.

Now excuse me, I need to get back to making reloads and cleaning my AR-15 as their is a match this weekend :)

Real men show how virile they are with a mini gun. (Which I must admit, looks pretty damn fun.) ;)

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Reziac]

My point exactly :D

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Vvall]

True enough, however I don't know if I agree that this should be considered illegal.

If you post an unencrypted message on a billboard anyone that has the equipment (eyes, camera, etc) and comes within range of the reflected light waves has access to that information. If you send an unencrypted message over radio waves, anyone that has the equipment has access to the information. I don't see how anyone can say there is a real difference between the two. Saying the pager has a number (or some other identifier) is to me the same thing as saying that the billboard has "To Slashdot user 695572" posted at the top. It doesn't stop anyone from reading it and it certainly shouldn't be considered criminal if someone did.

I do believe that things with dedicated lines should have an expected level of privacy (such as a phone) simply because to intercept them would require an active attempt to do so. Unencrypted communication that can be passively gathered should not have this same expected level of privacy.

Disclaimer: I am in no way an expert in pagers or radio communications, so I want to apologize if I have any misunderstandings about how these items work.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Patch86]

Frankly they seem to miss the difference between secret and private.

I like Wikileaks, as both a concept and a general implementation, but I tend to agree with you in this instance.

Uncovering the sordid secrets which governments and corporations would rather keep under wraps is a laudable activity which should be encouraged. Publishing deeply personal messages, some of which will have been the last communications ever made between the dying and their loved ones, and which have no intrinsic value to anyone except morbid voyeurs, reeks of nothing more than red-top sensationalism.

I feel they let themselves down a bit with this one.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Tynin]

You're not allowed to drive drunk either, but it still happens. I pose that it's less likely for a drunk to have gun, if the person didn't have the gun with them before they had one too many.

True enough, hard to refute that. Although I don't think it is a particularly good argument against gun rights. Since their will always be drunks, and since drunks do not think logically, we must ban [insert object] in order to save lives. That could be anything from knives, to cars, to even glass beer bottles. Since anything can be used as a weapon, somethings more effectively (cars), it shouldn't be grounds to ban simply because people could get drunk and misuse them.

I personally know if I'm going to have a drink when I go out, I leave mine at home to avoid losing my CCW.

Real men show how virile they are with a mini gun. (Which I must admit, looks pretty damn fun.) ;)

Looks like it could be fun. I know when I leave the range after a match I feel like a proverbial 400 lb gorilla full of adrenaline... although I do leave a little butt sore every time my wife out shoots me ;)

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[OctaviusIII]

I was going to link to the Militia Act of 1903, which started the legal concept you cite, but since that's not the basis upon which DC v. Heller was founded I thought it would a moot point in the discussion my joke accidentally ignited. And, using 311(2) as the criterion for "well regulated Militia" would mean that you couldn't keep and bear arms outside the age range, or if you were female (unless a member of the Guard Reserve or if you met qualifications outlined in your State's code), which is not the case in the US. I happen to agree with the dissent in DC v. Heller, but I support the judgment of the Court.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[91degrees]

The government is still be far the most obvious candidate. The messages would need a lot of trawling for something that might be useful. For businesses the information would be out of date in a few days. For law enforcement the information could potentially be useful for several months. It's not certain but I'd say the likelihood of this being the government is greater than the collective likelihood of everyone else.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I guess I'm a jerk"

You only judt realised? We have known for ages!

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Falconhell]

"I believe it is a requirement for a well functioning liberal democratic society."

Someone did not realise Henlein was fiction.

If you really wanted to reduce the shooting crime rate in the US, I would suggest the following actions:

Introduce heavy restrictions on gun ownership as we did very sucessfully in australia some years ago.

FTFY

Reality shows you have a far higher gun death rate than comparable western countries, and a far higher gun ownership rate.

It defies belief that you can claim more guns will make things better.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[coaxial]

It is true that anything can be used as a weapon, but we've had times where guns were pervasive, name Ye Olde West, and it simply wasn't that safe. People carried guns, because the law simply didn't exist there, and even then there was stringent gun laws in some towns, including no pistols allowed.

A recent study that people with a gun were 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not possessing a gun. I haven't read the article, and obviously there's some demographics issues that need to determined. For instance, how often do the shooting victims have a history of crime, and so on. (e.g. to control for bad drug deals and the like), so I'll put this up to a "maybe."

But at the same time, I think some criminal I saw on Gangland or something that said, "If I think they have a gun, I'm going to shoot them first, then rob them."

But violent crime is at an all time low, it's just not worth it.

And this is coming from someone that grew up in the boondocks with the county sheriff being at least 30 minutes away. (No. We never owned a gun.)

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[BlueStrat]

3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.
4: require all women to own and carry a firearm in public (this will also reduce the rate of sexual assault).

Sorry, there are too many stupid, panicky types out there to make me agree to that

Not for long.

Stupid, panicky types will quickly succumb to Darwinian weeding-out from society and the gene pool. As will muggers, rapists, and violent criminal types in general. It would also tend to weed out the worst of politicians which means that this will never, *ever* be allowed to happen. I also feel that it would result in a much more polite and considerate society in general. It would also tend to reduce public police violence and abuse.

Strat

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Kidbro]

Fair enough, and my apologies for the somewhat inflammatory remark.

Would you care to let me know what "communities" these are/were? I've never heard of such a thing, and find the idea curious, to say the least. Is/was the point of the requirement to fight internal threats (criminals) or external ones ("foreign" attackers)?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you on about?

2: provide, free of charge, firearm safes and safety locks to all families owning firearms to prevent accidental use by children.
3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.

But hey, I am just one of those dirty freedom loving liberals.

And who are you going to force to pay for these firearm safes? Freedom loving my arse!

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[TheoMurpse]

he'll say whatever he thinks will appeal to his blue-collar Irish Catholic base

I take it you're not a fan of republican democracy?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Tynin]

The thing about the Wild West, is it was never wild. That was a myth told to, I suppose in a way, romanticize cow boys and some of the crooks of that time.

From the book Frontier Violence: Another Look, author W. Eugene Hollon, provides us with these facts:
* In Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell, for the years from 1870 to 1885, there were only 45 total homicides. This equates to a rate of approximately 1 murder per 100,000 residents per year.
* In Abilene, supposedly one of the wildest of the cow towns, not a single person was killed in 1869 or 1870.

We have much higher levels of homicide now compaired to the Wild West although I'm glad to see that violent crime is at an all time low, that is a great thing.

As for the criminal on Gangland, yeah he has a point, however if you are truly carrying concealed, then no one should see even so much as the outline of your piece even under a jacket, otherwise it isn't considered concealed, and you can lose your CCW over that. I have an FN-9 with a short grip that is invisible on me, that said I also opt to carry pepper spray at times when I don't think a gun is needed.

So I think we are going to have to respectfully agree to disagree. The Boy Scout in me wants to be prepared for the worse case scenario, be it from a robber, or my gov (I pray not), or even straight up rioting/looters (I live in an area that in the last 4 years I've lost power for over 3 weeks on one time, 2 weeks another time due to hurricanes), and both my wife and I have the common sense not to shoot at each other in pitch of night without having the unknown shadow declare itself, and both of us have put in the time training ourselves how to handle them properly. I'm sure an accident could happen, just like I'm sure I could accidentally wipe out drive on a production server with a mistaken command, but I'm professional enough to know to take slow calculated steps when I'm dealing with things in my life that could potentially cause me problems. I realize not everyone may be this way, which is where your side of the argument makes more sense.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Tynin]

Besides all that, if you've never seen a woman shooting an rifle, you've never lived. Their is just something insanely hot about a good looking woman using a rifle, and using it well. Wish I could find one of my wife, not sure where they are at the moment. ;)

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Nadaka]

Its been a long time, memory may be slightly faulty, but google worked well enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_Georgia
I believe there is at least one in Kansas, but I can't find a name for it.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Tawnos]

I'm sure you're just trolling, because this issue was recently decided in Heller.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Rogerborg]

Actually, Occam's Razor says: "Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate" or "Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora".

If you want to render that in English, some subjective interpretation is necessary.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[HungryHobo]

it's a hell of a lot harder to defend yourself with words than with a rifle.

I don't own a gun, I have no interest in owning a gun but I recognise that ultimately it reduces to the question of what tools I should be allowed have in my possession.

Should I be forbidden from having a port scanner because I might use it as a hacking tool?
Should I be forbidden a compiler because I might make a port scanner with it?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[LateArthurDent]

Actually, Occam's Razor says: "Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate" or "Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora".

If you want to render that in English, some subjective interpretation is necessary.

First, not every translation requires subjective interpretation. That latin sentence is actually incredibly straight-forward, and I can read it based purely on my knowledge of Portuguese. "Never assume pluralities without necessity." That's as objective as it gets, I didn't even have to switch the order of the words.

Second, that's why I gave the Newton's Laws vs. Relativity example. We're not taking Occam's words as sacred law here, you've got to understand it. There's absolutely no reason the simplest explanations would be more correct. For that to happen there would need to be some sort of force or planning, or something to always make things simple. That's definitely not the case, and sometimes the only theories that give you correct predictions are very, very complex. That's what the whole "without necessity" is about. If you need to get more complex interactions in order to get your correct predictions, then that's what you need to do. If a simpler theory does the job, then use it. Note that the sentence has no word which means "correctness."

Here's another example. I'm given a program that takes a number and outputs a number. I'm supposed to figure out what it does based on the input and output. I notice that for every number I type, the output is that number + 2. That's a very simple pattern, and I'm going to write down, "the program takes the input and adds 2." However, I have absolutely no way of knowing if the program doesn't actually first add 5 then subtract 3 from the observations. That could very well be what's actually going on, but since both theories give the exact same prediction, it's easier to work with the version that just adds 2. That's all Occam's Razor says.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[LWATCDR]

This one is very much over the top but other "leaks" they have published where not of secrets but things they claim to be secrets.
I would like to see Wikileaks only publish "leaks" that involve government agencies or publicly held companies. And I would like them to redact all personal information from those leaks.
I don't have a problem with them publishing pager data from government agencies or even publishing that pagers can be recorded but I don't need to know phone numbers, kids names, or personal data. That is one reason I am not going to look at that data.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[riondluz]

try googling Kroll Inc, a subsidiary of AIG
Corporate espionage has been around for 2 decades now.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The right to bear arms is this nations last line of defense against our enemies, and here is the key "both foreign and domestic".

Actually if you read the writing of Thomas Jefferson who was the author of the 2nd amendment. The US Army is to defend against foreign enemies. The right to bear arms to for "The People" to defend themselves from their own government.

Thomas Jefferson said
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

He also said, "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

If you really wanted to reduce the shooting crime rate in the US, I would suggest the following actions:
1: provide mandatory firearm safety courses in high school.
2: provide, free of charge, firearm safes and safety locks to all families owning firearms to prevent accidental use by children.
3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.
4: require all women to own and carry a firearm in public (this will also reduce the rate of sexual assault).

You are so right on this.

The only terrorist I know of are in Washington DC.

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[FredFredrickson]

Hey! Nice to see someone from the old stomping grounds. I used to live in owego. How's the area?

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? Those squirrels will last probably a good 3-4 days before getting shot to a bloody pulp in self defense by the ones who drink their third cup responsibly!

Sure, we will have some casualties, but in the long run, we will end up with a population that will bring back meaning to "common sense".

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Falconhell]

Didnt you get the memo?

  The rabid US nutjob gun owners here cant stand the truth about their overcompensation getting out.

Any post criticising gun ownership is modded down to oblivion.

The rantings of gun crazed fruit loops are of course, modded insightful.

Second Flamebait

[Ethanol-fueled]

From the Wikipedia:

His family has strong Irish roots that trace back to County Galway and County Limerick...

King graduated from St. Francis College in Brooklyn in 1965 and went on to get his Juris Doctorate from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1968...

He was branded by a judge in a Northern Ireland court "an obvious collaborator with the IRA". He became involved with NORAID, an organization that the British, Irish and US governments accuse of financing IRA terrorist activities and providing them with weapons. He was banned from appearing on British TV for his pro IRA views and refusing to condemn IRA terrorism in the UK.

In 2000, he called then-presidential candidate George W. Bush a tool of "anti-Catholic bigoted forces." King worked extensively with the administration and supported its decision to invade Iraq.

In a September 2007 interview with the website Politico.com, King said that "There are too many mosques in this country... There are too many people sympathetic to radical Islam."

There are a lot more boozed-up hicks and Micks in America who are implicitly sympathetic to radical Christianity (including Catholicism, the biggest business on the planet), and this asshole is no exception. They should shove their crucifixes and rosaries and hypocritical dark-age censorship up their priest-penetrated asses.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Smegly]

"They should probe their own priest-penetrated asses with their crucifixes and rosaries and hypocritical dark-age censorship"
Fixed.

Re:Second Flamebait

[TheDarkMaster]

Religion is the best mass-destruction weapon ever created by mankind.

Re:Second Flamebait

[theIsovist]

While I don't disagree he's a bigot, you do realize that your post is just as bigotted as statement, right?

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks, do NOT mod posts like this and it's parent up. Neither are interesting nor give insight.

Re:Second Flamebait

[dkleinsc]

So in other words, Congressman King is a supporter of a known terrorist organization (the IRA). So why isn't he in Gitmo instead of in Congress? Oh, right. He was supporting a Christian terrorist organization, not a Muslim one.

That said, your last line is an uncalled-for expression of bigotry against all Irish Catholics (to be clear, I'm neither Irish nor Catholic). Among other things, those most sympathetic to radical Christianity in the US tend to be Protestant fundamentalists, whereas the modern-day Catholic Church (particularly when John Paul II was in charge) is a lot more friendly towards non-Christian faiths.

Re:Second Flamebait

[RobotRunAmok]

boozed-up hicks and Micks

Typical classist/racist, masquerading as a "progressive." It's the knee-jerk anti-religion fundies such as you who empower King, not his "blue collar" base.

Keep up the good work.

Re:Second Flamebait

[theIsovist]

Left out the "his" between as and statement. posting to correct.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Dunbal]

Neither are interesting nor give insight.

While yours apparently is.

Who cares about mod points anyway - the modding system is for sheep. Reading at -1 makes for a far more interesting slashdot, even if you have to put up with the occasional GNAA or goatse crap. You can all play your little "karma" game. I'll decide for myself what's worth reading.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for reading at -1.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up!!!111!!

GNAA, goatse, cool4sale!!!1!one

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

While yours apparently is.

Says who? I guess posting anonymously didn't give you the hint that I don't care about ratings or karma.

Who cares about mod points anyway

No one cares, but those who lurk slashdot have no choice in the matter. You may decide to read every post, but I'd prefer to cut through the crap. I have better things to do than to spend any more time than I do on /.

Re:Second Flamebait

[gEvil (beta)]

While I don't disagree he's a bigot, you do realize that your post is just as bigotted as statement, right?

Considering the subject line of his post, I can assure you that he's aware of it and that it was fully intentional.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

You may decide to read every post, but I'd prefer to let other people decide what content is appropriate for me.

FTFY, tool.

Re:Second Flamebait

[mdm-adph]

Now -- tell us how you really feel.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Conchobair]

As and Irish Catholic I have never been so disgusted with slashdot as I am now. I've been trolled and down modded, but when racial slurs and relgion bashing are considered insightful, especially against myself, it may be time to find myself a new site.

The slashdot groupthink modding system is starting to turn into a sort of facism in itself.

Re:Second Flamebait

[hesiod]

Actually, since he was telling the mods to mod-down a subset of posts, he is in fact wanting to decide for others what is appropriate for them to see, not himself.

Re:Second Flamebait

[V!NCENT]

"You may decide to read every post, but I'd prefer to cut through the crap."
Your own -1 post included?

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Full disclosure: this post made me happy. :)

On the subject, perhaps wikileaks has been too effective in what they do since politicians are getting interested. It's funny how it's the same in US and China too, you have to carelly watch what you're saying...

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

"Irish" is a NATIONALITY, not a race. One can't be racist against that which is not a race!

"Catholic" is a religion, and it's absolutely fine to bash religions. People choose to be religious, and can just as easily choose to be non-religious. If your religion is associated with stupid acts, or causes you to act stupidly, then you deserve all of the ridicule that you catch.

Grow some thicker skin, too. Your pansy attitude is a complete disgrace to your Irish and Catholic forefathers.

Re:Second Flamebait

[TheDarkMaster]

Whoa... I found someone very angry against Atheists, and with mod points!

But I have something that supports my point of view... The human race history.



P.S: Who are you to tell others what they have to do or not do? A angry priest? Mod me down as you wish, I do not care.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Ash Vince]

So in other words, Congressman King is a supporter of a known terrorist organization (the IRA).

I always find this funny when people from the US moan about other countries supporting terrorists or allowing terrorist groups to fund raise. For many years the IRA raised funds in the states and it was only when Clinton came into power that he put a stop to this.

I honestly believe that him clamping down on IRA fund-raising (and Armalite buying) in the US was a major factor in encouraging the IRA to sit down around the table and move away from just being terrorists and take the political process seriously.

Re:Second Flamebait

[TheDarkMaster]

Interesting note about this kind of people, Dunbal: Then always uses fake names or anonymity when posting this type of comment.

Re:Second Flamebait

[LandDolphin]

You must be confused; you implied that the IRA are/were Terrorists. However, they are Christians; not Muslims. So, obviously your implication must be false as everyone knows the Muslims are Terrorists.

/Sarcasm (If someone couldn't tell)

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't push him -- he might blow up a school bus or something.

Re:Second Flamebait

[wtbname]

You might have point thelsovist, but a word of caution:

kdawson has been known to make inflammatory and unpopular statements.

For what it's worth.

Re:Second Flamebait

[theIsovist]

and he deserves to be (and is) called out as well.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Irish is more than just a nation, we are a people that have been around for over 9,000 years. We call ourselves a race, although that may apply in a broader sense to some it doesn't to me. So kiss my Irish ass. I check 'Other' or write in Irish whenever I can.

Second, you need to understand the difference between fundamentalists and moderates. You cannot judge an entire group of people based upon the misguided actions of a deluded few. That is akin to racism and bigotry and it disgusts me. Fuck you if you think that is pansy.



If you want to talk about being a pansy to me than stop posting as an AC.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Conchobair]

Forgot to login, but yeah that was me.

Re:Second Flamebait

[internewt]

As and Irish Catholic I have never been so disgusted with slashdot as I am now.

Religions condition people to react in exactly that way.

Being critical of what human beings have done whilst carrying the flag of religion is not bashing religion..... the problem is that religion has been used as a tool by those seeking to control other human beings for such a long time that religions themselves are utterly corrupt institutions.

I've been trolled and down modded, but when racial slurs and relgion bashing are considered insightful, especially against myself, it may be time to find myself a new site.

Why is it that when you feel you are the recipient of discrimination it is worse than discrimination against others? That is exactly the kind of hypocrisy that appears to be common place amongst the religious. "It's OK to make sweeping statements about $OTHER_RELIGION, just not $OWN_RELIGION".

The slashdot groupthink modding system is starting to turn into a sort of facism in itself.

Considering the number of offtopic mods on this thread that are on interesting, informative and insightful posts, I'm inclined to agree.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Reziac]

Noticed that, didja?? [insert obligatory "You must be new here!"] Speaking as an 11 year /. veteran, you gotta be thick-skinned around here, cuz sooner or later someone IS going to slur you and yours, and it's not worth arguing over with idiotsm, or stressing over moronic mods.

As to the groupthink problem, that's why I'll sometimes mod up posts I disagree with -- because they may still illustrate a good point, or add something to the discussion.

BTW I'm part Irish myself :)

Re:Second Flamebait

[nolife]

You say you are disgusted with "Slashdot" and then give a speech about how people are fucked up for judging an entire group by the action of a few. You do see the irony there right?

Re:Second Flamebait

[Ash Vince]

You must be confused; you implied that the IRA are/were Terrorists.

They were Terrorists, they are now Politicians though so I am not sure which is worse :)

Re:Second Flamebait

[Conchobair]

Religion is not the only institution that has been misused by the misguided in order control other humans with ill intent. Science, Government, Corporations, these are not immune. This is not a problem with religion as much as it is a problem with people themselves. To think that the horrible things that have occurred in the so called name of some religion is due to that region itself is utterly naive. Power corrupts anywhere you find it and people take advantage of that power. To make broad assumptions and categorize people by their religion and race is wrong. You cannot target every Muslim due to 9/11, you cannot target every Jew due to Gaza, and you cannot target me because of some moron. This all disgusts me and because it’s personal to me, I will take the role of the angry person to let you know it's not okay.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

At the time of posting, the OP was +4 Insightful, which would indicate an overall consensus or at least a large portion of agreement. I apologize for my hasty judgement.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethanol-fueled (the guy who posted the original inflamatory statement) posting here.

Apparently there are a lot of his kind on Slashdot, because the post was enough to get me banned. This is the screenshot of what I saw when I came back from my morning jog.

I would usually pay no mind and just continue to lurk, but I think it's important that everybody knows that, after all of the race-bait trolling myself and others have done, the one thing that gets me banned is persecuting the poor oppressed "minority" white christians! Yes, that's right. The same people who complained about me have proven the article's point! The religious influence on Slashdot undermines its credibility as the foremost science and technology website. The reason why is left as an exercise to the reader.

Funny thing is - I'm part Scots-Irish, part Hispanic/Native American. That moron had the gall to accuse me of "racial slurs" because I said the word "Mick"?! Hey, bub! It ain't the 19th century anymore! Anyway, I mentioned hicks and micks, but no Texans or Oklahomans complained!

Yours in censorship,

-- Ethanol-fueled

Re:Second Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

While I hate slipping off the topic, you are correct. When someone clicks on the link "US Congressman who Announces Plans To Probe Wikileaks", I'm sure they don't want to stumble onto our off-topic bickering. That's the beauty of the meta-modding system. I find it annoying when people bash it but don't offer an alternative.

Re:Second Flamebait

[Reziac]

While I'd agree with the mods that your post was flamebait (tho I myself *never* mod down), firstly it is no worse than the average snide post on this site, and second I wholly support your right to say whatever the hell you want -- what you say only represents YOU, not anyone else. (To paraphrase Booker T. Washington, your words cannot lower me.) If I don't like what you say, no one forces me to read or reply (and downmods normally take care of things adequately); and if it disrupts the discussion, what does that say about the other posters??

And sometimes flamebait makes a good point, either in itself or by pointing out the intolerance of others.

So ... I consider flamebait to be rather like WikiLeaks: it may piss someone off, but IMO it has the same right to be here as anyone else.

[BTW I can't see your screencap; I only get a transparent spacer GIF]

Vandal penises to probe wiki admins asses

[Anonymous Coward]

This for bastard admins who are fat and have no life.

Waste of tax money

[siddesu]

What will his staff do, read the Wikipedia page about Wikileaks and report back? With senators having so much free time and resources, it is little wonder that US is facing a deficit in the small trillions.

Re:Waste of tax money

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a waste of tax money if you're in the business of government.

Re:Waste of tax money

[purpledinoz]

Wikileaks is hosted by a Swedish company. The US can't do shit about it.

Re:Waste of tax money

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

How many decades of our foreign policy have you slept through?

Re:Waste of tax money

[FatherDale]

THIS is what I was wondering about -- just exactly what does he think he can do about a foreign web site, other than inveigh mightily against it? Demagogue....

Re:Waste of tax money

[Dunbal]

it is little wonder that US is facing a deficit in the small trillions.

      Come now. Of course in order to be able to read these messages, his staff will need new computers, blackberries, iPhones and high speed internet connections - both at the office and, because they're so hard-working, at home too. It's only logical that such an undertaking cost at least $10-15 million. But just think, this is money the government is spending to stimulate the private sector, which means that by doing this they will save Manuel and José's jobs (you know, the guys that sweep up at the Apple and Dell plants?). IT HAS TO BE WORTH IT! /sarcasm

Re:Waste of tax money

[Anonymous Coward]

>>US is facing a deficit in the small trillions

Yes yes, but those are small trillions.

Re:Waste of tax money

[sopssa]

Yeah that worked so good for TPB.

And they can pull the domain, which is registered via US company Dynadot, LLC (and don't even get me started on ICANN)

Re:Waste of tax money

[halcyon1234]

What will his staff do, read the Wikipedia page about Wikileaks and report back? With senators having so much free time and resources, it is little wonder that US is facing a deficit in the small trillions.

Not really. You see, by "probe", they mean "skim until the Senator's name comes up".

Re:Waste of tax money

[Grygus]

Isn't that what we said about Pirate Bay? Didn't those guys end up in jail without breaking any laws in their country?

Re:Waste of tax money

[mcgrew]

Wikileaks is hosted by a Swedish company. The US can't do shit about it

Saddam Hussein is dictator of Iraq. The US can't do shit about him.

Oh wait...

Re:Waste of tax money

[siddesu]

My point exactly. It is all pocket change when you're not paying for it.

Re:Waste of tax money

[siddesu]

To be fair, you forgot Poland. Don't forget Poland.

Re:Waste of tax money

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikileaks is hosted by a Swedish company. The US can't do shit about it.

The United States and Sweden have strong economic relations. The United States is currently the third largest Swedish export trade partner, and US companies are the most represented foreign companies in Sweden.

'd be a shame if anything were to happen to those strong relations...

Re:Waste of tax money

[uffe_nordholm]

Nobody knows yet, whether or not the three founders of TPB and their financer will do prison time: the first court did indeed sentence them to prison, but the verdict was appealed. The next court has yet to start proceedings. Once that court is done we still have to wait for the Swedish Supreme court to have it's say (I have no doubt the verdict will be appealed by the loosing side...). We might even have to wait for the European Court to say something in the matter, before anybody actually has to do any time.

Re:Waste of tax money

[slim]

Saddam Hussein is dictator of Iraq. The US can't do shit about him.

Oh wait...

Yeah, but he had weapons of mass... ... oh, right you are. Carry on.

Re:Waste of tax money

[eldavojohn]

Yeah that worked so good for TPB.

Well, Wikileaks has survived attacks (even physical attacks). And the important distinguishing factor between TPB and Wikileaks is that Wikileaks is providing documents the public wants to know about ... they may be copyrighted and protected but they contain newsworthiness. In the United States (before the DMCA), that used to be enough to protect people trying to get the word out. Not anymore. But if another country chooses to uphold that sort of common logic about what should be protected to benefit the public than you're not going to have a TPB repeat.

And they can pull the domain, which is registered via US company Dynadot, LLC (and don't even get me started on ICANN)

This is true and would break a lot of links. However, http://88.80.13.160/ would still work and -- more importantly -- revoking their URL would not only validate Wikileaks but also call forth the internet effect we call the Streisand Effect. This would probably be a godsend to the popularity of Wikileaks. Nothing builds street cred or grabs attention like religions, governments and service providers trying to knock you down repeatedly. If those people are trying to stop you from disseminating information, you must be doing something right if not interesting.

Re:Waste of tax money

[Rob the Bold]

How many decades of our foreign policy have you slept through?

No kidding. If it turns out Sweden is responsible for this outrage, you can bet we'll invade Finland to punish them.

Re:Waste of tax money

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

Re:Waste of tax money

[V!NCENT]

What about the Pirate Bay? Ah yes...

Re:Waste of tax money

[jambarama]

This is true and would break a lot of links. However, http://88.80.13.160/ would still work and -- more importantly -- revoking their URL would not only validate Wikileaks but also call forth the internet effect we call the Streisand Effect. This would probably be a godsend to the popularity of Wikileaks. Nothing builds street cred or grabs attention like religions, governments and service providers trying to knock you down repeatedly.

As a note, this has happened to wikileaks before, and the result was exactly as you describe. After the take down, news websites and forums exploded with the wikileaks IP address, and encouraged visitors to see what all the fuss was about. In addition, the judge had ordered the takedown of only wikileaks.org; wikileaks.net, wikileaks.co.uk, wikileaks.fr, wikileaks.cn, secure.ljsf.org, secure.sunshinepress.org, and dozens of other wikileaks websites with alternate names and identical content remained online.

Re:Waste of tax money

[Shakrai]

you can bet we'll invade Finland to punish them.

That didn't work out real well when Stalin tried it......

Re:Waste of tax money

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I remember some dusty country not working out very well for Leonid Brezhnev, and we certainly didn't let that stop us...

Re:Waste of tax money

[cgenman]

it is little wonder that US is facing a deficit in the small trillions.

To be fair, there is really no such thing as a small trillion.

Re:Waste of tax money

[Shakrai]

That might have had something to do with that giant hole in lower Manhattan. Just a thought.....

Re:Waste of tax money

[fulldecent]

Given its political influence, I'm surprised Wikileaks hasn't been relegated to Tor yet.

Re:Waste of tax money

[L4t3r4lu5]

Plus, there is a Freenet mirror of Wikileaks. It's around a month old atm, but still lots of interesting information on there.

FYI: Freenet is decentralised. It has no servers to take down / DoS.

Re:Waste of tax money

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What will his staff do, read the Wikipedia page about Wikileaks and report back?

No, they will consult with their friendly lobbyists and reprint whatever they provide.

Re:Waste of tax money

[tw45]

He's a congressman not a senator. But there are alot more of those :)

Re:Waste of tax money

[Anonymous Coward]

And it didn't work out real well when Russia tried to take Afghanistan either. what's the point?

Re:Waste of tax money

[MiniMike]

That didn't work out real well when Stalin tried it......

Maybe we'll wait for spring then. Or decide to blame a third party in a warmer climate instead, that hasn't been done before. Or, considering the budget deficit, maybe we'll just send somebody to Ikea to talk tough, dent a few shopping carts, and then buy a bookcase.

Re:Waste of tax money

[Anonymous Coward]

And half of the US would support such a move because "Well dem wimps aint even got demselves a real army"

Re:Waste of tax money

[jittles]

Yeah, but he had weapons of mass...

Weapons of mass? Saddam was a Catholic?

Re:Waste of tax money

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. If it turns out Sweden is responsible for this outrage, you can bet we'll invade Norway to punish them.

Corrected that for you. Norway has the oil.

Re:Waste of tax money

[malkavian]

Interesting that you say it's only "newsworthy" and things that people want to know. Recently, they published the entire private membership of the British National Party (yes, heavily right wing party).
They then published a second one a while later, with even more names (there seems to be a fair bit of controversy on this second one, as many of the entries have been rumoured not to match up to the real list, as they're actually nothing to do with the party).
Now this document is publishing the private information of individuals, such as their names and contact details.
This, to me, is exactly what Redwatch have been doing (they're an ultra right group of Neo Nazis) on the web. At the point they pulled this stunt on individuals, they lost all credibility for me. I now lump them in with a bunch of nutters, which is sad. Originally, they opened up bad doings at companies, and exposed real stories. Not private individuals for membership of a legal (though disliked) party.
Respect, once gone, is very, very difficult to get back. My respect for Wikileaks has gone out the window. Deviousness and being a little 'fast and loose' with the law is one thing. Throwing ethics out of the window is another.

Re:Waste of tax money

[zippthorne]

Wait.. if jail time is on the table, that makes it a criminal case doesn't it? Sweden surely doesn't have a justice system in which acquittals aren't final, do they?

Re:Waste of tax money

[uffe_nordholm]

In a criminal case, both sides can appeal, no matter what the verdict is. Although usually, if the verdict is an acquittal, the prosecutor will need more evidence for the next level of court*. This means that if you are acquitted the prosecutor can still drag you through at least one more trial before a final verdict.
In the case of TPB "everybody" here thinks we will not have a final verdict until the trial has been through all three national levels, and maybe even once through the European court. This is because of the immense importance of the case in setting a precedent for the future.
FYI: I live in Sweden, but am not a lawyer.

* Sometimes this extra evidence is actually found while the first trial is still in court.

Re:Waste of tax money

[I cant believe its n]

This was exactly what preceeded the trial of TPB. It is illegal for our government to give orders on specific cases and are only to work through laws (that apply everyone) and organizational change (for efficiency). What the responsible minister did after threats from the US. was not to order the prosecutor to slam down on TPB, which he could not, but he made sure to remove all other cases from the procecutors desk to help him focus. Before the minister did this, the prosecutor had stated that he was unsure if TPB had actually violated any laws.

This is a strange way to make friends internationally. The US has for many years had a lot of strong supporters in the Swedish population. WIth that in mind, threatening to basically "fucking destroy us" did not come across as good PR. I realize that Sweden is a small country and antagonizing its population will hardly change your own situation right now. However, we have a saying which roughly translates to "Many little streams creates a river".

Perhaps it could be interesting to know that information like this is public by default in Sweden. Any information not deemed to be harmful to national security, is public and can be requested by anyone, from any public organization including the government and the parliament, all the way down to municipal level. They are bound by law to respond with the requested information and any correspondence with public organizations must be put in public notes and published so that people can follow specific cases through the decision process. We can find out who met with who, when and what was discussed or decided.

Re:Waste of tax money

[Anonymous Coward]

It worked when Hitler did...

Re:Waste of tax money

[Shakrai]

When did Hitler invade Finland?

Re:Waste of tax money

[siddesu]

My bad.

unpopular statements?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

HUH? The overreporting of MJ INDUCED projectile vomiting. If anything, it's proof that this congress critter has at least an idea of how mainstream america loathes the california granola.

Re:unpopular statements?

[TheGratefulNet]

mainstream america is what's *wrong* with this country.

mainstream america voted for bush, thought the war was a 'good idea', can't tolerate others' views (if you're not christian) and all that other bullshit.

MSA *is* the problem. we need to wake up and modernize our views on a lot of things. backwater USA is an embarassment.

(where is america's place in the world when it comes to belief in human evolution and not 'bearded sky wizard'? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/21329204.html gives us a hint. the ONLY country who believes LESS in evolution is TURKEY. yes, that's right. backwater USA in all its glory and only TURKEY is worst than the US when it comes to modern thinking about stuff like evolution).

MSA needs to grow up and get with the world program. it really does. the sooner we admit that, the sooner we'll be able to, uhh, evolve a little, ourselves.

Re:unpopular statements?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Mainstream America Did not want three years of "The Plan" and one year of "Change" and get Trillion dollar Deficits.

"Evolving" to a backwater extinction isn't always the best thing - sometimes status quo works. //file under "Yes they did"

Re:unpopular statements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ill nibble the flamebait I'm feeling a bit pissed off today.

can't tolerate others' views (if you're not christian) and all that other bullshit.

If that is true then why are you here spouting off? Perhaps you have become a bit xenophobic yourself? Have you ever actually been out to 'mainstream America'? Have you actually been to a church and volunteered there? Or did you come up with your lovely 'world view' all by yourself by making sure your educated on the internet?

Here let me answer for you. 'I like being a twit', yes, no, no/no, yes.

I have met many Christians and other people of other religions. Most would give you the shirt off their backs to help you. Most Atheists on the other hand I have found to be the most self centered group I have ever met. Which makes sense because it is a religion of the world and not of God. You can find contrary examples in all groups its not hard, its not like computers where it is binary. However, if you are in a hurry to tout them as 'why you dont believe in xyz'. Then perhaps you should just be honest with yourself instead of making excuses. The 'mommy I did this bad thing because the other boys were doing it' does not fly with me. You just dont want to believe that it is possible that you are accountable for your own actions.

Perhaps you should put on your big boy pants (and grow up like you tell others so quickly to do) and crawl out from under your mothers skirt and take a look at what the real world is like. It is not a nice place. People like you make sure it stays that way with your polarizing 'im worldly' views, and sweeping statements. Your statements have the stench of typical group think on the internet.

Before you go on another rant spend a few hours reflecting on why you came on here today to be just a raciest and piggish as you accuse others of being. Perhaps you are calling the kettle black?

Re:unpopular statements?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Atheists on the other hand I have found to be the most self centered group I have ever met.

People like you make sure it stays that way with your polarizing 'im worldly' views, and sweeping statements.

Your post reeks of "sweeping statements".

Raises probing issues

[AliasMarlowe]

If he's so fond of probes, let him go visit area 51, and bend over in front of some aliens...

Re:Raises probing issues

[Forge]

When I saw the name my immediate reaction was "Ambassador Peter King is dead, isn't he?"

Yeah. Now I remember. His boy friend inflicted multiple stab wounds in a fit of rage, moments after they had sex. That boyfriend is now serving life for the murder.

I wonder if this guy is as perverted as his namesake was? The police recovered 30 self produced gay porn tapes from the crime scene which included maneuvers that shocked everyone who saw it. Some forensics detectives allegedly needed counseling to cope.

Ah, the standard complaint

[emagery]

'national security' ... as far as I am concerned, if this is scaring some people in power, it's doing its job. It may not be press in the traditional sense, but it does appear to be something of a resurrection of that old check and balance.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

sympathetic to radical Christianity (including Catholicism, the biggest business on the planet), and this asshole is no exception

Blatant trolling. I'm not religious, but Mods, hello?

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN

[Rob the Bold]

Blatant trolling. I'm not religious, but Mods, hello?

Thanks for the advice AC. I'll look into it. Oh, whoops, I just posted. Well, maybe next time.

cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[mwilliamson]

So what is the big deal? This data was sent out unencrypted from many transmitters all across the nation. It would have been (and still is) very easy to intercept. There is no data security. Those considering it a secure medium have simply been mislead. Congress, as a whole, is rather ignorant of these technical concepts. There are programs that use a soundcard for data capture, but for best results make sure and use the receiver's discriminator output, not the filtered audio out. Google for "POCSAG and FLEX decoding" for all the goodies and software you need to do your own intercepts. -Michael

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[drerwk]

Just because you can do something does not make it legal to do.
Or, do you believe that an door is unlocked door is an invitation to enter? I believe what you describe doing falls under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act. "ECPA prohibits unlawful access and certain disclosures of communication contents. " See also: John and Alice Martin http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/24/us/florida-couple-are-charged-in-taping-of-gingrich-call.html

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't find it but when messing with scanners awhile back, there was a US law that says you can't share any information you receive.

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[vonart]

from your link:

"The "electronic communication" means any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic or photooptical system that affects interstate or foreign commerce, but does not include(A) any wire or oral communication;(B) any communication made through a tone-only paging device;(C) any communication from a tracking device (as defined in section 3117 of this title); or(D) electronic funds transfer information stored by a financial institution in a communications system used for the electronic storage and transfer of funds."

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[Mr. Slippery]

Just because you can do something does not make it legal to do. Or, do you believe that an door is unlocked door is an invitation to enter?

Not necessarily, but that's irrelevant. Broadcast your radio signal though my home is not analogous to leaving a door unlocked. The state has no legitimate power to make me a criminal for building a radio receiver or for operating it in my home.

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[Shikaku]

Just because you can do something does not make it legal to do.

This line of text is illegal because of a DMCA takedown notice retroactively placed by me and cannot be read by anyone.

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

The state has no legitimate power to make me a criminal for building a radio receiver or for operating it in my home.

The state decides what is 'legitimate', not you.

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So what is the big deal? This data was sent out unencrypted from many transmitters all across the nation. It would have been (and still is) very easy to intercept. There is no data security.

The telecommunications privacy act made it illegal to pass on any information recorded that wasn't intended for you to receive (I'm over-simplifying) - this law was a compromise between the telephone companies and everyone else - instead of requiring encryption for over the air stuff, they just made it illegal to do anything with the information intercepted - saving the telcos the cost having to implement encryption. A number of congress droids who thought it was a good idea have been hoisted by their own petard when some of their in-the-clear cell phone conversations were recorded and surreptitiously released.

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[drerwk]

My understanding of tone only pager is - the pager sometimes emits a tone. The you call your service via a phone to get the message. So a text based page is not a tone-only paging device. These are very old school. A doctor might have one ( before cell phones ) and she would call the paging service number to get the message. Rural metro fire service members might have them - when the tone goes off you drive to your station.

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[vonart]

Really? Hmmm... given the way pager signals sound (indeed, a series of tones -- they bleed over into the ham bands that I use when not configured properly) I figured that's what it'd meant... My mistake.

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

I sent an email and a physical letter to Skytel and the registered owner of the specific frequencies listed in the FCC database for my area asking to remove the pager signals from my property. If not, I would claim ownership of them use them as I saw fit. I included an agreement notice that stated unless I got an email reply back from their mail server or USPS indicating that the mail was not deliverable or an email or a physical letter back in the mail denying my request within 60 days, I would consider my offer valid, accepted, and authorized.

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Just because something is illegal does not make it wrong.

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's your DMCA notice? I don't see one.

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[Shikaku]

Right here

Re:cleartext unencrypted nation-wide traffic

[drerwk]

Apparently they are still in common use: http://www.genave.com/two-tone_paging.htm
and more interesting: http://fringe.davesource.com/Fringe/Hacking/Phreaking/Pagers/Protocols/pager.html

this is text

[Anonymous Coward]

Congressman King has been known to make inflammatory and unpopular statements.

So has kdawson. Why even mention it?

Re:this is text

[V!NCENT]

To make sure nobody likes what he's about to say even before he said a word. This is common in mainstream media today...

Re:this is text

[Reziac]

Good point. And someone up above says they contacted his office and they don't know a thing about it; the poster concluded that the story was false.

So now who do we believe?? Does this story have a glimmer of truth, or is it a preemptive smear??

Regardless, stopping leaks is the responsibility of those whose system leaks, NOT of those who intercept and/or publicize said leaks. Unless, of course, your hero is Stalin.

word of caution?

[horatio]

A word of caution: Congressman King has been known to make inflammatory and unpopular statements.

Word of caution my ass. Every congressman says dopey things that someone finds inflammatory and unpopular. Why is it pointed out here so specifically? How about leaving the bullshit sniping behind when posting the summaries there, kdawson?

Re:word of caution?

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

King is more outspoken than most.

Re:word of caution?

[L4t3r4lu5]

If I were to compare politians to Christians, King is the equivalent of Westboro' Southern Baptist. Controversial for the sake of getting his agenda in the papers.

Re:word of caution?

[wowbagger]

I am sure that kdawson is just following the new Slashdot guidelines requiring that all politicians be identified with their party affiliation, no matter what party that might be, when the politician does something against the Slashdot zeitgeist.

No.

Wait.

I'm being handed a correction.

Stand by one.

It seems that there is no such guideline, and that indeed Slashdot policy is to identify Republicans, Libertarians, and other more conservative parties when one of their members does something dumb, but to not identify Democrats, Greens, and other more liberal parties when their members do something dumb.

My mistake.

Carry on.

Re:word of caution?

[pjt33]

If I were to compare politians to Christians, King is the equivalent of Westboro' Southern Baptist.

So he's not really a politician but he likes to think that he is?

Re:word of caution?

[Anonymous Coward]

it was eldavojohn who wrote that, not kdawson...

Re:word of caution?

[Alsee]

Every congressman says dopey things that someone finds inflammatory and unpopular.

Cindy Crawford and Mr. T both wear gold necklaces, therefore they are identical and unnotable.

-

Re:word of caution?

[Falconhell]

But that wont stop the tiresome whigers who constantly rabbit on about how bad kdawson is.

I see no problems with kdawsons posts, just a bunch of whiners, who like to blame him for everything.

"Micks"?

[circletimessquare]

you do realize that using racial slurs makes you just as bad as what you are complaining about, right?

Okay lets address these "Unpopular statements."

[hellfire]

Okay, first, kdawson, you are an idiot. Posting something to an article stating that this politician has made "unpopular statements" either means you are trying to show your support for Congressman King, your resentment of him and subsequent setup for bashing, or you are simply and opaquely trying to stir up a hornet's nest for inflamatory comments, and therefore hits. I personally think it's the third option as it's been this way for a while around slashdot. In terms of reporting, there is a way to make light of his prior comments but that's not the way to do it in a journalistically responsible way. Others may say these comments are irrelevant, but in terms of neutral reporting, while you might think they are incendiary, a responsible journalist does have a duty to show a pattern of political behavior, and in this case it could simply be creating targets to stir up controversy and get media time, and therefore dollars. By pointing out the unpopular comments it's detracting from the wikileaks article. Way to go, you get the skippy the pinhead award for the day kdawson.

Second, I personally think this congressman king, from the videos, is also an idiot with a severe case of foot in mouth disease. It's interesting that people show support for the Michael Jackson video but completely blow by the "too many mosques" video. Obviously the guy has some issues. The guy was trying to show his "tough on terrorism" stance and opened his mouth and out came some anti-moslem bile which his personal aid tried to step on since he knew his congressman had just fucked up. But then he shovels it out nice and deep in the MJ video. I agree with the idea that MJ coverage when he died was overblown, but in saying so, the guy called MJ a low life and a pedophile. Lets get one thing straight, as much as I might have my suspicions, that has never been proven. This was political commentary by a public official, not satire, so Letterman making a joke on late night is completely different than this. The guy is trying to say "hey, lets shine the light on policeman and firefighters and not MJ." I can get behind it, but it's how he says it, by viciously attacking Michael is just stupid and low. In fact if Jackson was alive, I think there's a chance it might be slander (IANAL).

I know nothing else about this guy, so he's no Ted Stevens or John Ensign, but he's not a particularly bright politician if you ask me, unless of course his racist and insulting comments are the type of comments that get him elected in his district. I just know he needs to take a few sensitivity courses so he can stop chewing on his size 11s when trying to make what otherwise might be a reasonable point.

Re:Okay lets address these "Unpopular statements."

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with the hypocrisy?

We can all go on about what a racist scum Congressman King is, and you apparently don't consider that to be "viciously attacking" him, or "stupid and low."

But Congressman King gives his opinion of MJ, and somehow that is a vicious attack?

Just for the record, I happen to believe that Congressman King is a loudmouthed bigot, so he gets no sympathy from me. However, I also happen to believe that, as much of a racist prick as King might be, he was absolutely right about MJ's press coverage.

I am sickened by the amount of blind adoration that MJ receives. I don't care if you like his music. Heck, I'm no MJ fan, but there are half a dozen or so of his songs that I can't help liking. Nonetheless, as with many (if not most) celebrities, I find it deeply disturbing that people idolize him and lavish praise on him as if he's some great human being, when there is ample reason to question his character. Should we all idolize Roman Polanski too, because he's widely regarded as a great director? The point is, having musical talent (even superstar-level talent) doesn't make someone a decent human being. Many celebrities are very shitty human beings.

So I'm not suggesting that MJ should have been convicted of the crimes he was accused of merely because a lot of people think he probably did it. But I am suggesting that it is sick and perverse to blindly idolize any celebrity to the extent that people idolize MJ. All those people who worked themselves up into hysterics after MJ died, and violently shouted down anybody who even suggested that MJ might not have been such a great guy -- they don't know MJ's true character any more than you or I do. I find that every bit as disgusting as anything Congressman King said.

Re:Okay lets address these "Unpopular statements."

[ColdWetDog]

Okay, first, kdawson, you are an idiot

You must be new here.

you are simply and opaquely trying to stir up a hornet's nest for inflamatory comments, and therefore hits.

You must be new here.

a responsible journalist does have a duty to show a pattern of political behavior

Man, you really must be new here.

Way to go, you get the skippy the pinhead award for the day kdawson.

Man, you really, really must be new here.

Double standard?

[A Pancake]

What ever happened to "what's the problem if you have nothing to hide?"

Re:Double standard?

[BlackCobra43]

It went away with "Why are you snooping on me if you don't believe I've committed a crime?"

Re:Double standard?

[Khashishi]

only the gov't is allowed to pull that one

This doesn't seem something appropriate for the to

[Anonymous Coward]

Leak.

This is like going though peoples mail boxes and opening their mail and publishing it online. If it was newsworthy, say Obama paying someone to hide his birth certificate, his shout outs to this brothers in the planes right before they hit, messages from Gore thanking global warming nut jobs for faking "research data", that would be one thing, but this is just random mail sent by frightened citizens and should be protected.

Moomins

[Kupfernigk]

No mod points, sadly, for a brilliant post. But I can't help noting that Tove Jansson's (Swedish speaking Finnish) Moomins would soon convert the US Army into tree-hugging hippies.

van

[Anonymous Coward]

2001-09-11 23:30:33 Skytel [005192087] B ALPHA
flashnet@intelcenter.com|FlashNet Event|2-3 people arrested. Van with explosive device(s) found possibly on NJ Turnpike near NYC's George Washington Bridge.

A moron in a hurry...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's one legislator who could easily pass the "moron in a hurry" test. Obviously he knows nothing about Wikileaks in particular and the internet in general. Well, this might be a good thing since persuing his investigation could keep him from writing any ill-considered laws for at least a little while...

The real security issue, ...

[rnturn]

... if there really is one (it's more of a privacy issue isn't it?), isn't that Wikileaks got a hold of the pager messages. It's who leaked them to Wikileaks.

This strongly echoes the Pentagon Papers fracas. Let's not go after the people who leaked the Pentagon Papers information in the first place. Let's go after the people who let the rest of the wolrd see them. That King wants to go after the people who are making the messages available and not so much those who leaked them is yet another example of history repeating itself.

THIS STORY IS FALSE

[Dreadneck]

I just spoke with Congressman King's office and they were taken by surprise when I asked them about the Wikileaks probe. They said the congressman is NOT probing wikileaks. I gave them the url to the Newsday article and was told that the Rep. King's office will be working to sort out the matter.

Works for me.

[FatSean]

I've been thinking about a charity that provides weapons, ammunition and range time to poor inner-city people. Let them have the weapons they need to protect themselves, their families and their property. You'd think the NRA would be all over that but they seem not to care.

Re:Works for me.

[Vintermann]

Yeah, good idea, but you won't always be allowed to bring a gun. I say we add some gym time as well, and steroids, to get better return on that investement.

Re:Works for me.

[ubrgeek]

It's not that they don't care. It's that they know it's not realistic so there's no reason for them to pull money out of their Bribe-a-Politician fund and put it toward a program that will never happen.

Re:Works for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's give guns to the desperate too. How about those in high-stress situations who can't perceive a way out of their problems. Wait a second, aren't poor inner-city people are more likely to be in those situations already?

Heinlein was WRONG

[Xaedalus]

I'd imagine that for every fiercely independent libertarian who demands the right to bear arms in public and claims that everyone should bear arms in order to produce a more civil society, there are at least twenty individuals of various derangements and mental disorders, who are undiagnosed and therefore legal to carry weaponry, who would cheerfully whip out a gun and start shooting random people for whatever funky reason is in their head at the time. Not to mention all the really stupid and/or egotistical people who put too much emphasis on 'honor' and not enough on 'safety' and who will go around with a trigger finger ready to avenge any potential slight they may encounter.

Show me a society in which everyone carries a weapon, and I'll show you an average life expectancy rate of 40 years or so. Most of us simply cannot be trusted with weapons.

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[XedLightParticle]

Hey, you know my neighbours!

Despite guns not being legal here to others than police, athlete shooters and hunters, they still manage to shoot after eachothers in public.

Well, despite that I'm personally not very fond of guns, I can't let go of the thought that all the restriction of firearms does here, is to guarantee that only authorities and bad guys have guns.

While I trust the police and military here very much, I don't trust that bad guys will only shoot after bad guys or the police. I would like more liberal laws around defense weapons here, not even pepper spray is legal.

However, I would not mind if getting a permit would require some training and testing, and I would not mind to be registered so the police would know if and what weapon I have, they could also very well limit how powerful it would be allowed to be and how many guns I could have, but I would like it to be more liberal than it is.

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[rmushkatblat]

Switzerland. Very nice place to live.

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[Shakrai]

Most of us simply cannot be trusted with freedom.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[Xaedalus]

Sad, but true.

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[NeutronCowboy]

Somalia. Iraq. Afghanistan. Much less nice. Not to mention that there are plenty of polite counter examples where people don't carry guns (Sweden, England, Japan....).

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[Sylver Dragon]

Well, we could always do something crazy and try to look at what little data there is out there about people carrying weapons. Take a state like Florida, where the CCW process isn't exactly hard. And, fortunately enough, the state law requires that statistics on permit revocations and crimes by CCW holders be tracked.

Looking at the published statistics, Florida has roughly 664,000 people currently running around with concealed weapons. Of the 1,647,823 licenses issued, since October 1987, 5,139 have been revoked (about 0.3%). Of those revocations, 4,420 of them were for crimes committed after the person received their license, and 167 of those involved a fire used in a crime. And, it would seem that Florida's average life expectancy is just over 77.

Now, what I want to know is: people like you keep predicting blood in the streets if average, law abiding, citizens are allowed to legally carry firearms anywhere they go. But, so far we've waited for 22 years for Florida to erupt into an all-out bloodbath of gunfire, when is it going to happen? I've been waiting 22 fucking years to see the news reports of Florida imploding in violence, I want my gory news clips now!

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[Shakrai]

Somalia. Iraq. Afghanistan. Much less nice.

I think it's a fairly safe assumption that at least two of those countries (Somalia and Afghanistan) would still be shitholes even without weapons. Remember that correlation (i.e: lots of weapons) != causation (i.e: lots of violence).

Interestingly enough, there are now anti-Taliban militia's forming up in many parts of Afghanistan. They've seen what the Taliban is all about, they've seen how ineffective we've been at containing it and they don't intend to pushed around by them any longer.

How effective do you suppose those groups would be at resisting the Taliban and defending themselves if they didn't have access to weapons?

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[coaxial]

Yes, but if you've ever met a Swiss, you'd know they don't carry their army issued rifle, and they don't even like having one, because it's too much of a hassle to go to mandatory recertification.

  Mandatory ownership, let alone mandatory carrying, is not freedom.

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[Tynin]

As a CCW holder in FL, I'd like to say hello to everyone :)

That said, I know more gun owners in FL that do not have a CCW than that do. I'd say at least 10% of the population of FL owns a gun based on my off the cuff math. Yes yes, the plural of anecdote isn't data, but still. Lots, hell, TONS of guns are in FL without causing much of a problem.

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandatory health care is not freedom. The Swiss were never taken over by Nazi fucks like you. Fuckface.

Re:Heinlein was WRONG

[cayenne8]

" Well, despite that I'm personally not very fond of guns, I can't let go of the thought that all the restriction of firearms does here, is to guarantee that only authorities and bad guys have guns.

While I trust the police and military here very much, I don't trust that bad guys will only shoot after bad guys or the police. I would like more liberal laws around defense weapons here, not even pepper spray is legal. "

My main reasoning (besides the fact that I like target shooting handguns) for being very pro-gun is that, I realize that the police are not there to protect you from crimes, they are there to gather evidence after the fact and try to apprehend the perpetrator.

Unless you are VERY lucky to have a cop happen to be in the area when someone breaks into your house while you are there, it is up to YOU to protect your home and family. Personally, I like having guns for purposes of defense. I like having multiple guns, stashed throughout the house so that at least one, with backup ammo, is close at hand at all time, no matter when I might need one.

I hope I'll never have to use one on another person, but, before becoming a gun owner, I settled that in my mind that if I pull one, I will shoot to kill and with no qualms, will keep shooting till the intruder is out on the floor, likely dead. I like to think it won't bother me, but it may....and I'm ok with the fact I may have to get over it, but, my life is the one worth the most IMHO, and if that bastard hadn't broken in, he'd still be using oxygen and be above room temperature.

This story is AWESOME!

[andrewagill]

So let me get this straight. King's office isn't aware of public statements that King himself made? It just gets better and better.

Re:This story is AWESOME!

[Dreadneck]

Yes, it does seem to be getting stranger by the minute. After speaking with the Congressman's office I emailed the author of the original Newsday article. He replied that the Congressman was quoted accurately. So, the question is whether Rep. King was telling the truth about his intent to probe WikiLeaks or not.

If not, then why grandstand for the cameras? If so, then why lie about it now?

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Re:This story is AWESOME!

[khallow]

The first I looked at is when Mr. King made his statement. He spoke on Friday. That fits the standard propaganda technique of making controversial statements at the beginning of a weekend and then have your staff play a game of "What he really meant was..." on Monday. Supposedly this technique was pioneered by the Nazis in the German build up to the Second World War. The virulently militaristic Friday speeches were for the German public, and the "What he really meant was..." corrections were for the foreign press in time for their Monday stories. This allowed the Nazis to present two different appearances.

Representative King probably uses this technique for similar reasons. He gets to talk tough without having to engage in immediate damage control (I bet his office is closed over the weekend). His staff can cover that when the beginning of the week comes around. Most of the US media probably has dropped the story by then.

Re:This story is AWESOME!

[Anonymous Coward]

re: strange things at the circle k.

I also make this reference. Very few other people I've met do. Congratulations on being Awesome.

Pager base stations save messages.

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has run a pager system before. The secret of where the messages came from is a boring story. The pager base stations have a FIFO queue of messages to be transmitted and retransmitted on rotating cycle. The messages are stored on a plain old hard drive (In our system as FAT32). A 8GB HD can hold *a*lot* of pager messages, I would not be suprised if by the time the tech checked the HD it had 4 Months of msgs even on a busy system.

Shallow Linking

[HaeMaker]

Is there some reason we can't link to the original content? When I click on a link in an article about Wikileaks releasing pager messages, I assume it is going to Wikileaks. As Slashdot, however, I get a link to a previous article that then has a link pointing to a Wired article.

The democrats are too afraid to use it

[Anonymous Coward]

The democrats are too afraid to use it.

Really.

They're deathly afraid that they will be considered "bad guys" (R demagogues don't give a shit, because neither does their power base) and this is why despite 60 votes to break a filibuster they still want some republican senate votes. Well, that and for Healthcare reform, many of those 60 are paid and bought by the industry. As well as not wanting any real reform (and plausible deniability for not wanting it), they are shit scared of Republicans saying that the Dems are just shoving through legislation despite opposition because the Dems are bullies with a supermajority. That the Reps did *exactly that* when they had both houses and the presidency and use executive orders to avoid even that risk of loss doesn't get used.

Dems are afraid of being bad guys and this cowardice (because cowardice it is) is being exploited by the nutjobs on the Reps side.

Re:The democrats are too afraid to use it

[darth dickinson]

That the Reps did *exactly that* when they had both houses and the presidency and use executive orders to avoid even that risk of loss doesn't get used.

[Citation needed]

Ah my dear representative...

[Slipped_Disk]

For the record as someone in Peter King's district:
Rep. King is a douche.
As a representative he is useless, his office staff is less than useless.
I'm *THRILLED* to see how he plans to waste^Wspend my tax dollars "look[ing] into [WikiLeaks]".

That's my only statement on the matter: I'm done. Ignore, Flame or Agree to your heart's content.

Popularity

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, a politicians ability to say popular things always tops my list of criteria. If it's not popular it's obviously wrong, right?

Only evil people say unpopular things. I can totally understand why Slashdot types would be repelled by unpopular statements...

Sad But Not Surprising

[Brian Ribbon]

I suspected that something like this would happen. Recent events suggest that several countries are cooperating to censor controversial content which opposes their use of fear-based government.

Last week, an international operation against a pro-paedophile website/forum led to arrests of people in several countries, including the USA, The Netherlands, Chile, New Zealand and Brazil. One of the men was arrested for merely possessing an illegal weapon and drugs. Some people were raided but not arrested, as they hadn't violated any laws. The FBI claimed that the website was a "child pornography ring", however I know a number of people who posted at the forum, who provide information which debunks the claims of the FBI. According to one person, the website had been online for 8 years, with a membership of over 50,000 people. It had apparently not masked its location (a major web host in The Netherlands), so if it was a child pornography ring, it would presumably have been taken offline years ago. Furthermore, an operation against a real child pornography ring with over 50,000 members would have made international headlines.

In a post on another pro-paedophile forum, I suggested that the closure of the pro-paedophile website was an attempt to test the feasibility of international cooperation in online censorship, in cases where evidence of criminality is limited or fabricated. Very few people believe that paedophiles can ever be innocent, so a pro-paedophile website was an easy preliminary target. I suspected then, and even more so now, that Wikileaks is the ultimate target of international online censorship. No government likes criticism or dissent on the internet, and one shouldn't assume that China is the only country who will crush internet-based dissent.

I was just reading about "Appeal to Moderation"

[GameboyRMH]

Interesting, because I was just reading this:

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

Warning: Links at bottom of page are highly addictive.

of course it raises security issues

[Khashishi]

it wouldn't be worthwhile if it didn't.

Yeah, I was curious about this.

[BJ_Covert_Action]

FTFA:

Concerned about the release of 500,000 intercepted pager messages from Sept. 11, 2001, Rep. Peter King said he plans to have his Washington staff begin a preliminary investigation.

I know that Congressional staffs are bloated and excessive, but why the hell do we just accept things like this? The congressional body is supposed to write and develop legislation. In order to do so, they need the advice and consultation of experts in various fields, sure, but is every congress critter entitled to his own investigation body? If there really is a security matter on wikileaks that regards national security on a federal level, we already have tax sinks and bodies designed to investigate it. It is called the Executive branch, which comes complete with add ons like the CIA, the FBI, the NRO, the NSA, the DHS, and so on and on and on. So when did it become the legislative branch's job to investigate possible criminal/suspicious activity? Last time I checked those responsibilities were delegated to an entirely separate branch of government for a very specific and important reason: Checks and Balances. When did we throw out the very foundational principles of our government? What amendment in the Constitution was ratified that said legislative employees had power of execution?

Perhaps I am living in a dream world here, but it seems to me that having a body of (possibly) untrained aides of legislative employees perform any sort of investigation for 'security' purposes is as unconstitutional as it comes. Where the hell is the activist group to file a lawsuit for the Supreme Court to try regarding a breach of checks and balances? FFS we throw a temper tantrum over animals being shot up with medical test drugs or research into human tissue growth that potentially could save the lives of thousands, but no one on the street gives a damn about their own government destroying the very principles it was founded on? Lame...

I shall pick up your gauntlet

[Xaedalus]

Approximate population of the state of Florida is about 15.9 million people. Of that 15.9 million, only 4% bear concealed weapons permits. Note that all of them are pretty much law-abiding citizens, with the exceptions that you pointed out. Not much violence, I'll concede that point - only as long as the percentage of CWP holders stays around 4% OF THE TOTAL POPULATION.

But, let's apply that 0.3% (which is 30%) to the whole 15,900,000. At that point, if you have 15 million people armed, then with the 0.3% revocation rate, that means you would have had 4.7 million people revoked for abusing their firearms. And that's just LEGAL citizens who take the time to apply. At that rate, sir, Florida would be literally awash in blood. And I'm not even taking into account all the media stories about tourists being shot at in Miami, the drug violence, etc. Your analysis and belief is flawed, and the only reason it's true right now, is because of application of scale.

If everyone were like YOU, then I would sleep safe at night because you are a responsible gun owner. Sadly, thanks to individuality and free will, everyone is not. So everyone cannot be trusted with guns, or freedom for that matter

Re:I shall pick up your gauntlet

[rmushkatblat]

How exactly did you go from 0.3% to 30%? 1. I'm not advocating forcing people to carry firearms. 2. Obviously, only 4% of the population wants a CCP. As such, what are you worried about?

Re:I shall pick up your gauntlet

[Shakrai]

So everyone cannot be trusted with guns, or freedom for that matter

If someone abuses their gun ownership rights then we can take that right away from them. What we can't do is to take it away from EVERYONE because of the MINORITY of people that can't be trusted.

Part of the 5th amendment reads "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". Taking away the gun ownership rights of criminals is perfectly acceptable. Taking away my rights because of criminals is not.

Re:I shall pick up your gauntlet

[DJCacophony]

But, let's apply that 0.3% (which is 30%)

I must have missed the memo that said that 0.3 = 30.

Re:I shall pick up your gauntlet

[Xaedalus]

Yeah, I had it delivered via rabid bat to your chimney. Whether you had a chimney or not was beside the question :-P My math was screwed up. I apologize!

Re:I shall pick up your gauntlet

[Xaedalus]

Nothing, because I am horribly and hideously wrong and my math sucks. Apparently I am a cynic who does not believe the best of my fellow human. This was my error, and I apologize. :-)

Re:I shall pick up your gauntlet

[Sylver Dragon]

But, let's apply that 0.3% (which is 30%)

WTF, over? 0.3% (I actually put the 0 out in front so someone wouldn't make this mistake) is 0.3%. As in three tenths of one percent. If you do the math of:
5,139 / 1,647,823
You get (roughly):
0.003119
Or, as I said, about 0.3%. Where is 30% coming from?

If we take 0.3% of the 15.9 million, we get 47,700. Which, I will grant if 47,700 people started shooting at each other I might finally get my bloody news clips. Of course, they would have been doing it over 22 years, so about 2,169 of them per year. I'd do better to go to a safe city, like Washington DC to look for crimes.

Also, if you look at the data I linked to, that 0.3% revocation rate is for any crime which disqualified a person to have a CCW. Of the 1,647,823 licenses issued only 167 were revoked due to a crime involving a firearm, or about (and I'll show my work this time for you):
167 / 1,647,823 = 0.000135 (rounded)
Or about 0.0135%
With a population of 15.9 million, that would be:
15,900,000 * 0.000135 = 2,147 (rounded)

Again, not really a rate at which we are going to have a state awash in blood.

So everyone cannot be trusted with guns, or freedom for that matter

Wait, did I just get trolled?

As the Submitter, I Take Full Responsibility

[eldavojohn]

A word of caution: Congressman King has been known to make inflammatory and unpopular statements.

Word of caution my ass. Every congressman says dopey things that someone finds inflammatory and unpopular. Why is it pointed out here so specifically? How about leaving the bullshit sniping behind when posting the summaries there, kdawson?

I take full responsibility for that statement and the YouTube links. kdawson's actions were only the inaction of removing it in the editorial process (I'm sure I'll be made fun of for using that phrase about Slashdot). Anyway, the point I was trying to make was simply to be cautious ... because he's a politician, not because he's affiliated with some party. Any politician that gets up there at some point (the Michael Jackson video especially) and says crap for the sake of generating attention and looking hilariously patriotic should only be taken half serious when they make a statement like this one.

Furthermore, I'm not going to be surprised if this story deflates into nothing like this thread alleges. He knows Wikileaks is outside of his jurisdiction so now is his chance to make some very very potent statements about national security but -- gosh darn it all -- in the end it turns out his hands are tied but he tried, oh lord how he tried to protect national security and his constituents. I don't care what party you lay claim to, he's very savvy to international politics and graduated from law school so he knows damn well that this is a waste of time. I would sooner place money on this being just a show for the cameras than I would that the sun will rise tomorrow morning.

I hope you now realize that my statement of caution and links was really in your best interest. Do you also realize that in order to prove your statement of "Every congressman says dopey things that someone finds inflammatory and unpopular" lays the burden of proof in your hands to find similar statements for every single congressman ever in any country? I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just saying I wish more politicians were held accountable indefinitely for their words and actions until they've rectified it.

I blew my math

[Xaedalus]

So I screwed up my percentages as pointed out below. The actual number would be more like 48K instead of 4 million. I shall concede the debate. I was wrong.

Re:I blew my math

[Sylver Dragon]

Oops, I went off half-cocked, I saw your first response and went typing without seeing the correction. Please ignore my previous snark above.

Re:I blew my math

[Xaedalus]

Snark ignored. :-)

Looting

[Voulnet]

"Frm: DKU@att.net Sub: Going to DC Txt: Well, night fall is here. Its time to do some looting. I need a microwave. Request???"

That is one bastard who didn't mind the catastrophe. Looting a microwave, WTF?

Re:This doesn't seem something appropriate for the

[Datamonstar]

Oh how right you are. It should have been protected before it was sent. With encryption. And it's more than just scaren people's messages. It's everything from systems dialing home to report problems to police dispatch chatter.

Well lookie here...

[Datamonstar]

I finally got around to reading some of these and the first link I click on about halfway down is one of our boxes sending an ticket notification. heh. What a coincidence.

6 people killed in todays mass smoking.

[mjwx]

2: more people die from tobacco related health issues (cancer, pneumonia, emphysema, etc) than of fatal shootings.

1: How many people die from another persons ciggarette?
2: How many people die from one cigarette?
3: How many people died in the last mass smoking?
4: How many kids died from the last school smoking?
5: etc... a gun does to you in a minute what a lifetime of smoking can do to you. There are two parts to risk, one is severity and the other likelihood. There is a higher likelihood of a person getting ill from smoking, there is an extreme severity when guns get involved. This is a bit like choosing between Ebola and AIDS, both are usually deadly but AIDS takes 10 years longer then Ebola and personally I'd rather have neither.

If you really wanted to reduce the shooting crime rate in the US, I would suggest the following actions:

You're started out on the right track but need to think about things a bit more.

1: provide mandatory firearm safety courses in high school.

Close, introduce firearm licensing laws and require every firearm owner to complete the license examination. You know, like what we do with cars.

2: provide, free of charge, firearm safes and safety locks to all families owning firearms to prevent accidental use by children.

Rather then this, mandate that all firearm licensee's must possess a regulation safe that is secured to a buildings foundations. This does not need to be on a persons property (I.E. you can keep your firearms at a gun club)

3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.

Now it stops being a right and something that is forced. You don't choose to have a gun, you HAVE to have a gun, herr friend. Also remember that a crazy man with a cigarette is an annoyance, a crazy man with a gun is a bloodbath.*

4: require all women to own and carry a firearm in public (this will also reduce the rate of sexual assault).

Nice, lady A with PMS/bad divorce shoots man B. Claims sexual assault? who will question.*

* - Before anyone chimes in with the delusion that if everyone is armed then there will be no crime as they will be able to shoot the crim, consider this scenario. Crazy A shoots Person B, Person C sees this and shoots Crazy A. OK na. Now Person D sees person C shooting Crazy A but did not see Crazy A shooting in the first place thus shoots Person C. Person E now thinks Person D is a Crazy and shoots person D, Person E misses Person D and hits Person F ad nauseam until the local population is sufficiently thinned out.

In order for MAD to work on such a scale you have to be 100% absolutely certain no one will ever open fire ever.

Ever.

This is controllable with 2 players but with 100 not so. With MAD you are only as safe as the craziest individual wants you to be. Using a lot of guns for civil enforcement relies on too many variables to work, here are a few:
1: everyone must have a firearm.
2: everyone must have a firearm at all times.
3: everyone must know how to operate and care for that firearm.
4: everyone must keep their firearm in good working order (yes, everyone keeps their car in good nick don't they, you never see a beaten up old GM/Dodge trundling down the street with bits falling off of it).
5: everyone must be willing to use their firearm.
6: everyone must be capable of operating their firearm under extreme stress.
7: everyone must be able to hit a moving target at 100 meters with pin point accuracy.
8: everyone must have complete situational awareness at all times.

I'll stop here because this is a big one, most people don't have a clue what others in the same line are doing let alone everyone in a crowded area, like an intersection at the CBD. This method of protection relies on the assumption that everyone will be scared, of course this ignores the fact that more then a few people are a few cans short of a six pack, and this system will give these people guns.

wow gold

[searcher88]

Game4power often aion gold have a number of recent activities Buy wow gold buy aion gold sale of gold coins is really cheap aion gold cheap wow gold hard to believe a Web site World of Warcraft players buying wow gold buy gold wow can cause such a strong reaction Buy aion gold even some Aion players to drive over the

I guess it's far easier to censor then refute?

[mjwx]

The hypocrisy is thick enough to cut with a knife.

What could an American politico do to WikiLeaks?

[RockDoctor]

Seriously?
They could impound any servers in America, arrest, try, convict and kill any staff and/ or users. And for the rest of the world? Who gives a fuck ; they'd only have taken down one country's access to it's local WikiLeaks mirrors.

Anything worth seeing on the telly tonight?