Court Orders Shutdown of H-1B Critics' Websites

theodp writes "Computerworld reports that a NJ Superior Court Judge ordered hosting firms to shut down three Web sites that oppose the H-1B visa program and seeks information about the identity of anonymous posters. GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Comcast and DiscountASP.Net were ordered to disable ITgrunt.com, Endh1b.com, and Guestworkerfraud.com. Facebook Inc. was also ordered to disable ITgrunt's Facebook page. The judge's order was made in response to a libel lawsuit filed by Apex Technology Group Inc., which is citing its copyright ownership as it seeks the identity of the poster of a since-removed Apex employment agreement on Docstoc.com, which drew critical comments on US and India websites."

Comments

hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

... this is odd play for the federation

getting myself a glass of iced tea

[jollyreaper]

I think I'll enjoy sitting back and watching the information suppression fail. I was not aware of this story until they tried to suppress it. :)

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[lorenlal]

More than that... What exactly is the site doing that would cause a takedown order for the whole domain? I mean, taking down a confidential company document is one thing... But to just issue an order to remove the domain entirely seems like too much.

But, I'm sure that when the sites come back up, they'll have even more readership.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[Anonymous Coward]

But most people don't read /. and if they started doing so /. would either have to remove these strories or get a domain takedown order themselves I'm afraid. Laws that make things like this possible are nothing to be relaxed about.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[TooMuchToDo]

This sounds like a job for Wikileaks to host.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[g0bshiTe]

I'd wager this contract was procured via P2P.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[assertation]

Good point.

I remember a few months ago some local government tried to require job applicants to turn over their Facebook and other such similar logins. Obscure situation.....until it became the buzz in the blogosphere. The resulting public embarrassment and censure got the local government to scrap that policy.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[SnapShot]

Now, which one you think hurts the most the average American?

Depends, does the DV program allow the worker to negotiate their salary and change jobs? If so, then I'd say the H-1B hurts more. The H-1B is, essentially, indentured servitude at below market rates that hurts local competition. My problem with H-1B is and has always been with the restrictions it imposes on the workers it imports. I am very PRO immigration. I believe it brings in the best and the brightest from around the world, but I want them to compete freely.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[mpe]

Do people not understand pages are cached?

They understand that about as well as they understand that banning something is the best way to ensure that several million people who would otherwise not even have heard about it will become very interested in it :)

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[horatio]

I'm honestly a little bit confused about jurisdiction.

On Dec. 23, Middlesex County Superior Court Judge James Hurley ordered firms that register domains...

How does a county judge in nowhere New Jersey have any jurisdiction over multiple companies that are not in his county? He can't order someone who lives in Bakersfield, CA arrested for knocking off a 7-11 in downtown LA. It has nothing to do with his jurisdiction.

DiscountASP.Net said it has disabled Endh1b.com after it received the order from the New Jersey Superior Court.

Is this the same court, or a state court of New Jersey? Regardless, the same question applies. GoDaddy's domain (whois) shows that they're in Arizona. How the hell does some random county or state judge in NJ have any authority over a company in Arizona? I'm not saying that APEX should have no recourse at all. They're entitled to be heard in a court of law, but shouldn't it have to be a court that actually has jurisdictional authority over the target (GoDaddy, DiscountASP, etc)

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[module0000]

I thought the same thing, but Wikileaks is currently down. They say they will be back when they've "gotten enough donations". what b/s

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[Red Flayer]

I'm honestly a little bit confused about jurisdiction.

You shouldn't be. Where is Apex located?

That's right, in Middlesex County, NJ (South Plainfield, to be specific). So any damages would have been incurred in Middlesex County, NJ. Which makes it a perfectly logical place to file suit.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[TooMuchToDo]

Gotta pay the bills somehow. Equipment/servers/etc. isn't free.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[SnapShot]

Here's one guy's description of the Apex Technology Group's H-1B agreement (from http://ripoffatapextgi.blogspot.com/ ):

This information is being mailed to you as a reply to your post regarding Apex Technology Group Inc (Sarvesh Kumar Dharayan) (www.apextgi.com)Please find the employment agreement letter http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10702214/agreement, which I received after I started working for Apex at a client location. None of the terms were part of the initial agreement between me and Apex Technology Group Inc.

I would like to take this oppurtunity to highlight several aspect's of the 9 page legal agreement which might be important for you. For example: 30 day termination notice or forget your last paycheck when you quit, If you join a company (including any level between you and Apex) then pay $35000 or face a law suit, $9000 for legal,training and guest services when you quit. $35000 if you quit in between a contract...etc

The document at http://www.docstoc.com/ is not available any more. I assume it was the victim of a takedown request.

Once again, I want to make it clear that I am in favor of technical immigration (both to and from the U.S., for that matter) but it's these kinds of alleged abuses that have made it clear that the H-1B program is fundamentally flawed.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[witchman]

My thoughts exactly!!! Let them come in and compete fairly with the rest of us.

This will also give them less of a reason to eventually leave the US, go home and set up competing companies back in their home countries, using all the knowledge they gained while working as an indentured servant in the US.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[inviolet]

I thought the same thing, but Wikileaks is currently down. They say they will be back when they've "gotten enough donations". what b/s

Wrong, they said they've suspended operations until January 6th, in order to poke us for donations. The actual quote is "To concentrate on raising the funds necessary to keep us alive into 2010, we have very reluctantly suspended all other operations, until Jan 6.".

You may repent for your assholery by donating $10 to wikileaks right now. I just now donated $10 to cover your sins in case you also count free-riding among your glittering social skills.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

I'm not clear on this either. GoDaddy, a 3rd-party service provider located in Arizona is ordered to take down a website owned by the party named in a lawsuit in New Jersey. To me, it seems the same as ordering a landlord to shut down a store because it sells counterfeit Gucci bags, and in this case the landlord is not located in the jurisdiction. Does The Star's printer have to stop printing their magazine with every defamation and libel case received?

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[Thing 1]

Right: a logical place to file suit, sure. But a logical place for the judge in the case to declare jurisdiction over a company somewhere else (like Arizona)? Doesn't seem right.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[Courageous]

Where is the "Mod +1, Witty and Cutting" option? LOL.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[corbettw]

How does a county judge in nowhere New Jersey have any jurisdiction over multiple companies that are not in his county?

It's called the Long Arm Statute. A court can order a party outside of its jurisdiction to perform a given act if it's relevant to a case in front of the court. The other party can of course file a motion in their local court to ignore the order, but from what I've seen in my short life most judges in the US will back each other up 98% of the time. So that motion will be denied and you'll have done is bought yourself a little time and one pissed off judge.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[Hurricane78]

How does a county judge in nowhere New Jersey have any jurisdiction over multiple companies that are not in his county?

Simple: All the rules that you think exist, are actually only as meaningful, as they are supported by the ones in power. We still live in a society ruled by the law of the jungle. We just don’t know it, because the power is so remote and invisible.
But in the end, if you make up your own rules, and are the one in power, of it’s something the ones in power like, they sill are the law of the land.

That’s why Cheney can shoot a man in the face, and get away with it. Simple as that.

Now all you have to do, is find the ones in power, and gain power over them. E.g. by doing something that makes them buy into your reality. That’s why your biggest enemy should be treated like your closest friend. He has to blindly trust and believe you.
Why do you think I got so interested in psychology and social engineering. It’s the hacking of the 21st century. ^^

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[amoeba1911]

I could use the free advertisement too. :) I wish the courts would order a take-down of Androtris: the awesome Tetris clone I made for the Android platform.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[Red Flayer]

So what's the alternative? An entity that suffers damages due to an entity in another jurisdiction must file suit in the defendant's jurisdiction?

I'm just glad they didn't file in the 9th Circuit Court down in TX.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[alfoolio]

IANAL but it is my understanding that I can bring suit in my state against a party in another state unless I have agreed to a previously decided jurisdiction. I live in TX, you live in WA... I do not have to go to WA to sue you. It would seem to follow that the judge in TX would have the ability to issue a "cease-and-desist" type order to parties involved.

OTOH, the order as presented in the media seems excessive and over-reaching. The desired goal of protecting the copyrighted document could have been easily achieved with a very limited, specific order.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[Ungrounded Lightning]

There's much to your first paragraphs' claim. But you picked the wrong example:

That's why Cheney can shoot a man in the face, and get away with it.

As I understand it ( I wasn't invited B-) ) the guy walked out in front of the firing line while Cheney was shooting (and thus focussed on his target), making it an honest accident. Yes you're supposed to be sure of your target. But Cheney apparently checked properly before focusing down and people DO screw up

The guy who got shot concurred with this, as did the cops. But these things always get investigated just to be sure. And the other interpretation is such a nice fit to the news media's and opposition politicians' templates that it got promulgated regardless.

Now you can always twist a tinfoil hat down tighter and claim that this was a coverup and proves your point. But why bother (unless you want to rag on Cheney, now with his hands OFF most of the levers of power, for some other reason)? There are plenty of REAL and UNAMBIGUOUS examples you could use.

(As for me, while my politics is about as different from Cheney's as Ron Paul's are from Bush's, I wouldn't decline an invitation to do some recreational shooting with him out of concern for my safety.)

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[Changa_MC]

While it is true that Cheney was probably not at fault, there's also the fact that Cheney and co. delayed reporting the incident until his blood-alcohol level had plenty of time to drop. Which would be a crime in itself, if I had done it.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[budgenator]

it would seem that,

On Dec. 23, Middlesex County Superior Court Judge James Hurley ordered firms that register domains and provide hosting services -- GoDaddy Inc., Network Solutions, Comcast Cable Communications Inc. and DiscountASP.Net, to disable the three sites, ITgrunt.com, Endh1b.com, and Guestworkerfraud.com.

and GoDaddy Inc., Network Solutions, Comcast Cable Communications Inc. and DiscountASP.Net, just obeyed it without regard for whether the judge had jurisdiction or even if the order seemed even vaguely reasonable. 3 of the 4 haven't had the most reputable reputation amongst slashdotters and DiscountASP.Net is a pure microsoft shop so that speaks for itself.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[MarkvW]

Parent post is very misleading.

A State Court can only order an out of state person to do anything if that person is a party to the lawsuit. A non-party to a lawsuit can never be bound by a judgment--period. Due Process forbids this.

A state long arm statute allows the state court to take jurisdiction over out of state parties, but the parties getting "long-armed" must have "minimum contacts" with the State sufficient to justify jurisdiction (Due Process, again). Without minimum contacts you don't get jurisdiction over the out of state person, so it's impossible to make the out of state person a party to the case.

The previous post is misleading because it forgets the most very important thing--if you want to bind a person with a court judgment, you have to bring that person before the jurisdiction of the court BEFORE you get the judgment.

Finally, there is no such thing as a motion to ignore a court order (although, I admit that the idea is somewhat hilarious).
 

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[Ungrounded Lightning]

While it is true that Cheney was probably not at fault, there's also the fact that Cheney and co. delayed reporting the incident until his blood-alcohol level had plenty of time to drop. Which would be a crime in itself, if I had done it.

I have never heard of any state where there was a requirement to report such accidents within a given amount of time.

(I suppose you could claim it was obstruction of justice IF his blood alcohol WAS up and he delayed deliberately to avoid testing positive. But there'd be no crime if it wasn't and you'd have to prove it was up to prosecute - catch 22.)

If you want an example of an actual case similar to what was alleged about Cheney, consider Lake County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Russell Purdock, who (allegedly while drunk - and later run around by buddies until he could sober up) ran his speedboat at 45-50 MPH (in the dark) over a sailboat - after which the prosecutor went after the operator of the sailboat. (Prosecutor claims the sailboaters were drunk and running without lights. Witnesses say the lights were on and an investigator says the lights were on before the crash and out after because the crash shorted the wiring - leaving evidence of this in the form of cut wires and a blown fuse, if I recall correctly.)

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[shutdown -p now]

This is a really crappy deal, surprised that anyone in a sane mind would consider taking it.

That said, not all U.S. companies abuse their H1-Bs.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[yogiguru]

I'm honestly still trying to figure out how any state court system has the jurisdiction to supress our federal Constitution's right to freedom of speech???

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[terryducks]

that's why Cheney can shoot a man in the face, and get away with it

And what about intent ? Granted I haven't read all the details in the shooting but on the surface, it was an accident.

I'm no more willing to put away Dick than I am to put away all those people who have a little bit of pot. Or demonise all those "sex offenders" just because they pee'd in the park or got caught with their younger SO. or the asinine "zero tolerance" or a drawn picture of naked child or picture of your kids in the tub constitutes child porn.

It's intent that should convict you.

"it is better [one hundred] guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer".

That's the American dream.

Re:getting myself a glass of iced tea

[amoeba1911]

Spoken like a true Anonymous Coward.

Doesn't look like they got all of them.

[digitalchinky]

Guestworkerfraud.com works for me...

Re:Doesn't look like they got all of them.

[jmyers]

Just wait. Maybe they got the story listed on Slashdot as a way to shut them down.

Re:Doesn't look like they got all of them.

[ottothecow]

And it reads like a comedy/satire blog...but serious

"Even More Proof That Global Warming Is A Communist Front"
"Thai troops raid Hmong camp, deport 4,000 seeking asylum: What a concept - deporting 4000 people. Perhaps the U.S. needs to do the same to the FOUR MILLION India, Inc. racketeers running loose in the U.S. raping our economy."
"India, Inc. hacks Citigroup for millions"

Re:Doesn't look like they got all of them.

[netsavior]

Speech you do no agree with is the most important speech to protect; because it is the easiest to suppress.

Re:Doesn't look like they got all of them.

[Wymsey]

Unfortunately!

Re:Doesn't look like they got all of them.

[Myopic]

Yeah, yeah.

I'm not worried about the batshit crazy speech, because all reasonable people can see how batshit crazy it is.

I'm worried about the mildly crazy woo-woo speech, because some reasonable people can't see it for the falsehood that it is.

But yeah, okay fine, we're not trying to legislate it out of existence, we're trying to LAUGH it out of existence. Sadly, it's not working as well as we might hope.

Re:Doesn't look like they got all of them.

[AnotherShep]

The early stories on itgrunt.com were really, really entertaining to read. I had to stop reading when his site became... well... that.

Re:Doesn't look like they got all of them.

[thetoadwarrior]

That is true but it still reads like it was written by a special needs child.

Re:Doesn't look like they got all of them.

[Hurricane78]

Partially correct.

What most people don’t realize, is that the best thing to do to not be affected by critics, is to not react to them, and to not act affected.
They can’d drag you in the dirt, if they can’t adhere to you.
Or in other words: People will see you not react at all, and think that it’s because there is nothing to react to. If you react, they know he’s got you there.

Re:Doesn't look like they got all of them.

[BalkanBoy]

They threw the dirty water out with the baby, a common knee jerk reaction in such cases - they need time to sort it out, so cut'em some slack! I'll bet you all of the sites that were taken down will come back up, minus the libelous content.

You don't want me claiming you're a transsexual on my netsavior-out-of-the-closet.com website, do you, along with other content protecting the rights of transsexuals (unless of course, you are..)?

Copyright BS

[Herkum01]

I fail to see how an employment agreement can be copyrighted.

Re:Copyright BS

[Anita Coney]

Or even if it could be copyrighted, how that copyright could trump anyone's first amendment rights to comment on a matter of national concern.

Re:Copyright BS

[omnichad]

If there's anything that qualifies as fair use, I'd say this is it.

Re:Copyright BS

[dkleinsc]

The answer to your question: The Berne Convention, which affixes copyright on anything written down anywhere. Really. This comment is copywritten by yours truly thanks to that rule and that fun text at the bottom of the page, and as such if I were wealthy and a complete jerk I could sue someone for infringement if someone decided to plagiarize me.

So now it's becoming increasingly common to suppress the publication of a bad contract via copyright rather than via an non-disclosure clause. Among other things, asserting copyright gives the plaintiff all the DMCA suppression capabilities that a contract violation does not.

Re:Copyright BS

[Anita Coney]

While I hate to argue with someone who agrees with me, I completely disagree.

If we accept that the 1st amendment is a 107 fair use of copyrighted materials, we're acknowledging that the 1st amendment, heck, the entire bill of rights is subject to copyright law. Does that may any freaking sense? That copyright law has higher priority under the law than the bill of rights? And god forbid that 107 is ever struck down.

It clearly should be the other way around. Copyright law should should be subject to our bill of rights. In other words, it simply does not matter whether copyright contains the 107 exception, the 1st amendment should always trump copyright. And any copyright holder who feels otherwise should have the burden to show what it should not in his or her particular instance.

Remember, 107 is not a right, it is merely a defense. The burden is on the alleged infringer to make a showing of fair use. Like I said, when it comes to our bill of rights, that's completely fricken backwards. Anyone wishing to limit someone's first amendment right should have the burden, not the other way around.

Re:Copyright BS

[omnichad]

Didn't say that it was the first amendment that was solely making it fair use. But it doesn't affect Apex's ability to sell copies of the contract, and it's being posted for educational purposes.
 
Copyright was created for art/code, not to protect privacy.

Re:Copyright BS

[omnichad]

That is, they don't profit from selling the contract. They aren't losing any money directly as a result (though you have to admit that it can't help their sales).

Re:Copyright BS

[Anita Coney]

"The answer to your question..."

I think you intended to respond to the parent comment, not to mine. You didn't answer my question at all. But you answered the parent's question perfectly.

Re:Copyright BS

[TheCarp]

However, there are rules. You can't copyright a recipe (which, IMNSHO is where software should have been categorized, given that its just sets of instructions... but thats a whole different can of worms). You may be able to copyright a book of recipes in the form that its in. However, the individual recipes within it are not protected themselves. (at least thats my understanding)

Now, wouldn't that seem to cover a contract? What is a contract but a list (however it is actually formed) of terms and conditions to define the form of an agreement. Thats much closer to a recipe than it is to a novel or text book. Its just that it says "employee must be at work by 9 am" rather than "place in a dutch oven and bake at 350 degrees for an hour and a half"

My take, it shouldn't be subject to copyright. However, the fact that they attempt to claim copyright is pretty damning. Much like, as the Scientologists found out: If you claim copyright on documents about Xenu, then everybody is going to know you really wrote that crap. I think we should call it the Xenu Corollary of the Streisand Effect.

-Steve

Re:Copyright BS

[dkleinsc]

Correct, sorry about that. As far as your comment, you're absolutely right that it should, but under current US law it doesn't.

Re:Copyright BS

[TheLostSamurai]

The answer to your question: The Berne Convention [wikipedia.org], which affixes copyright on anything written down anywhere. Really. This comment is copywritten by yours truly thanks to that rule and that fun text at the bottom of the page, and as such if I were wealthy and a complete jerk I could sue someone for infringement if someone decided to plagiarize me.

Re:Copyright BS

[SillyKing]

The answer to your question: The Berne Convention [wikipedia.org], which affixes copyright on anything written down anywhere. Really. This comment is copywritten by yours truly thanks to that rule and that fun text at the bottom of the page, and as such if I were wealthy and a complete jerk I could sue someone for infringement if someone decided to plagiarize me.

Come and get me!

Re:Copyright BS

[Myopic]

Why not? It's a creative work that has value.

Re:Copyright BS

[Surt]

Unfortunately, copyright is in diametric opposition to free speech. So you have to have the courts and the army back up the regime in suppressing the first amendment to have copyright work at all.

Re:Copyright BS

[cayenne8]

"I wonder if you could sue /. for inducing infringement because they give you that "Quote Parent" button when you're replying to a comment..."

A quote parent button???

I've never seen one of those before on /. ??

I'm not seeing it right now, I cut and paste in with HTML tags the quotes I use...always have done it that way.

Re:Copyright BS

[Hurricane78]

Call me ignorant, but I simply won’t ever buy into that shit. Ever.

I am more secure in my reality than they could ever be. And I know that that is lies, bullshit and greed for power. And that it has nothing to do with physical reality. Because information by its very definition, can only be proven to exist, trough the act of copying it.
Because there is no such thing as “moving” information. And so, to make it come to existence for anyone but you, you have to copy it to someone else. Who then has that information too, and can’t do anything about it. So information can never be owned by someone. Or he could’n prove it existed at all. It’s just not physically possible. Ever.

They can threaten us and go all crazy. But unless they cease to let it come into existence for us, they can’t do anything else than copy it to us.

Oh, and by the way. I just requested this page. I did not “take it”. The server did give it to me. So it would be the server’s “fault”. If it weren’t you who did send the data to the server without it asking for it, in the first place. You yourself copied it to the server. Who just took it. Like throwing your watch at someone, and then calling him a thief. ^^

Re:Copyright BS

[pclminion]

Maybe, but the contract is between two parties. Why does only one of them have copyrights? It's just as much your document as it is theirs. Let's assume that the contract, i.e. the physical paper it's written on, is a "work" under copyright law. When you apply your signature to that contract, you are modifying that work, and the fact that the company who drew up the contract doesn't immediately sue you for doing that, implies that your rights to that document are just as good as theirs. It is ludicrous to think that the company could sue you for publishing a work THAT YOU POSSESS RIGHTS TO.

Re:Copyright BS

[eclectro]

>The answer to your question: The Berne Convention, which affixes copyright on anything written down anywhere.

As usual, a legal question appearing on slashdot is like opening the door to the clown car at the circus. It is established law that treaties cannot override constitutional rights. Yes, I know the politics in Washington are corrupt, but that does not change previous high court decisions.

Re:Copyright BS

[UnderCoverPenguin]

You might not be able to copyright a recipe, but a given expression of a recipe might be copyright protected.

Re:Copyright BS

[SheeEttin]

...and as such if I were wealthy and a complete jerk I could sue someone for infringement if someone decided to plagiarize me.

OH SHI--

Re:Copyright BS

[TheCarp]

I believe you are correct. Though, there are two issues here, the technical arguments about what the law is now, and about what it should be.

Under current law, its hard to say for sure. I think you could make a pretty reasonable case either way on various grounds, and I think any such argument is going to quickly get pretty muddy.

Overall, I think contracts deserve a certain level of exemption, for a number of reasons.

A contract is, in the best of circumstances, a definition of requirements and responsibilities so that two parties know how to do buisness with eachother. You will do X under Y condition. I will do Z every time that you do X.

However, if thats all it was, then why bother signing it? Why bother making it so verbose with such carefully couched language? Simple, because its designed to also be a formal statement of intent that the signer is claiming to stand by. It may be a violation of confidentiality to release such a thing to the public, but that is a statement about the moral compass and trustworthiness of the person who posted it.... if the form of the agreement is something that they should be ashamed of, then thats what it is, regardless of what it says of the person who posted it.

In the end, its the contract that they wrote and wanted. If you send someone a private letter, they might go show it to the world and shame you. So, don't go writing shameful things and handing them to people that you can't trust to post it to the world. That has been true as long as people have had written language, its just even more true now than before.

Overall, I think these concerns make one thing is clear to me. Copyright is given to foster the creation of art and litterature of many kinds. Its given because we have an interest in promoting such things as a society. I think that interest doesn't exist for contracts. They exist for their own purposes and will exist entirely in the absence of the ability to copyright them. In fact, the interest in not stopping well intentioned whistle blowers FAR outweighs any protections copyright would provide.

what is defamatory about "common knowledge"?

[peter303]

Everyone knows much of he H-1B program is abused by employers, temp companies, and many of the workers themselves. "Go away. Nothing to see here."

Re:what is defamatory about "common knowledge"?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Everybody know that it's a sweetheart deal for large Corporations, to help them compete even more strongly against small businesses (who don't have the machinery to hire H1B's). Needless to say those corporations don't advertise the fact too heavily.

This is the first concrete evidence that the government itself is working to suppress this information to the benefit of those Corporations.

Re:what is defamatory about "common knowledge"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you would be surprised by how much you think everyone knows that everybody doesn't know.

My sister is well educated (has an bachelors and MBA), reads the newspaper, and has no clue that the DRM on the Kindle is the first time in hundreds of years book publishers have been able to prevent resale of books despite the doctrine of first sale using some bs "this thing you bought is licensed not sold" garbage, or that they wiped out a book from everybody who bought it. She doesn't know that her Blackberry costs more because a patent license had to be paid to the tune of over $600 million for the idea of "we'll send e-mail to people over the radio," despite the fact that this should be obvious to anyone "skilled in the art", decades old prior art exists (among other things, a functioning RF messaging system was built in 1973), doing something "with a computer" or "with a radio" isn't an "inventive step", the people at NTP didn't do a darned thing to help the people at Blackberry, and the people at Blackberry didn't do a darned thing to hurt the people at NTP. She doesn't know that her TiVo is more expensive because Pause Technologies has a patent on using a circular buffer with a video. And she doesn't know that H-1Bs are a modern day indentured servitude program that is completely corrupt, fraudulent, and downright immoral.

I tried having a few of these conversations over the Christmas break, but apparently immigrants are mexicans who are doing jobs that Americans don't want and the solution to immigration problems is a fence and stepping up the drug war, the Kindle is nice because it is convenient and who would want to sell a book they bought anyway and it's ok because the license says they can't and you can't break the rules of the license, and patents are good because they promote innovation and Blackberry and TiVo make enough money that they can pay inventors. I can't begin to tell you how frustrating these conversations are.

Sorry about the AC, but at least one of these opinions might be construed to interfere with my paycheck someday.

Re:what is defamatory about "common knowledge"?

[Blakey Rat]

The only company I've worked for that made use of the H1B program was Microsoft, and they definitely do not abuse the program or the employees using it.

I'd need to see some evidence to come around to your opinion, it's not by any long shot "common knowledge."

Re:what is defamatory about "common knowledge"?

[shutdown -p now]

Kindle is nice because it is convenient and who would want to sell a book they bought anyway and it's ok because the license says they can't and you can't break the rules of the license

If she understands the artificial limitations of Kindle, but considers it good enough to buy for other reasons, what's the problem?

H-1B is a Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

How can we be so short of American programmers and other IT people that we need to import foreigners in the middle of this awful recession?

We aren't. It's fraud. It's meant to reduce your salary.

It's the kind of fraud that Indians have ingrained in to their culture and Americans seem to get better at every day.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably because there's an awful recession going on and most American Programmers and other IT people won't work for the amount of money, lack of holidays, benefits and hours that those being imported will do.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Svartalf]

1) The recession is partly DUE to this practice.

2) It's not that the people won't work- it's that it's not being offered in the first place and they're claiming a "shortage" of workers (even though there's not...) and getting the H1B's in here

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Heartz]

If somebody can offer a service at a cheaper more efficient price, why not? All this humbug about salaries that one "deserves" to get is purely protectionist and doesn't benefit anybody. Offering cheaper overall inputs provide better value for all Americans to enjoy. If you're peddling global free trade, you've got to be willing to accept that labour needs to move freely and capitalism dictates that the person who can do it cheaper and offers an apple to apple comparison of quality will win. It's pure economics. If somebody can do something cheaper than you can, and is willing to do it, then there is nothing wrong with it.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

The employees still pay taxes on their income and property, still pay for products, food and maybe rent. All going straight back into the ecomony. You can't blame a world economic collapse on a handful of imported programmers. You are xenophobic. Stop blaming everyone except locals for what has been corrupt financing for several years, lead by the US.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[ShiningSomething]

1) The recession is partly DUE to this practice.

How exactly is the recession due to this practice? In 2007, roughly 800,000 jobs were created (1.4M new, 600K destroyed). There were 65K new H1B visas - these last 6 years at the most so let's say that there was a TOTAL stock of 400K H1B visa immigrants. Unless you're saying that these immigrants created financial instruments that natives would not have, which is seriously doubtful.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[omnichad]

Except when the quality declines, and is considered acceptable because it saves so much money. The world is full of copy-and-paste programmers, and call centers with thick accents and no grasp of common English. And Americans are the worst to trust with voting with their dollars. The vast majority pick the cheapest every time, with no regard to quality.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[pdabbadabba]

Well, maybe it does reduce your salary, but I doubt that's the point. Rather, I imagine it's to get bright, foreign-educated workers to put down roots in the US so that we get to reap the economic benefits of the educational systems of their home countries, thus causing a brain drain into the US. Only really works if the US has a much higher standard of living though...

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[GooberToo]

I'll bite.

You bit the wrong place and for entirely the wrong reasons. Its all about the math. For one good American coder you can higher three to five shitty Indian coders. In the mind of a CEO that means he can gut his coders and hire an army of shitty coders while banking on the chance that in an army of shitty coders perhaps one or two may actually be worth their third world rate. This in turn provides leverage to reduce wages of American coders.

Then, at some later time, the CEO is able to claim he's saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions for the company in labor which then allows him to get both a salary increase and/or additional perks and benefits.

Regardless of what your personal take on this is, this is the general approach and the reasons they do so.

To make this all work, they further scam the system by putting out reqs for American programmers who must have every skill in every language and usually require more experience longer than the given technology exists. And in exchange for the programmer who doesn't not exist anywhere, they'll pay them just below fair market rate; which they have been driving down by illegal H1B hires. They then claim they are unable to fill the unobtainable position and therefore are justified in continuing their H1B hiring practice.

In short, what I detail is the way the majority of large companies operate. If you want to put your head in the sad to feel better and rampant illegal and abusive practices which is directly driving salaries down, unemployment up, and fewer grads to follow, by all means, remain ignorant.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[zippthorne]

There are too many native programmers who whine if given a task that falls slightly out of their comfort zone or job description.

I assume you manage programmers then. Are you sure that they're whining because they don't want to do something that makes them uncomfortable and not just trying to make sure the company gets the best service possible by recommending seeking an expert in the areas that they themselves are shaky on?

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Capt James McCarthy]

If somebody can offer a service at a cheaper more efficient price, why not? All this humbug about salaries that one "deserves" to get is purely protectionist and doesn't benefit anybody. Offering cheaper overall inputs provide better value for all Americans to enjoy. If you're peddling global free trade, you've got to be willing to accept that labour needs to move freely and capitalism dictates that the person who can do it cheaper and offers an apple to apple comparison of quality will win. It's pure economics. If somebody can do something cheaper than you can, and is willing to do it, then there is nothing wrong with it.

I agree with this in theory. However, it's not the fact that there are a bunch of "Lazy Americans" (which there are plenty of hard working Americans BTW) who want their cake and be able to eat it too, it's the fact that the only commodity being banked on by companies are how to reduce salaries for the 97% of their worker base while the "Big C's" (CEO, CIO, CTO, CFO, etc..) keep their bonus' going up. It's about disparaging differences. I don't mind someone who has built a company up to keep a lions share, however, people with a backbone understand that without hardworking people in the company throughout the ranks, they would be no where and have no company. You are either Pimping or being Pimped now days.

Why doesn't any of this "globalization" affect health care? Where are my lower premiums or cost of health care when globalization is supposed to lower prices while raising service? I mean if you say it works for IT why not health care? Or how about food prices, they too are still going up even though there are many foods imported from all over the world. I guess your argument would be that they would be even higher if everything was left to grow only in the U.S. and sold in the U.S.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[gbjbaanb]

Not necessarily. Someone with the gumption to search the world for jobs lives in a country where the exchange rate, quality of life and governmental concept of human rights is poor. Those Indian programmers who want to come to the west to work aren't doing so because they want to work hard, generally they want the mega salaries (compared to local rates) that they'll get. If you paid them the same as they had at home they wouldn't bother.

Fortunately, paying them half the rate for local workers is still a mega rate for them so the owners of the local companies will happily get them over and put you on to the unemployment queue.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Maxo-Texas]

I suspect you are comparing apples to oranges here.

Are you saying that 800,000 jobs requiring at least a bachelor's degree and/or years of highly technical experience were created?

There is a reason that companies exist to teach corporations how to phrase their jobs needed ads so that no one in the united states qualifies (so they can legally import a less expensive worker who will gladly work 60+ hours a week without complaint). These companies wouldn't exist if large corporations didn't save money net of the cost of paying them.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[gbjbaanb]

To make this all work, they further scam the system by putting out reqs for American programmers who must have every skill in every language and usually require more experience longer than the given technology exists

To be fair, employers have been doing this for years - unless you're the guy who actually does have experience in 'GUI'. This bit is not conspiracy, just incompetence.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[ShatteredArm]

1) The recession is partly DUE to this practice.

Wrong. The recession happened because of a misallocation of resources due, in part, to excessive leveraging. It has absolutely zero to do with whence workers originate.

2) It's not that the people won't work- it's that it's not being offered in the first place and they're claiming a "shortage" of workers (even though there's not...) and getting the H1B's in here

If you're looking for workers with a specific skill set, it's very easy to find a shortage. And if you're looking for workers whom you don't want to pay an outrageous amount just to do what amounts to menial labor, it's very easy to find a shortage.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[dgatwood]

Usually they whine because "slightly outside of their comfort zone" in management-speak translates "boss asked me to solve the halting problem today" in geek-speak.

In my experience, programmers usually act that way because you've asked them to do something that they're not entirely convinced is possible, much less feasible, and they're dragging their heels because they aren't assertive enough to call you a moron to your face.

That said, there are people who refuse to do anything outside their job description. Usually, this attitude happens in union shops. If they see enough people acting that way around them, they're going to start acting the same way.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[ShiningSomething]

That's a good point, although there are a number of other fields that make use of H1B visas. My point is NOT that this is not fraud. It is that it has nothing to do with the recession. 65K jobs, in any field, would have nothing to do with the recession, let alone be one of its causes.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Phantom of the Opera]

<quote>Usually they whine because "slightly outside of their comfort zone" in management-speak translates "boss asked me to solve the halting problem today" in geek-speak.</quote>

Nah, its mostly "but that's someone else's job".

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[powerslave12r]

You have made numerous sweeping generalizations and exaggerations in your post. 1. Far from ALL Indian coders are "shitty". Look at the many inventions and innovations attributed to Indians in American companies. Google for names. 2. The salary is an exaggeration. H1B requires the companies to pay as much to an H1B hire as to an American citizen with the same experience/profile. 3. If the companies scam by listing out ridiculous requirements for job positions, don't they apply to Indians as well? Are you suggesting Indians are generally more skilled than Americans? If you are, then I can see you have explained why an H1B hire could be of more value than an American. And not only are you racist, you're ignorant. Do you know how many Indians graduate from American Universities with Masters/PhDs? Those are a huge chunk of H1B holders. Have a nice day.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[DamegedSpy]

And competition make progress. In Mexico we have a Monopoly at the fluorescent lamps. (The long ones) They are expensive and of bad quality. You don't have a choice.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[mpe]

Probably because there's an awful recession going on and most American Programmers and other IT people won't work for the amount of money, lack of holidays, benefits and hours that those being imported will do.

Wonder what much better paid work these people could be doing instead. Given the current economic situation. Things must be rather dire for those being imported, that they will put up with all the hassle of getting to their new job...

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[tibman]

I agree with you. But (sorry) that only works if everyone is playing in the same sandbox. If the cost of living and doing business in the US is higher than Mexico (for example) then a company would save a lot of money moving the actual factories to Mexico and continue to sell to the US. The new factory doesn't have to restrict it's byproducts and emmissions as much as in the US and the local population has a lower standard of living. But the price of the product to Americans does not go down, right? So Americans are making less money and still paying for the higher cost of living.

The effect is slowly lowering the quality of life for Americans and slightly raising it for the local factory workers (and the increased profit does not go to the workers, but to the company owners). While this is probably a good thing for the world at large, it is a draining effect on the US.

Nobody should want to equalize the quality of living by decreasing it anywhere.. but to raise up the lower levels. If the company that moved it's factory decreased the cost of it's product to align with the decrease of costs to make it, both Mexico and the US quality of life gets better or remains the same. Not to mention Mexico could actually purchase the product instead of the company selling it at higher than local quality-of-life prices.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Sir_Lewk]

Seriously man, use the 'Preview' button already.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't have to prove the H1B holder has the skills, only that they couldn't find an American who did. Also the salary requirement just needs to be within 15%. Their mere presence here depresses salaries see supply and demand economics 101. You are the racist.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[fluxrad]

And Americans are the worst to trust with voting with their dollars. The vast majority pick the cheapest every time, with no regard to quality.

So Americans demand low price over quality, which is exactly what customer-focused companies are providing them. This isn't a problem. This is economics.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Cigarra]

1) The recession is partly DUE to this practice.

Could you elaborate on that?

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[snowgirl]

Except when the quality declines, and is considered acceptable because it saves so much money. The world is full of copy-and-paste programmers, and call centers with thick accents and no grasp of common English. And Americans are the worst to trust with voting with their dollars. The vast majority pick the cheapest every time, with no regard to quality.

Actually, "Common English" continues to be Commonwealth English, which is slightly different from American English...

And Americans can have just as thick of an accent as well. It's why there aren't generally call centers in the deep south, or in the Bronx.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[omnichad]

It's good for those Americans, sure. But for those who want quality, they're simply outvoted.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[penguin_dance]

No...it's about getting cheap labor who is stuck to working for your shitty company or else get deported back to the motherland. It's not like once they're here they can up and change jobs. Even with the out of work Americans, they are still clamoring for more visas. Because they know when times get good again, the Americans would give them the finger and go somewhere else. H-1Bs are more like indentured servants. But they do it because they can make more here than back home.

Neither business nor government is altruistic.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[powerslave12r]

Being an Anonymous Coward defeats your stand, but I'll play anyway.
If the company pays only 15% less for a "shitty" Indian coder (SIC) as compared to a "good" American coder (GAC), isn't the company over paying, given how the parent post was talking about hiring 3-5 SICs instead of 1 GAC for the same money?
Now why would a company hire someone who gets paid 85% of a good programmer but is only 20-35% as good?
Smells to me like an exaggeration, or wait racism. Pick one. So either the Parent was exaggerating

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[spiffmastercow]

You are confusing Indian coders working in India who receive outsourced jobs from the US, with Indian coders that are brought to the US on H-1B visas. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is generally understood that many, many Indian coders working in the US are of a much, much higher quality than the recipients of outsourcing working in India.

I'll correct you, then. Every Indian programmer I've worked with was completely incompetant, and some actually were harmful, like the guy whose only contribution to a project was breaking the build 2 hours before a major release. I'm sure there are good Indian programmers out there... But the good ones aren't going to work for the salaries they want to pay them.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[tibman]

There are some great US Army programs to become a US citizen. Any foreigner can sign up and fight for America and earn their citizenship in the process. One of the programs i know of is MAVNI, mostly for people who know languages other than english and people who know medicine.

http://www.army.com/enlist/mavni.html
http://www.goarmy.com/info/mavni
http://www.defense.gov/news/mavni-fact-sheet.pdf

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Ichijo]

You have made numerous sweeping generalizations and exaggerations in your post. 1. Far from ALL Indian coders are "shitty".

The parent made no such claim, only that there exist shitty Indian coders.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[fluxrad]

Well if there's enough demand for quality, someone will figure out a way to make money providing it. As a case in point, many people pay more for Apple products because they see them as higher quality (irrespective of whether or not that's objectively true). The same goes for clothing products from higher end stores (see: Brooks Brothers). Market share may be tiny, but these companies do exist. I think the disconnect comes when people are unable to accept that quality necessarily costs more.

In software, it's more difficult to eek out a living as outlined above since bad code is harder to differentiate from good - at least to the layperson. And you're talking about intellectual property, which can more easily be stolen out from under a company that's spent years producing quality code. So folks are correct in the sense that the margins are much smaller in software development (this is a good thing, but that's another thread). But this doesn't undermine the basic economic tenet that, if there's enough demand for it, someone will provide it.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Red Flayer]

Just to add to your point... there is a minimum salary by law for workers on H1B. We pay my company's H1B employees a minimum of US 60,000 a year... and most receive much more than that.

The truth is, we can't find qualified Americans for the positions in question. We want employees, not contractors, from some positions (for a variety of reasons...) and almost all Americans with one of the skillsets we require work only on contract basis.

So we can either hire American contractors, which some of our clients do not want, or we can hire Indian/Eastern European/Chinese workers on H1B visas as employees.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

I have first hand experience with this shitty outsourcing. The companies that do this are pond scum as the bottomline is that all that matters.
The yocals they hire often have understanding and cultural differences and could give a rats ass as the quality of their work and meeting customer expectations.
They use distance as a shield, and they don't have to face the customers first hand and experience the same shitty problems over and over.
No explaining to the customer can hide these facts. Its a race to the bottom and only the rich are benefitting.

The worst part, the software is often written to please the bean counters and does nothing to enhance the user experience.

As for racism, why do these economies still have caste systems and or force women to cover there faces, or not allow free speech?

Its great that these economies can provide this, but the price is very high: the cost of other middle class societies.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[omnichad]

But this makes quality a bigger price gap. Still not a good thing.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[powerslave12r]

Right, and so parent and you're suggesting there are no shitty American coders?

Two things - there's shitty programmers that are Indian or American, irrespective of their nationality. Why would a company pay more money for processing their H1B visa unless they got something out of those people?

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Red Flayer]

Yes there is something definitely wrong with this...it f*cking depresses economies in the long run. I suggest you start researching history of labor law, minimum wage, unions, etc before you start lecturing anyone on economic best practices.

Maybe you shouldn't be throwing stones, living in that glass house of yours.

You have no idea what you're talking about. I suggest you do some reading of your own. Protectionism, which is what you're backing, depresses economies in the long run. Free movement of labor does not.

Re: minimum wage, labor law, unions, etc... That is a separate issue from free movement of labor. Yes, ideally all countries would afford workers the same level of rights and protections. But that is ancillary to the fact that artificial barriers on labor movement inhibit economic growth.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Znork]

Offering cheaper overall inputs provide better value for all Americans to enjoy.

If done under the same rules.

you've got to be willing to accept that labour needs to move freely

Ah, but see, labour doesn't move freely, most labour is stuck where it is. The current state of affairs enables some brilliant exploitations of that fact; western labour is kept stuck in high-cost systems, exacting as much revenue as possible through means such as 'intellectual property' and similar systems that prevent the price reductions from reaching the market as far as possible, making the western labour utterly uncompetitive, while using what amounts to negative interest rates to further exact revenue and prevent price collapse as they move deep into debt.

The combination of low-cost parts and high-price parts of the global system and the regulations keeping them separate and competition tightly limited to what is 'approved' makes the exacting of wealth by middle men exceedingly simple, and possible to a much further extent than earlier.

and offers an apple to apple comparison of quality

It's rather hard to offer an apple to apple comparison in a global system where it's hard to trust even the currencies the trade is done in.

If somebody can do something cheaper than you can, and is willing to do it, then there is nothing wrong with it.

Well, unless it's movies. Or books. Or music. Or medicine. Or software or hardware or fashion or shoes or sports gear or...

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[u38cg]

Every day, while going about my daily life, I am directly affected by this mythical shoddy programming. Oh, wait. No, I'm not. Sorry, but your opinion is not worth more than the market's.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Anonymous Psychopath]

My small view...

If someone is willing to come over and enjoy the relative safety and benefits of working in the US, would that same person come over and join the US military and defend this country in a time of war? I doubt it even if they could. The people that are citizens of the US have created this environment through sacrifice. 18-30 year old males will defend the country in time of war either voluntarily or forcefully through a draft while the sponges that come over with work visas will be on the first flight out back to home. So yes, they are only here for the good and not for the bad, basically skimming off the top. The citizens are here for both and the citizens are what made this a desirable place to live for themselves. This argument for me has nothing to do with race or your country of origin it has to do with the responsibility of being a US citizen.

The US military branches gladly accept non-citizens into service and provide US citizenship for them in exchange. In fact, if you serve in active duty during wartime you are eligible for immediate citizenship, without a residency requirement. During peacetime you need to serve honorably for one year and be a legal resident.

"...roughly 35,000 non-citizens are serving in the active military, and about 8,000 enlist each year." (source www.cna.org/documents/D0011092.A2.pdf)

They also tend to stick around longer once they join.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Red Flayer]

What is wrong with protectionism?

Because in the long run, it leads to a stagnant economy in the protectionist country. While it lessens the impact of downturns, it more greatly reduces the opportunities for growth. Protectionist policies lengthened and deepened every recession and depression in US history which they were enacted in response to.

Please, read some economic history. Protectionism is penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[sunderland56]

How can we be so short of American programmers

There is no shortage of American programmers - there is a shortage of skilled programmers.

Part of the H1B process is that, before hiring a foreign worker, the job in question must be advertised to the general public for a certain length of time, and any applications from Americans must be considered. There have been some cases where an American worker has applied and got the position - but in the majority of cases, there is no American with the required skill set.

Note that it is against US law to pay a H1B worker any less than an American doing the same job.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Phantom of the Opera]

I'll bite.

You bit the wrong place and for entirely the wrong reasons. Its all about the math. For one good American coder you can higher three to five shitty Indian coders. In the mind of a CEO that means he can gut his coders and hire an army of shitty coders while banking on the chance that in an army of shitty coders perhaps one or two may actually be worth their third world rate. This in turn provides leverage to reduce wages of American coders.

Dude, if the CEO is involved in the hiring practice either its a very small company or something is very, very weird. There are a variety of reasons, but anyone hiring is going to want to have a large number of candidates to choose from. This could be because of salary, or it could be because you want to hire a bunch of good people.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Artifakt]

So, if companies are required to apply the same exaggerated requirements for skill-sets after they can't fill the job with US workers, and apply for the H1B process, then there's no reason to exaggerate. Ergo, listings such as "14 years experience with .Net 2.0 environment running on Core 2 quad processors" shouldn't exist (except as the result of very occasional typos). Yet, they do, in abundance.
      Analogy: Fox news has labeled 18 republicans caught in affairs, homosexual encounters, or criminal acts as democrats. They have never made the same mistake in reverse. If you wanted to take the position that Fox wasn't motivated to do this deliberately, shouldn't the burden of proof fall to you to show how such a statistically one sided result could be caused by random typos, or otherwise not be proof of deliberate intent?
      You somehow managed to build your point three out of ignoring that fact (unless. by "more skilled" you really meant 'have invented time machines to somehow acquire the necessary skills').
Point 2, on salaries, becomes unsupportable if your point 3 is wrong. If the job requirements can change drastically during the process of 'proving' an H1B is needed, then the government requirement has no teeth. So, you'd have to put up some actual figures about pay for broader classes of programmers rather than specific jobs. You certainly could gather figures and then make the claim that those '30% salaries' are an infrequent anomaly, but the other side has already gathered figures and made the claim that programmer wages have been depressed, as a whole, compared to other skilled professions. If the flat salaries situation exists, and low salaries in H1B positions exist, don't you have some proving to do? Sounds like you need to not only show that the mechanisms by which hiring at below prevailing rates affects related wages wouldn't be enough to depress wages in the broader industry as much as they allegedly have - you'd need to suggest some other causes.
      I understand how you must feel about the characterizations to which you are responding. Unfortunately, you've made several unsupported claims, and given your very first sentence, you've done harm to your cause.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[omnichad]

Well I sure am affected almost daily. Especially with regard to web sites and embedded firmware on devices.

I can't turn off the power on my low-end name brand home theater amplifier with my universal remote unless I change to a specific mode. Why? Because each function uses entirely separate software, and the power-off remote code is different for each "device."
 
Things like that happen to me every single day. I don't know what mythical rock you've been living under.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[oxygen_deprived]

It's the kind of fraud that Indians have ingrained in to their culture and Americans seem to get better at every day.

What a sweeping generalization.Its one thing to disparage a few dollar dreamer ,racism tolerating H1 B Indians, quite another to disparage billion plus peoples' nation and a few millenia worth of culture
Speaking of fraud, greed , the underlying motivation for fraud, is not the prerogative of any particular nation of culture.
Please sir, get your head out of the sand. Blaming others for your own failures will not get you anywhere.
And speaking of fraud, as an Indian, let me assure you that fraud is not ingrained in Indian culture. Many of the people in this land are honest hardworking people, who dream of getting their kids a good education,and whose primary goal in life is NOT a house and a car on borrowed money.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[infinite9]

You have made numerous sweeping generalizations and exaggerations in your post.

1. Far from ALL Indian coders are "shitty". Look at the many inventions and innovations attributed to Indians in American companies. Google for names.

To be fair, certainly not all. But in my experience, a significant majority are sub-par.

2. The salary is an exaggeration. H1B requires the companies to pay as much to an H1B hire as to an American citizen with the same experience/profile.

This is the standard propaganda. The truth is that in the vast majority of cases, H1Bs are much cheaper. Why else would a company front the $2000+ it takes to host a single H1B? Of course, the kicker there is "with the same experience/profile". In my experience, the replacement H1B is nowhere near as qualified, on paper as well. They're just cheaper. The indentured servitude angle is also very attractive to the employer. You can treat them like crap and they won't leave because they can't. It does wonders for a worker's "attitude".

3. If the companies scam by listing out ridiculous requirements for job positions, don't they apply to Indians as well?

No. The requirement are conveniently changed later. Or the H1Bs resume is deliberately falsified to turn them into a match. Or the employer "throws up its hands" and works out a deal with someone like TCS to hire consultants only from them. Throw in an artificial rule like no consultants allows to work there for more than a year and you end up with a little invasion.

Are you suggesting Indians are generally more skilled than Americans? If you are, then I can see you have explained why an H1B hire could be of more value than an American.

An individual Indian could easily be more skilled than an individual American. And many highly skilled people are coming here on H1B visa. In my opinion, they deserve to be here (when the economy is good). But no immigrant, no matter how qualified should ever be allowed to replace an American (of any descent) who is already established here.

But as a group, the Indians I've seen here, when a company has clearly abused the H1B program, have been far less qualified than the people they replaced.

And not only are you racist, you're ignorant. Do you know how many Indians graduate from American Universities with Masters/PhDs? Those are a huge chunk of H1B holders.

It's convenient to use the examples of when the system has worked as intended to explain away the vast abuse and injustice taking place in our country. It's convenient to call us racist when we complain and take steps to protect the livelihoods of the people who are already here. This argument always makes me think about taking an IT job in India. Oh that's right, I can't. I would never be issued a work visa for an IT job because they protect their labor pool like we should be. But they're not racist.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[microbox]

I mean if you say it works for IT why not health care? Or how about food prices, they too are still going up even though there are many foods imported from all over the world. I guess your argument would be that they would be even higher if everything was left to grow only in the U.S. and sold in the U.S.

I think they would be higher. Food prices will go up because of "facts on the ground". It is already heavily subsided, and most farmers are losing money, to the middle-men (super markets).

Health care prices are not high because of "facts on the ground". Insurance players have a captive market and get pick and choose who to fleece and reject.

The rules favour the status-quo, and laissez-faire economics favours those who can exert leverage and exploit externalities and barriers to entry. The american health care system is corporate welfare already -- and true conservatives would be concerned about that, and looking at what structural issues allow this industry to exploit the market place. Efficient markets come from low barriers to entry, and tough regulations that prevent companies from exploiting externalities.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[j33px0r]

If the companies scam by listing out ridiculous requirements for job positions, don't they apply to Indians as well? Are you suggesting Indians are generally more skilled than Americans? If you are, then I can see you have explained why an H1B hire could be of more value than an American. And not only are you racist, you're ignorant

I take it by the intensity of your post that you either are an H1B hire or have friends who are.

Ridiculous requirements mean that they cannot find Americans or Indians to fill the positions. This allows them to then proceed to HIRE and TRAIN low level programmers. One of the places that can support the vast number of low-level programmers happens to be India.

Short posts are not capable of holding an argument that could take up the space of a book so people give shorter summaries. You might want to hold back the racist and ignorant comment till you think about the situation a little more.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Penguinoflight]

more like redundant.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[thejynxed]

No, they do not. Those requirements mysteriously vanish, or get "exempted" when they go to fill the position with an H1-B applicant.

This was way more obvious back when Oracle/Perl/Java first showed up. Numerous listings for workers with 5-10 years experience and the software had only been available for less then 3 years. It showed up again with Javascript, Python and Ruby.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[CorporateSuit]

You are completely wrong. People will come to America. If you want to limit the H1-B program, then you limit what will stay here to those who came illegallly; while those who follow the rules, learn the language, go to our schools, learn from our programs, and when we've invested tens of thousands of dollars and man-hours in each of these people, are sent back with the warning that if we see their faces after x amount of days, it will not be as friends.

Keep sending back anyone who plays by our rules and respect our laws. Then keep wondering why many of our cities are turning into warrens of lawlessness -- greatly caused by immigrants and their children who were taught that they can only live here because they break our laws.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[powerslave12r]

I take it by the intensity of your post that you either are an H1B hire or have friends who are.

Correct.

Ridiculous requirements mean that they cannot find Americans or Indians to fill the positions. This allows them to then proceed to HIRE and TRAIN low level programmers. One of the places that can support the vast number of low-level programmers happens to be India.

Wrong, wrong and wrong. My company hired me for a position that was vacant for more than 6-8 months because they couldn't find anyone qualified enough - irrespective of nationality. I've spoken with the HR and my immediate senior and they wouldn't have hired me, for MORE than what they were willing to pay anyone else to do the job.
Proceeding and training low level programmers tactic is not directly related to Indians(/foreigners) being present here. What makes you say that this tactic wouldn't be used by the companies even if only Americans were being considered to be hired? Why couldn't they list out ridiculous requirements and then underpay irrespective of the presence of Indians(/foreigners)?

Short posts are not capable of holding an argument that could take up the space of a book so people give shorter summaries. You might want to hold back the racist and ignorant comment till you think about the situation a little more.

The original post is racist. You could debate it all day long but it clearly makes a distinction between Americans and Indians, and how one is somehow magically responsible for driving the salaries down, when he's doing nothing different than the other.

Quick Summary

Companies can list ridiculous requirements for ANYONE and then hire someone for cheap and train. If H1B requires an H1B hire at least 85% salary compared to an American hire for the same position to be paid AND H1B filing costs and paperwork, they better get something out of that employee. They will not hire that employee if he's not going to make the company any money.

I'm not saying there isn't any abuse of H1B visas, not unlike for any other visa, its just that the posts here reek of a clearly demarcated bias and a generalization of most, if not all Indian programmers.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[stephanruby]

They use distance as a shield, and they don't have to face the customers first hand and experience the same shitty problems over and over.

No, not as a "shield", but as an obstacle. Speaking as an American (I was actually born in France, but I'm still an American by birth and I live here now), I can tell you that working remotely with someone even if they're just on the other side of the United States is difficult as it is.

A misunderstanding that usually can be resolved in one minute face-to-face may take hours if not days to resolve if it's done remotely. And don't get me started on the formality, if the customer is someone that I know well, that I've had lunch with, and that I visit on a regular basis, picking up the phone or firing off a quick one-line informal email to him is super easy. But if it's someone that I don't know well, and someone that I don't interact with on a daily basis, the communication becomes that much more formal, difficult, and longer to get any real feedback on anything.

And when it comes down to it, if you have the power to affect the environment of your customer, being able to face the customer is a bonus. Do not think for a minute that anyone likes to be disconnected from their customers like that.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Surt]

The problem is you didn't raise the salary to a level competitive with contracting. If you did so, the contractors would be willing to make the employment commitment. Instead, you got a foreigner to take a job that could be done by an American if you were willing to pay the higher salary.

Thus, h1b drove down american IT salaries, and YOU are the proof.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

What you have written is false. H1B Visa holders almost to a man get paid less than regular salaried employees. In fact, law firms have seminars to educate management on how to rig the system to hire H1B employees, how to advertise jobs in areas where they won't get applicants, and how to advertise so that they can obtain green cards for foreign employees. Here's one such seminar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[geekoid]

because it's not a balance labor pool. I can't get a job in India, and the cost of living in America is higher; and for good reason.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[TooMuchToDo]

Which works fine until the lower 90% can't support themselves in a first-world country that only had jobs that pay third-world salaries.

If somebody can do something cheaper than you can, and is willing to do it, then there is nothing wrong with it.

And if the government steps in and creates barriers to unrestricted free trade (as it should), there's nothing wrong with that. Only a fool supports unrestricted capitalism.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Surt]

I have seen hundreds of h1bs. Not one of them had a skill that was not available from numerous unemployed american programmers.

Every one of them was paid less than Americans doing the 'same' job (note: technically, the job definition was different, which is how they game the system. The work in fact was the same.)

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[ruewan]

It is because education in this country is to expensive. The media portrays I.T. people as geeks. Education is cheap elsewhere. There really is a shortage of American programmers the last company that I was at was trying to train people with degrees in economics and other things to be programmers. I often see programming jobs available for months not being filled because of a lack of qualified applicants. 2 years before the USCIS got twice as many applicants for H1b visa on the first day of the quota opening. This year in the recession it has been months and the quota has not been filled. Demand has dropped this year but there is still a shortage that is being filled by the H1b's. If America is not willing to make education cheap enough for people to get a quality education you can blame businesses for importing labor from countries that are.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[npengr]

Dude, You are the native speaker of the language. It is 'hire' and not 'higher'. Since you can't manage that level of detail, you probably can't code. That's why you need H1-Bs. Instead of attending proms and "graduating" from primary and high schools, if you get some decent skills, you will be employable. Good luck.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[junglee_iitk]

There is no point arguing for Indians on a H1B related thread. A lot of these people here have lost their jobs and are too disgruntled and spending their time on Slashdot while applying for other jobs. Give them a break :)

PS: Last time somebody was claiming how putting CVs of some people beneath everyone else's, because they belonged to Indians, was not racist. So, well, chill out and enjoy the show :)

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[j33px0r]

My company hired me for a position that was vacant for more than 6-8 months because they couldn't find anyone qualified enough - irrespective of nationality. I've spoken with the HR and my immediate senior and they wouldn't have hired me, for MORE than what they were willing to pay anyone else to do the job.

I don't want to stereotype Indians but all of the ones that I've worked with are extremely talented. I have no doubt that you are worth your salt and then some. Americans that are unable to locate a job take offense at foreigners coming over and doing work that they are capable of doing, or so they think. The arguments that are made against the outsourcing of jobs are, for right or wrong, generalized into the arguments against the importing of workers. You will have a difficult time in convincing an unemployed American (or a citizen of any nation) that it is acceptable to bring in a foreigner to fill a position in times of high unemployment.

The original post is racist. You could debate it all day long but it clearly makes a distinction between Americans and Indians, and how one is somehow magically responsible for driving the salaries down, when he's doing nothing different than the other.

I would not debate that at all. I would however lean towards the word nationalism over racism due to the nature of the discussion even though they often go hand-in-hand.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[StuartHankins]

Free movement of labor... when you're dealing with two economies where the standard of living is almost an order of magnitude different... means both economies eventually settle somewhere in the middle. That's bad for at least one of the parties.

In this example, I can hire "x" Indian programmers for the price of 1 American programmer, where x > 1. Faking ads to eliminate American workers not only hurts the American workers, it hurts our economy as well. It's not about what is best for the company -- in many cases it's what is best for the American worker that counts.

And yes I was once downsized (fired for a trivial excuse after years working for a company) by H1-B's willing to work weekends, nights, and sleep in their cubes. They lived in groups in houses / apartments and pooled vehicles. The fact they were willing to put up with so much says something about the situation. It tore our MIS department to pieces, where there was once 15 American workers there were only 4 when I left, all in management roles.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[StuartHankins]

Yes exactly, we (as a people) foolishly choose the cheapest every time. No one takes quality seriously anymore -- when was the last time you bought a software program not riddles with bugs? Nowadays only the most glaring bugs are fixed in most commercial software programs and you have to purchase another version to get the functionality you wanted (and thought you bought) in the first place.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[gtmoose]

You bit the wrong place and for entirely the wrong reasons. Its all about the math. For one good American coder you can higher three to five shitty Indian coders. In the mind of a CEO that means he can gut his coders and hire an army of shitty coders while banking on the chance that in an army of shitty coders perhaps one or two may actually be worth their third world rate. This in turn provides leverage to reduce wages of American coders.

Then, at some later time, the CEO is able to claim he's saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions for the company in labor which then allows him to get both a salary increase and/or additional perks and benefits.

Regardless of what your personal take on this is, this is the general approach and the reasons they do so.

To make this all work, they further scam the system by putting out reqs for American programmers who must have every skill in every language and usually require more experience longer than the given technology exists. And in exchange for the programmer who doesn't not exist anywhere, they'll pay them just below fair market rate; which they have been driving down by illegal H1B hires. They then claim they are unable to fill the unobtainable position and therefore are justified in continuing their H1B hiring practice.

In short, what I detail is the way the majority of large companies operate. If you want to put your head in the sad to feel better and rampant illegal and abusive practices which is directly driving salaries down, unemployment up, and fewer grads to follow, by all means, remain ignorant.

We have a winner!!

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Red Flayer]

The problem is you didn't raise the salary to a level competitive with contracting. If you did so, the contractors would be willing to make the employment commitment. Instead, you got a foreigner to take a job that could be done by an American if you were willing to pay the higher salary.

We offered the same rate as an employee that they were willing to accept as a contractor. Not sure if you know how contracting rates work, but they are almost always *more* than employee rates... we offered a substantial incentive by offering employment terms at contract rates. I've never seen equity in offered hourly pay (employee-contractor) before or since then. That's the trade-off for no benefits, lower overhead for the company, etc. These were PRIME offers, and we couldn't find any qualified American willing to do the work as an employee. Well above the six-figure threshold for these positions... it's a function of the niche the jobs were in, I think. But there have to be more niches like that.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[SETIGuy]

65K jobs, in any field, would have nothing to do with the recession, let alone be one of its causes.

I would contend that the recession could have been prevented by firing 65,000 people in the financial services industry about three years ago. The question is just finding the right 65,000 people to fire.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Red Flayer]

Free movement of labor... when you're dealing with two economies where the standard of living is almost an order of magnitude different... means both economies eventually settle somewhere in the middle. That's bad for at least one of the parties.

Only in the short run. It frees up the labor in the wealthier nation to do things that are more productive. And from a humanist standpoint, which is better? To see some people with a ridiculous standard of living need to pinch pennies for a while (while still having housing, cars, all the food they could want, etc), or to see some people continue to live in squalor? Are Indians less human than Americans?

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Hatta]

h1b drove down american IT salaries

Did anyone think it would do otherwise? Increased competition drives down prices. That's the way any market works, including the labor market.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[pclminion]

What... the... hell? Two hours prior to RELEASE, you were BUILDING the product? Wow, you allocated what, an hour, for release testing? Or you just kinda skip that part? You don't freeze your code base months or weeks prior to release? You don't have a revision control system that allows you to roll back a bonehead change? Yes, there certainly is some incompetence at your company, but it's not the Indian.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[StuartHankins]

The ideal solution is not to lower American standards of living but to raise Indian standards. After all, if they had higher standards of living we wouldn't be in this mess.

From a practical standpoint there is no mechanism to allow that to magically happen. The socialist believes the answer lies in redistribution of wealth (as you have proposed). The pragmatist looks for the simplest workable solution, which may involve walling off the country (in a manner of speaking). The realist knows that this isn't just about pinching pennies but many hundreds of thousands (potentially millions) affected, losing their jobs and their livelihood as this happens.

Retraining isn't going to happen quickly enough to keep us out of a bigger depression in the future if these problems aren't addressed.

Are Indians less human than Americans?

The only people benefiting from this in the long-term are the Indians. The decision to outsource labor to India is bad for all Americans. As an American I find the situation disturbing.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[iammani]

H1-B is fraud alright. It exists to bring in foreign talent not available locally, is a total lie. Coming to think of it, I am not sure there had ever been a job in the computer science industry, where a US citizen was not available to work on, or could not be trained in a month or so to work on.

So what drives it? I second your point that it is Economics of cheaper talent/labour. So do you believe this will be solved if H1B program were to be stopped today? Do you sincerely believe an american will be get the job he deserves with a salary better than a foreigner? What I believe will happen is the job will move to a foreign country, where they can get even cheaper talent/labour. And this has already been happening for quite some time, if you are not aware of it. One of the prominent companies that was involved in the mainframes and has a name that starts with a I, stopped processing H1B visas for the past 2-3 years except when absolutely necessary, and have established huge centers in India and China. I cannot quote numbers, but you can ask their employees about it.

There one more factor driving these H1b visas - Educational Institutions in the US. There is a huge number of foreign students coming to the US every year, bring money from their home country for their tuition (which is much higher that out-state tution fees) and their living expenses. This helps these institutions survive and subsidise local students education and contributes to the economy. If it were to continue, the students need to find jobs in the US.

The other important factor is retaining these students, so that they can contribute to the US. The students who come to the US are the creamy layer of their home country. They are usually ones that have been educated in the best institutes in their home country. Its is important to retain the talent in the US, then to send them back to their home country.

I hope I have directly or indirectly countered your points. Any point countering mine is welcome.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[rainmaestro]

Doesn't surprise me in the least. Freezing a code base months in advance is extremely *rare*. If you're building an OS, maybe. But for a business app, you might freeze a week or two at most.

And anyone who has been around has seen this scenario play out at least once: you freeze the code, run your final tests, and the boss hands down a list of alterations from the client at the last minute. You aren't allowed to delay the release because the client has spent a ton of money on promotional media, and the changes *must* be in place for the release. It sucks, but coding right down to the wire happens all the time. That's what happens when you let bosses slash development time.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[pclminion]

And anyone who has been around has seen this scenario play out at least once: you freeze the code, run your final tests, and the boss hands down a list of alterations from the client at the last minute.

... and then you tell the client that they have two options. Option A, they can wait while the changes are implemented and tested. Option B, they can accept a last-minute release and waive their contractual rights to sue your ass if the product doesn't work. There is no sane Option C. Any company that operates the way you described is full of idiots.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[rainmaestro]

If the Indian programmers are sub-par why hire them. The companies are in USA, I assume they want workable products devloped by competent programmers.

No, they want a product just good enough not to get sued into oblivion for breach of contract, and they want it done as cheaply as possible.

Look at the code for some random app. Chances are you'll see the same crap over and over: basic library functions reinvented (multiple permutations of IsDigit() in the same "utility" file, DateTime classes, etc), short-sighted moves like hard-coding TLDs in email address field validators, etc. These programmers (be they American or H1B) weren't hired because they are competent, they were hired because they are *cheap*.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[NormalVisual]

Just as a refresher, here's Cohen & Grigsby showing how it's done.

"Our goal is clearly NOT to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker." - Lawrence M. Liebowitz, Marketing VP, Cohen & Grigsby

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Surt]

Well that just makes no sense. If you were effectively offering higher than contract rates of pay, I don't know a single contractor who would turn that down. I've done a lot of contracting, and would always have been willing to take such an offer. It's not like the employment contract comes with some long term commitment that you can't back out of. Yours must have been a really exceptional case ... did you have some problem with your work environment maybe?

In any case, yours does not represent more than a tiny minority of h1b experiences.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[rainmaestro]

Yeah, it is insane, I'm not arguing that. But it happens all the time.

What often ends up happening is the client rejects (A) because of the incurred cost of rescheduling deployment and marketing, refuses (B) and points out some key clauses buried in the million-page contract, leading to: (C) you cave, because the contract you signed has so many clauses and penalties that the client has you by the short hairs and you, being a small development shop, don't have the capital to sustain a protracted legal battle over the contractual obligations. At that point, development processes go out the window and the company does whatever it has to just to get paid.

It sucks, but it happens far too often.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[NormalVisual]

H1B requires the companies to pay as much to an H1B hire as to an American citizen with the same experience/profile.

Yes, that's what the law requires, but the law isn't enforced to any meaningful degree. There are plenty of companies that pay their H-1Bs as they're supposed to, but there are also plenty that don't. Every company I've worked for that used them also lowballed them and held them in line via restrictive contracts that were prohibitively expensive to break.

As regards skills, my experience is that they're roughly on par with American folks - some are good, and some suck. In particular I've had the pleasure of working with a few guys from Singapore and Sri Lanka that were simply incredible, but I've also dealt with an Indian that thought his shit didn't stink and couldn't do anything at all without explicitly direction on every tiny thing he was to do, and even then the code quality was just abysmal.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[NormalVisual]

You're assuming said companies are actually following the law re: H-1B pay. Lots of them don't.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Well that just makes no sense. If you were effectively offering higher than contract rates of pay, I don't know a single contractor who would turn that down. I've done a lot of contracting, and would always have been willing to take such an offer.

And I've done a lot of contracting and DID take such offers - with lower salary but startup equity. Contracting means you pay your own benefits and have lots of other extra costs so a (far) lower salary with a good bennies package is not a hardship - especially if accompanied by a reasonable spin of the stock-option roulette wheel.

It's not like the employment contract comes with some long term commitment that you can't back out of. Yours must have been a really exceptional case ... did you have some problem with your work environment maybe?

Or perhaps your employment contract's I.P. and/or non-compete provisions were too restrictive - like to a career killing level. Why don't you look over the boilerplate your lawyer laid down? Contractors value having the option to move on and do NOT contracts that turn them into serfs.

(California I.P. employment law is a big reason the Silicon Valley phenomenon happened here and has been so hard to replicate elsewhere: If you invent something that is not in your company's business plan and they don't want to pursue it - and you didn't do it on company time or with company resources (which would be hard to prove anyhow) - YOU own the idea, regardless of what the employment contract says. You can get together with a couple buddies, raise some seed capital, walk out, set up shop across the street, and develop it.)

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[coaxial]

1) The recession is partly DUE to this practice.

Really? Everything I heard was that it had to do with too much debt and too much access to cheap credit, and an era of deregulation and mergers.

2) It's not that the people won't work- it's that it's not being offered in the first place and they're claiming a "shortage" of workers (even though there's not...) and getting the H1B's in here

If H1Bs are such a threat, explain this: Given this time of cost cutting and layoffs, you'd expect companies to fire all their expensive American workers, and replace them with cheap foreign imports, yet this year it has taken eight months to reach the quota of 65,000, instead of two days, like the past 4 years.

Also explain this, why would you not want to siphon off the best and the brightest of the world?

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Red Flayer]

From a practical standpoint there is no mechanism to allow that to magically happen. The socialist believes the answer lies in redistribution of wealth (as you have proposed). The pragmatist looks for the simplest workable solution, which may involve walling off the country (in a manner of speaking). The realist knows that this isn't just about pinching pennies but many hundreds of thousands (potentially millions) affected, losing their jobs and their livelihood as this happens.

Those are some very sweeping generalizations, along with a mischaracterization (socialist does not belong in the same set as pragmatist and realist).

The socialist believes the answer lies in redistribution of wealth (as you have proposed).

This is not what I have proposed. Furthermore, free market wealth redistribution is about as far from socialism as you can get. Protectionist policies are much closer to socialism than free movement of labor.

The pragmatist looks for the simplest workable solution, which may involve walling off the country (in a manner of speaking).

I don't know where to start with that statement, it has so many flaws. First, a pragmatist does not seek the simplest workable solution. A pragmatist seeks the solution that produces the desired result, regardless of means. In this situation, a pragmatist with an understanding of economics would not seek a walled garden... because almost all economists agree that protectionism hurts economies in the long run. Even Krugman couches his pro- stance on protectionism with caveats, such as the biggest one -- protectionism only works if there is no retaliatory protectionism.

The realist knows that this isn't just about pinching pennies but many hundreds of thousands (potentially millions) affected, losing their jobs and their livelihood as this happens.

Anyone with half a brain understand that employment rates, immigration, etc affect millions of people. What you describe can be attributed to anyone, from idealist through realist... though the idealist would be more likely to believe that philosophical ideals would carry through to real-world effects, despite lack of evidence. And for what it's worth, realism isn't really applicable to economics. Pragmatism is closer to what you describe when you make that statement about realists.

Retraining isn't going to happen quickly enough to keep us out of a bigger depression in the future if these problems aren't addressed.

Retraining is the only thing that will keep us out of a major depression in the future. Yes, we need to pay the piper now. The tradeoff is to pay the piper later, with a huge amount of interest tacked on. Protectionism stagnates economies, moreso now that trade is so globalized.

The only people benefiting from this in the long-term are the Indians. The decision to outsource labor to India is bad for all Americans. As an American I find the situation disturbing.

I disagree. We have cheaper products because of offshoring, which gives us excess capital to spend on other things. Some of us have greater profits (and while there is a problem with how the cost-savings are distributed, that is attributable to income imbalance in the US, not to offshoring itself). Where do you shop that you never take advantage of cheap offshore labor? How much do you think your consumer goods would cost if they were produced in the US? How much more would you pay for software if it were all developed in the US? What would your standard of living be like if everything you used or consumed were produced with American labor rates? To even think that offshored labor doesn't benefit anyone in the US is just laughable.

Additionally, I think you dismiss my question... are Indians less human than Americans? Is lifting Indians out of abject

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[spiffmastercow]

What... the... hell? Two hours prior to RELEASE, you were BUILDING the product? Wow, you allocated what, an hour, for release testing? Or you just kinda skip that part? You don't freeze your code base months or weeks prior to release? You don't have a revision control system that allows you to roll back a bonehead change? Yes, there certainly is some incompetence at your company, but it's not the Indian.

It was a project for the capstone course at my university, where the point of the course was supposed to teach us to work together. The university just allotted us a simple FTP account instead of giving us an SVN account or something. Yes, I probably should have insisted that we needed real version-control at the time, but we had a system where everyone was supposed to only upload to their own directory, and I would take care of the "release" directory manually. Unfortunately, a couple hours before we were supposed to turn it it, this jackass uploaded over the release directory and screwed everything. We got marked off for not having it working on time. I had the code at home, but that did me no good while I was at school.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[GNT]

There is a difference between what the law requires and what happens in reality. In reality, they are severely, and routinely, underpaid.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[tsotha]

I agree with what you say as a general rule. However. At my company we've been trying to hire people with a pretty basic skill set (Java with GWT/XWT). We don't do H1-B and we're having real problems filling the slots. So there really does seem to be a shortage in specific areas.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[sowth]

Is this why in the late '90s I'd see tons of job postings for programmers with absurd demands. Things like 'must have 10+ yrs exp with Java for some webmonkey position, even though Java had only been known to the public for about 5 years. As if high level engineers from Sun would be applying for simple webmonkey positions.

H1Bs are responsible for fake employment ads? For this alone, we should make H1Bs so illegal any congressmen or CEO even talking about them gives the death penalty. Fuck that.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Qzukk]

I think the problem is that nobody has seen truly free movement of labor for centuries.

With free movement of labor, most of those Americans who are whining about losing their jobs could take what they've got and move to a cheaper country where they could find new jobs (perhaps even the job they lost) and as an added bonus they could live like kings for a while off of their saved wealth (or if they were smart, continue to save it so that they could retire like kings).

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[sowth]

I don't think so. About 20 years ago, I noticed many companies started putting out shoddy products not only for low price items, but for the medium and high priced items as well. If you do the research, you can find out which brands have the highest quality (sometimes the one with lowest price!), but you can't tell by price anymore.

Since almost everyone here tries assume higher price supposedly means higher quality, their expectations are broken, so they figure they may as well just buy the cheapest one. It is lazy most of them don't do any research, but it doesn't mean they want low quality crap.

Then again, I think some of them don't understand what quality is. For example, if something breaks with little force or under regular use, they say you didn't take care of it. Or if something is really buggy and glitches alot, they insist it is normal behavior. Perhaps this is because of Microsoft brainwashing? ;-)

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[sjames]

There IS something wrong with it. If we force U.S. citizens to move to another country where rent, food, etc are cheaper so they can afford to accept a crappy salary, we turn the U.S. into nothing more than a dreary business park.

Currently tech workers are not at all good at organizing, but consider that the entire country would be wiped out overnight if it's techs just flipped all the switches off and went home (perhaps to Mexico).

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[drsmithy]

I think the problem is that nobody has seen truly free movement of labor for centuries.

Say what ? There's never been a time in history when the workforce was more mobile than it is today. You can fly to the other side of the world in a day for a few week's average wage. People routinely live and work in places that would have, until relatively recently, taken *a day or more* to travel between.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[pclminion]

Sounds like you learned several important lessons about development, none of which was "Indian programmers will screw you." It sounds harsh because it is, but that particular chain of events was completely foreseeable.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[spiffmastercow]

Indeed. I learned to use version control, to restrict access to resources, and to not trust that someone understands what you tell him just because he insists that he does understand and that he will follow directions. And I really think you gloss over the stated fact that the guy did not contribute at all to the project except to screw things up. We tried to get him to write the user manual since he couldn't code, but he failed at that too.

The biggest problem with Indian programmers is that they're usually afraid to admit when they don't know or understand something. This becomes even more of a problem when language barriers get in the way. The second biggest problem is the rampant academic fraud, and the result that you have guys who claim to have an MS in computer science, but don't understand what the floor function is (this happened with another Indian programmer I worked with).

The point is that companies need to learn that being a developer requires skill and talent, not just a certain nationality and a willingness to work for peanuts. I don't mind Indian programmers, as long as they're good at their job. Also, for the record, I have even less patience for shitty American programmers, because they don't have the language barrier as an excuse.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[shutdown -p now]

Free movement of labor... when you're dealing with two economies where the standard of living is almost an order of magnitude different... means both economies eventually settle somewhere in the middle. That's bad for at least one of the parties.

You forget, though, that in case of H1-Bs there's only a single economy, that of U.S. - they live in U.S., they pay local taxes, they buy local goods at full prices; in long term, they purchase a local house (again, for full price), and pay property tax on it. In your example with Indian programmers, the economy of India isn't involved in any way.

The only reason why H1-B salaries are lower on average is because they are more constrained in their relationship with employer - specifically, they cannot freely change jobs, and if they get laid off for any reason (and remember that there need not be a reason in most U.S. states!), they get a very short period of time (days) in which to find a new job - practically impossible - and then they get kicked out of the country. So they have much less bargaining power when it comes to salaries and other terms of employment. If you change that, then H1-Bs will shop for good job offers just as anyone else in the U.S. job market.

What you describe is a problem with outsourcing - when a person that lives in India is hired to replace a worker in U.S.; then, of course, the cost of living difference between India and U.S. drive the U.S. salaries down. It's a distinct and unrelated problem, though.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[shutdown -p now]

If someone is willing to come over and enjoy the relative safety and benefits of working in the US, would that same person come over and join the US military and defend this country in a time of war? I doubt it even if they could.

As a foreigner, I can answer that question: if I ever become a citizen of another country, of my own free will, that will imply the obligation to defend that country by any means necessary - including, if need be, serving as part of the military of that country in an ongoing conflict. If such obligation is too much of a burden, then citizenship won't be considered in the first place.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[Qzukk]

You can fly to the other side of the world in a day for a few week's average wage.

Sure, but once you're there, you cannot legally get a job. Free movement of people is not the same as free movement of their labor.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[drsmithy]

Sure, but once you're there, you cannot legally get a job.

You will be able to if your skills are in demand.

Free movement of people is not the same as free movement of their labor.

It's a fairly significant part of it, however. Until relatively recently, for most people, the biggest difficulty was getting there. You can't have "free movement of labour" without first having free movement of people.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[u38cg]

Jesus. You can't turn off your gizmo without pressing extra buttons? Stop, everyone. We're going to have to alter the course of civilisation for a problem of this magnitude.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[omnichad]

Did I say I was complaining? I was looking for a quick example. Go have a glass of lemonade or something.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[walterbyrd]

Might also be worth mentioning that India is extremely protectionist about their own jobs. A few months back, Indians were actually rioting in the street about jobs, in India, being given to Chinese guest workers.

India complaining about US protectionism is like Al-Qaeda complaining about there not being enough peace in the world.

Re:H-1B is a Fraud

[GooberToo]

You have some reading skill issues. Re-read what I said. Then comprehend it. Its very clear based on what you wrote, you failed to comprehend what I wrote.

The moderators who rated you accordingly, as usual failed to do their job. Notice below there are others who clearly state I didn't say such ignorant things as you ignorantly put forward. As such, it proves some are capable of reading without putting their own basis into my mouth.

This is a job for WikiLeaks!

[ThreeGigs]

it seeks the identity of the poster of a since-removed Apex employment agreement on Docstoc.com

Seriously, the document in question should have been uploaded to WikiLeaks.
Anyone have a copy or linkage? I can't find it.

Re:This is a job for WikiLeaks!

[omnichad]

Grab it from the Google cache and send it to them yourself?

Re:This is a job for WikiLeaks!

[Anonymous Coward]

related post on itgrunt from google cache ... I would like to take this oppurtunity to highlight several aspect''s of the 9 page legal agreement which might be important for you. For example: 30 day termination notice or forget your last paycheck when you quit, If you join a company (including any level between you and Apex) then pay $35000 or face a law suit, $9000 for legal,training and guest services when you quit. $35000 if you quit in between a contract...etc. The legalities of the agreement are convoluted,complex and can/will be used against you if you displease Apex technology Group Inc. So once you sign that document you are at the mercy of the employer and much worse than a bonded labour in India. Apart from above, employees don''t receive their salary at the end of the month. It is usually received @ a random date in the following month, provided you are lucky. Else you would have to chase HR/Accounting to get your pay check. This process helps Apex technology group inc to hold back pay incase you choose to accept employment at another location. The most important aspect of your transaction''s with Apex Technology Group Inc is that they tell you one thing before you transfer your H1B to their consulting firm and then later do not stick to what they say(aka lies & cheating). In other words once you file/transfer your H1B to them you more or less become their slave and you will get entangled in thier web of lies and legal documents...

Holy indentured servitude Batman!

Re:This is a job for WikiLeaks!

[vrmlguy]

Seriously, the document in question should have been uploaded to WikiLeaks.
Anyone have a copy or linkage? I can't find it.

How hard did you look? Their homepage says this:

To concentrate on raising the funds necessary to keep us alive into 2010, we have very reluctantly suspended all other operations, until Jan 6.

Seems pretty self-explanatory.

Re:This is a job for WikiLeaks!

[michaelwigle]

I can only find the excerpts. The original document seems to be completely gone. A paraphrased commentary does not a source document make. Looks like Apex actually managed to get the document down before they could be replicated endlessly.

Sold justice.

[unity100]

this is what happens in a cutthroat, unregulated capitalist system. rich can buy justice, whereas individuals can buy shit. enjoy.

Re:Sold justice.

[therealkevinkretz]

Are you suggesting they "bought" the judge?

Re:Sold justice.

[MickyTheIdiot]

Not necessary. Just buy the laws. Or let Disney buy the laws.. or whatever.

Re:Sold justice.

[base3]

Probably not, but I can't say I'd be surprised if it came out that they had. It certainly is an overreaching ruling, and (on the face of it, not considering the backlash) quite convenient for the Apex slave shop. We're well on the way to a degree of corruption here that would make an Egyptian customs officer blush.

Re:Sold justice.

[introspekt.i]

Libel is libel, buddy. Get off your high horse.

Re:Sold justice.

[ShatteredArm]

Indeed. To borrow from one Mr. Churchill, it's the worst system there is, except all the others that have been tried.

Seriously, though, the ability to buy justice is not an attribute of free market capitalism, but crony capitalism. Free market capitalism has never been tried.

Re:Sold justice.

[selven]

No, in an unregulated system no one can buy justice. When the rich can do it they're buying regulations.

Re:Sold justice.

[bwcbwc]

In other words, welcome to China.

Re:Sold justice.

[GNT]

NO! This happens in a fascist, regulated, national socialist system where the unproductive parasitical rich abuse the system designed originally to service the value production/value creators that used to have a modestly free market.

Re:Sold justice.

[Archangel Michael]

THE other option is to have a FULLY REGULATED socialist system, where the rich party members can buy justice and individuals cannot even buy shit, because the state/party has regulations.

I'd rather live in a FREE Capitalist system, where I have the opportunity to succeed than a socialistic system where success is punished, and sloth is rewarded.

Yeah, some people don't want others to succeed because they think it is "unfair", so they take it upon themselves to regulate success.

Re:Sold justice.

[raddan]

But the posted contract in question is not purported to be libelous-- Apex claims copyright infringement. This is a completely different matter, and an abuse of both contract and copyright law. If Apex is claiming copyright infringement, they are implicitly saying that the contract is real, and thus not libelous. After all, why would you claim copyright infringement on a lie? Doesn't make any sense.

Re:Sold justice.

[Beezlebub33]

When someone is libeled, there are appropriate legal avenues for them. Shutting down an entire site that contains user posted comments is not one of them. It's a overwhelmingly disproportionate action in response that harms many unrelated people.

I'm looking for a car analogy, but can't find a good one. Someone says something bad about the Ford Mustang, and posts part of their sales contract, and so Ford shuts down Edmunds.com? Does that seem right to you?

Re:Sold justice.

[geekoid]

He wasn't on a high horse, you should be sued for libel.

Re:Sold justice.

[ckaminski]

And it's only libel if it's not true.

Re:Sold justice.

[StuartHankins]

Perhaps your definition of libel is different from my definition of libel, which does not apply under these circumstances.

Re:Sold justice.

[TubeSteak]

Free market capitalism has never been tried.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
"Free market economics is closely associated with laissez-faire economic philosophy, which advocates approximating this condition in the real world by mostly confining government intervention in economic matters to regulating against force and fraud among market participants."

The USA tried something close to a laissez faire marketplace and it failed miserably.
Starting in 1898, there was an explosion of regulation and the breaking up of monopolies.
Free markets did not self-regulate. They polluted, colluded, abused the workforce,
sold unhealthy foods, caused stock/bank crashes and a 101 other things.
The EPA, SEC, FTC, FDA, OSHA, etc are all the direct result of that failed philosophy.

The problem with advocating a "free" market is that it is simply bad public policy to let
a corporation kill 100 people and then settle the matter afterwards through the court.
Ideology rarely succeeds in the real world.

Re:Sold justice.

[ShatteredArm]

The USA tried something close to a laissez faire marketplace and it failed miserably. Starting in 1898, there was an explosion of regulation and the breaking up of monopolies. Free markets did not self-regulate. They polluted, colluded, abused the workforce, sold unhealthy foods, caused stock/bank crashes and a 101 other things. The EPA, SEC, FTC, FDA, OSHA, etc are all the direct result of that failed philosophy.

The "Gilded Age" featured heavy government subsidies for railroads and the opening up of formerly Indian lands on the cheap. This distortion allowed corporations to grow more than they would have in an actual free market. As far as those problems you've mentioned, some have gotten worse, some have improved, and some haven't changed at all due to the new regulations that have been introduced. The choice is one between corporate corruption and government corruption, and I'm not sure government corruption is any safer, considering the government can legally hold a gun to your head.

The problem with advocating a "free" market is that it is simply bad public policy to let a corporation kill 100 people and then settle the matter afterwards through the court. Ideology rarely succeeds in the real world.

The alternative being, of course, to stop people from committing a crime before they've committed it? Maybe we should have a legal system more akin to that in The Minority Report.

I guess I just don't see why you need more regulation to prevent corporations from killing people, when killing is already illegal.

Re:Sold justice.

[GNT]

Except what you write is categorically false. Suggest strongly working through Reisman's Capitalism at www.capitalism.net to get the truth and not the public school propaganda version.

Re:Sold justice.

[sowth]

+1 Insightful

Indeed. When the rich can buy legislation to manipulate enforcement to favor themselves, small businesses can't compete.

Re:Sold justice.

[sowth]

You make it yourself? Sorry, you can't do that. We own all the patents. Expect our liquidators to take all your stuff tomorrow. Good day.

Re:Sold justice.

[unity100]

The "Gilded Age" featured heavy government subsidies for railroads and the opening up of formerly Indian lands on the cheap. This distortion allowed corporations to grow more than they would have in an actual free market. As far as those problems you've mentioned, some have gotten worse, some have improved, and some haven't changed at all due to the new regulations that have been introduced. The choice is one between corporate corruption and government corruption, and I'm not sure government corruption is any safer, considering the government can legally hold a gun to your head.

quit being obsessed with 'government subsidies'. it doesnt matter if the monopoly started with govt subsidy or not. if it wasnt with govt subsidy, it would take longer to establish a monopoly. because govt subsidy was given, it has been faster to achieve monopoly. what matters is, the monopoly state.

it is utter naivete, in fact, plain stupidity to believe that corporations do not grow humongous in free markets.

a 'free market' per se, is just another social interaction type inside the society. and just like any other social interaction which involves multiple people, some group of people band together and become more powerful, bending others to their will. ie, social dynamics do not like chaos, and it creates a hierarchy this way or other out of the unregulated, unruled chaos that is present there.

in an unregulated 'free market', the bigger capital would eventually gulp or destroy smaller ones, or bend them to its will in cartels or price schemes or partnerships, eventually creating a hierarchy.

price of freedom is eternal vigilance. you cant have any freedom in an environment in which equality and freedom is enforced by laws.

I guess I just don't see why you need more regulation to prevent corporations from killing people, when killing is already illegal.

yes killing is illegal. FOR YOU. if a corporation kills 100 people with a product, all that will happen will be an out of court settlement in which each person's life will be given some $1-2 million value and done with. if, YOU mistakenly kill someone, you will end up in jail.

i think now you can see why more regulations are needed.

Re:Sold justice.

[unity100]

your american ignorance about anything outside your country is not rational either.

1 - no speech gets repressed in 'socialist' countries. social democrat countries, instead of which you use the term 'socialist' in america, are the most free places on the face of this planet. which means half of europe. to the extent that, whereas you americans get jailed for years for even possessing marijuana, marijuana is sold legally in the streets of netherlands. its to that extent. 'free speech' is a GIVEN in those countries.

2 - us still has an unregulated capitalist system. the current level of regulations are nowhere near for a pluralistic society to exist. you are practically run by corporations which buy laws through lobby corporations. ALL the laws and regulations are bought thus. you dont have any regulations FOR the benefit of the people.

you are a moron for not knowing enough about what you speak, to the extent that you confuse 'socialist' word with lack of freedom, which is precisely the brainwashing right wing conservatives in your country is trying to do. you are a far bigger moron in believing them and toeing their line.

you probably have enough iq since you are reading slashdot. you should learn about countries other than your own.

Re:Sold justice.

[unity100]

study some history. 'free market' zealotry and belief in greenspan church is precisely why we are in this deep shit currently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market [wikipedia.org]
"Free market economics is closely associated with laissez-faire economic philosophy, which advocates approximating this condition in the real world by mostly confining government intervention in economic matters to regulating against force and fraud among market participants."

The USA tried something close to a laissez faire marketplace and it failed miserably.
Starting in 1898, there was an explosion of regulation and the breaking up of monopolies.
Free markets did not self-regulate. They polluted, colluded, abused the workforce,
sold unhealthy foods, caused stock/bank crashes and a 101 other things.
The EPA, SEC, FTC, FDA, OSHA, etc are all the direct result of that failed philosophy.

 

Re:Sold justice.

[Eli Gottlieb]

This isn't capitalism. It's high-tech corporate neo-feudalism. Welcome to America, bow before your lord.

Re:Sold justice.

[therealkevinkretz]

Oh, I agree 100% about legislative bullshit like Disney paying to extend copyright, or ADM buying ethanol subsidies (or mandates!). Congress (and state legislatures) are out-and-out whores. Of course it happens in the justice system, it's just not as pervasive.

First thoguht on RTFA

[DragonFodder]

fascism
/fæzm/ Spelled Pronunciation [fash-iz-uhm]

–noun
1. (sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly
suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive
nationalism and often racism.

Courtesy of Dictionary.com

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[kevinNCSU]

If you have to bold a specific section of a definition so your readers will gloss over all the other constraints that don't fit then you've probably selected the wrong word for the situation at hand. Also I thought "regimenting industry" means the Government takes over private industry, whereas what you have here is closer to the industry taking control of, or at least influencing the government. Perhaps you should try a second thought and choose a new word? ;)

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[DragonFodder]

hey, if you have a better one (word), I'm open to learning.

This was just my first gut reaction after reading the article. Not saying its right, just was topmost in mind.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[kevinNCSU]

What would you consider middle ground when it comes to harboring and/or supporting terrorists who plan to kill civilians in mass? Your government either allows them to base themselves in your country and protects them because they want them there or they do not want them there, and tries to remove them and asks for help if they are not capable of doing so.

What would you describe as the middle ground?

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[kevinNCSU]

I'd go with censor or censorship. It doesn't have as much of an impact and all the connotations but I believe that in and of itself is one of our biggest problems. One should be feared just as much as the other.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[DragonFodder]

point taken
And after review, I think you're correct in that this is a bigger issue on censorship, than what I had as an initial feeling of it being a fascist move by our government.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[Myopic]

So who is the dictator with complete power, the President or the Governor of NJ?

I mean, really, you make a quaint point, but I hope you intended for the rest of us to roll our eyes at the hyperbole.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[bill_mcgonigle]

Courtesy of Dictionary.com

That's not a good definition of fascism. Mussolini certainly championed fascism before he achieved dictatorial powers. You can have dictatorial fascism but it's not a given.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[SnapShot]

Here's a definition from someone who should know:

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”

- Benito Mussolini

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[kevinNCSU]

It must be so relieving that while there is such an obscene concentration of power that there are only two car companies that matter,

Only two car companies that matter? Which of the "Big Three" is no longer in operation? And when did Nissan, Honda, and Toyota stop operating any plants or selling any cars in the US making them "not matter"?

two phone companies that matter,

Um, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon would be four MAJOR carriers plus all the regional ones. How many wireless companies do you think are going to have the pooled resources capable of providing nation-wide coverage?

two airlines that matter,

So which three of our five major airlines no longer count? US Airway? American Airlines? Delta? Continental? United?

And then we start with the Hitler analogies, great. Yep, 'cause that was the first step in rounding up all the jews and gassing them: Giving them only 4 choices of Major country-wide cellphone networks.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[Artifakt]

I always though people bold parts of a definition because definitions are often complex, and in particular, have conditional parts. The definition you're addressing does have such parts (i.e. "often racism" and arguably ".etc"). You may note that Azaris boldfaced one of the conditional parts, and if you leave off that optional 'racism' part, is making the argument that there's no aggressive nationalism going on around here that could lend support to the definition of fascism being true now. Rather an odd claim to make, isn't that?

        Regimenting industry means what it means. Taken at the most literal, it means something like arranging industries so they fall into neat groupings. I think "for the purposes of the arranger" is pretty much a 'gimmee' there, so if the arranger is the government, it moves a shade towards your 'taking control', but that's not exactly 100% overlap with the variation you propose.

        Would you agree that there are a lot of people who move back and forth from industry boardrooms to government positions, often repeatedly? How do you tell industry taking control of government from government taking control of industry, when it's really the same people acting in the same way as they shift locations? Right now, Dick Cheney is reaping the benefits as a private citizen that began when he was secretary of Defense (if not earlier), were implemented in part while he was a board member of Haliburton up to 2000, and were still being developed during the period he re-entered public office as Veep.

        You might want to study the German and Italian cases, as that's exactly the sort of thing that happened there - highly placed officials either moving back and forth from industry to government or using transparent proxies such as close relatives to control such industries while remaining in government (or vice versa). Don't worry about whether a given regimentation starts in industry or government, look at the people who drive the changes, what they want, and where they are going.

      You know, Eisenhower didn't coin the phrase "Military-Industrial Complex" so people could still demand that it all originate with one side or the other. The whole point is they are blended together too much to know which initiatives start with the official government and which start elsewhere.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[geekoid]

Or they respect the right of others to talk and do what they wan't until it hurts someone else.
That aside, if a country wants to harbor and army with the intent of attacking another country, that's there business all the way up to their border.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[bky1701]

How about having terrorists in your country, that you lack the manpower/equipment to displace, while not wanting foreign armies tromping about your countryside, blowing things up because they felt threatened?

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[kevinNCSU]

That aside, if a country wants to harbor and army with the intent of attacking another country, that's there business all the way up to their border.

And in that case they are clearly against the country that army intends to attack. That seems pretty cut and dry to me.

If your fixing dinner calmly chatting with some guys sitting at your kitchen table as they load their guns guns and get their noose ready to go kill your neighbor it seems to me that your neighbor has every reason to consider you against him and has no reason to respect your property rights when those guys take a step back onto your yard after attacking him.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[kevinNCSU]

Then seems like you'd request help in the form of money, equipment and training like many countries have and are receiving. But if you don't have the ability to do anything about it and aren't interested in any way to solve the problem while standing in the way of solutions then your providing them aid in the form of safe harbor.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[cyber-dragon.net]

We call him a president, not a dictator, it sounds better.

Re:First thoguht on RTFA

[cyber-dragon.net]

Always remember one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson etc were British terrorists and American heros.

Not saying your average terrorist stands up to this test, nor that terrorism is right in any way, but its an extreme example which illustrates how in many of these countries americans ARE the terrorists, even by our own definition, and those who fight us are not.

This being the case, why should they ask for the terrorists help in ridding them of those fighting the terrorists?

Never forget if someone hates you, there is likely a reason. May not be a true one, or a good one, but they always have one.

First amendment

[jbolden]

How is this not clear cut first amendment? A collection of websites expresses a political opinion. A potentially tort-able act, distributing a copyrighted document occurred. That doesn't give the courts the right to issue a blanket cease publication order.

Assuming the Computer World story is correct Judge James Hurley should be removed from the bench. I want to post this here for comment, since I live in NJ and thus have a state Senator that has oversight.

Re:First amendment

[DustyShadow]

Please excuse my ignorance of the case because I have not read all the details or TFA but I did skim it and it sounded like it was just a temporary injunction. This sort of thing is common in civil cases where the plaintiff alleges some type of damage if the "behavior, action, etc." continues during the litigation. A court will issue a temporary or preliminary injunction in the meantime. The plaintiff normally has to show that it is likely to win the lawsuit. Sometimes the plaintiff also has to purchase a bond in the event that it loses and the defendant suffers harm due to the injunction. I highly doubt a bond was required in this case.

I'm not saying the judge's decision was correct. I'm just pointing out that this probably was not a permanent injunction.

Re:First amendment

[noidentity]

Actually, I'd just say it's a property rights issue. It'd be first amendment if the government were trying to silence them, but it seems this is in response to a private company trying to silence them through the courts. Note any less important, just a different issue. Criticism is on private property, isn't false, thus forcing them to take it down is violating their property rights.

Re:First amendment

[MobyDisk]

Yeah, but the injunction was against the entire site, not merely the libelous statements. Would it be fair to shut down all of Slashdot because of one libelous post? Also, if this is a copyright issue, then a DMCA notice is sufficient to have the document removed. No need to take down the entire site.

Re:First amendment

[geminidomino]

Personally, I'm not willing to give the courts (who are, indeed, "the government") a pass on fault because it's in a bullshit civil case. They still agreed to it.

Re:First amendment

[Svartalf]

It's not just First Amendment violations we're talking about here.

The order impacts stuff completely out of his jurisdiction. Unfortunately, for the Judge, he's just issued an order that has National and International ramifications and at least one of the companies in question happens to be based in Scottsdale, Arizona (GoDaddy...).

HOW can a state judge issue such orders? This is actually quite outside of his jurisdiction as best as I can tell.

Re:First amendment

[jbolden]

The judge is the one violating the first amendment here. The court order by itself. The company in this case may have requested the court's assistance but it never should have been granted on first amendment grounds.

Re:First amendment

[jbolden]

Probably the contract is a New Jersey contract. Employment contracts are almost always signed in a particular state.

Re:First amendment

[jbolden]

Well my issue is First Amendment. Courts are not permitted to take illegal action in an injunction. For example they can issue an injunction preventing you from mowing your lawn they can't burn your house down.

And it probably wasn't a permanent injunction, I agree but think that is irrelevant. The judge should still be off the bench.

Re:First amendment

[WCMI92]

The order impacts stuff completely out of his jurisdiction. Unfortunately, for the Judge, he's just issued an order that has National and International ramifications and at least one of the companies in question happens to be based in Scottsdale, Arizona (GoDaddy...).

HOW can a state judge issue such orders? This is actually quite outside of his jurisdiction as best as I can tell.

Clearly, the judge lacks the authority. He can act only with respect to the parties present or within his state at the most, not interstate, nor internationally.

The problem is that we quit saying "no you fucking can't!" to the judiciary at all levels, some decades ago, starting with the Congress copping out on desegregation and making the courts legislate it for them. Their power has only increased unchecked since.

The end result is that judges have become tyrannical, mostly unelected black robed "monarchs" sitting on thousands of thrones, with unchecked nearly absolute power.

Clearly what is going on in this case is fraud, and the state judge is acting (probably in his own interest) to conceal the fraud.

Unfortunately for the judge in this case, it is going to be one hell of a bursting of his bubble to discover the first rule of the Internet: That being that the Internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it automatically. Nothing makes something infamous on the internet faster than capricious attempts to censor, especially when authority is blatantly abused.

As for H1B visas, don't get me started. They shouldn't even EXIST unless our industry is at FULL employment, and should be canceled during a recession. H1B visas exist so that foreign workers can be exploited by American companies who do not wish to pay market prices for labor. And notice there are no H1B visas for CEO's and executives, when I am sure there are Indians who can do those jobs just as good as Americans.

Re:First amendment

[snowgirl]

Actually, the judge does have authority to do this as long as he's not making a prior-restraint action. In this case, the judge has found that the content on the webpages is prima facie defamatory, and needs be taken down until such time as a full look can be made at the content.

It is likely that this action was taken because the websites in question refuse to, or are unable to produce the identities of those individuals making the defamatory comments.

You also seem to lack knowledge about how the judicial system works, because in a Common Law system such as we have in the United States, the significant amount of what is "legal" was established by judges hundreds of years ago, not by any legislative body. That one can sue a company for a dangerous product? Judicial activism. Trials for embezzlement? Judicial activism. In the Common Law system, you're more likely than not to come across a law being based on "judicial activism" than it being original legislation.

If you want a court system where the highest court can only render one page summary conclusions about which legislatively-enacted law applies in this specific instance you'll need to move to France, or another continental European country.

Re:First amendment

[Artifakt]

But if the judge cited copyright law as authority in his ruling, or even just agreed to accept a motion based on copyright arguments, that's simply not within his authority unless he's federal. Copyright law is federal only and the authority cannot be delegated even by act of congress, so sayeth SCOTUS.

Re:First amendment

[Svartalf]

It still doesn't give him credible jurisdiction to issue orders impacting all of the out-of-state defendants.

Moreover, there was no claims of that sort of thing- they claim libel and copyright infringement in the filing, as best as I could tell,

Not quite the venue for this if the defendants are where they're living. I expect a motion to quash based on that alone, along with a motion to remove and remand to the Federal jurisdiction as this mess doesn't belong with the State system at this point.

Re:Reviews of Apex Technology Group Inc.,

[wonkavader]

Excellent link. Apex doesn't score very well. (Read as: "Scores VERY Badly.")

Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

Maybe if we had a president that said he was going to do something he could actually do, this wouldn't be a problem at all. The president's job isn't to create jobs, and I feel bad for all of you that voted for Obama because you thought he was going to change the country into a fully employed working class with free healthcare.

One of the biggest crocks of shit I've heard these holier than thou politicians say repeatedly, is that they are going to use our tax money to create jobs. Jobs that our very own government let our corporations outsource to India, Mexico, and China. I'm not sure that the term outsource fully matches with importing temporary H-1B visa immigrants to take our jobs, but I see it as part of the same problem.

I would really like to see a guy run against Obama in 2012 on the premise of reclaiming our outsourced jobs, canceling all worker visas, banning of outsourcing, banning of multinational corporations, and fighting illegal immigration with the greater enthusiasm than drugs and terrorism.

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist and had extremely limited foreign trade partners. We were certainly better off before our government let our corporations sell us out to cheap 3rd world labor.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[drsquare]

DEY TOOK OUR JERBS!!!

But seriously, you want to turn the USA into an isolated state like North Korea just so you don't have to compete for employment. And you haven't thought it through very well: protectionism works both ways. Cut yourself off from the world, and US companies won't be able to outsource any of their products. They'll have no option but to move their entire operations outside of the US, then you won't have any jobs at all.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Thanshin]

reclaiming our outsourced jobs, canceling all worker visas, banning of outsourcing, banning of multinational corporations, and fighting illegal immigration with the greater enthusiasm than drugs and terrorism.

That would be so fun...

Watching the states committing economic suicide, becoming unable to sell below any other country's prices or being forced to cut its entire workforce's salaries to china ranges.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[MickyTheIdiot]

Executive Management are not going to move overseas. Executive Management are the people (in the U.S. anyway) that are making money off of outsourcing. They are making a killing off of it and they don't want to be Chinese wage slaves anymore than any of us do.

The argument for outsourcing is that it allows everyone over here to do "more important jobs," i.e. Management. The flaw in this argument is that not everyone can be Managers. Some of us aren't cut out for it and there are always going to be those not smart enough for it.

What are you going to do with the doers if all the "menial" work is outsourced? We better be thinking of answers. Some of us can create small businesses, but not everyone.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Anonymous Coward]

, canceling all worker visas, banning of outsourcing, banning of multinational corporations, and fighting illegal immigration with the greater enthusiasm than drugs and terrorism.

Stop being ignorant. We *need* the worlds most talented engineers to come to the US legally, work here and pay taxes. If anything, we probably need stricter hiring practices. If Americans hire crappy engineers, it isn't the engineer who is at fault for trying. Also, If you think you're so better than the Indian H1-B you should have no problem convincing any employer to give you a job. I have never seen a (US citizen) programmer who is proficient unable to get a job. If you're run of the mill average, as I suspect most of these sites' members are, then tough shit.

Btw, I'm pretty sure Linus Torvalds came here on an H1-B Visa ;)

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[lawpoop]

And you haven't thought it through very well: protectionism works both ways. Cut yourself off from the world, and US companies won't be able to outsource any of their products. They'll have no option but to move their entire operations outside of the US, then you won't have any jobs at all.

That's fine. They can sell their products outside of one of the largest markets in the world. Plenty of other companies will be happy to sell products in the American marketplace, employing Americans to produce them.

Globalism is nothing new. It's been going on since the 1500s. Protectionism works very well for countries who want to build themselves up. All of the countries that have become industrial powerhouses -- the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Korea, and now China -- did so by using tarriffs to block imports, and government subsidies to foster national industries. Check out this Thom Hartmann article:

"Yet "free trade" is a guaranteed ticket to the poorhouse for any nation, and the evidence is overwhelming. The concept was introduced, in fact, by Henry VII, as something that England should encourage other countries to do while it maintained protectionism; a process known as the 1485 Tudor Plan that led to the rapid industrialization of England and the deeper impoverishment of its trading "partners."

...But again, at a closer look, the reality is the opposite of what Friedman naively portrays in his book. In fact, Japan subsidized Toyota not only in its development but even after if failed terribly in the American markets in the late 1950's. In addition, early in Toyota's development, Japan kicked out foreign competitors like GM.

Thus, because the Japanese government financed Toyota at a loss (for roughly 20 years), built high tariff and other barriers to competitive imports, and initially subsidized exports, auto manufacturing was able to get a strong foothold and we now think of Japanese exports being synonymous with automobiles.

... For about 200 years, we understood this in the United States. Had the fathers of the United States like Lincoln, Washington, Jackson or Grant applied for IMF loans, they would have been denied: All of them believed in high tariffs and a heavy control of foreign investment, and considered "free trade" to be absurd.

In 1791, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton submitted his Report on the Subject of Manufactures to the US Congress. In it he outlined the need for our government to subsidize new industries and subsequently protect them from the international markets until they become globally competitive.

Additionally, he proposed a roadmap for American industrial development. These steps included protective tariffs on imports, import bans, subsides, export bans on selected materials, and the development of product standards.

It was this policy, followed largely for most of the history of our country with average tariffs through most of the 19th and 20th centuries of around 40 percent, which built our American industry. All three times we radically dropped tariffs - for 3 years in 1857, for nine years in 1913 (just down to 25%), and in 1987 - what followed were economic disasters, particularly for small American manufacturers.

Since Reagan blew out our tariffs in the 1980s (and Clinton kicked the door totally open with GATT, NAFTA, and the WTO), our average tariffs are now around 2-4 percent. And the predictable result has been the hemorrhaging of American manufacturing capacity to those countries that do protect their industries through high import tariffs but allow exports on the cheap -- particularly China and South Korea."

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[orzetto]

It's nice to see how Slashdot's libertarian groupthink does a complete protectionist flipover when it's the IT jobs on the line. This is the competition, stupid! Work harder and shut up.

I would really like to see a guy run against Obama in 2012 on the premise of reclaiming our outsourced jobs, canceling all worker visas, banning of outsourcing, banning of multinational corporations, and fighting illegal immigration with the greater enthusiasm than drugs and terrorism.

And I would like to see which corporation would fund his campaign.

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist [...]

You don't get it, do you? It's not about the people, it's about the money. People with money are better off with illegal people around whom they can hire at slave-like conditions. That brings down the wage level of the entire market. You, sir, count nothing because you don't have enough money, and that is a fault. Don't like it? Move to Canada, hippie.

(This post could contain traces of irony. And nuts.)

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[b0bby]

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist and had extremely limited foreign trade partners. We were certainly better off before our government let our corporations sell us out to cheap 3rd world labor.

If you look at the numbers, that's just not true. For example, the census bureau has per capita money income data here:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/incpertoc.html
Look at the first one - you can see that between 1967 & 2008 per capita money income, adjusted to 2008 dollars, doubled. And the years leading up to 1967 were ones of unprecedented growth in the US. The fact is, the people of the US would be much worse off if we were "mostly isolationist" and limited our trade.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Jaysyn]

History says you are wrong. The US was a protectionist state for a very, very long time with very good results.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Svartalf]

Considering that it was overall cheaper for Dell to slowly move their Customer Support operations to places like Oklahoma City instead of India, there should be a hint in that for all of you that keep spouting this BS line... :D

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

DEY TOOK OUR JERBS!!!

But seriously, you want to turn the USA into an isolated state like North Korea just so you don't have to compete for employment. And you haven't thought it through very well: protectionism works both ways. Cut yourself off from the world, and US companies won't be able to outsource any of their products. They'll have no option but to move their entire operations outside of the US, then you won't have any jobs at all.

If they move their company outside of the US, they might lose all their US customers as a result. I'm not sure if you heard the news, but the US consumes a lot.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[selven]

You do realize that your 200 dollar computers will start costing $800 if you ban outsourcing to China, right? And US exports will fall by about 90% because Canada and Europe will start making their own stuff with Chinese labor? And some of the Chinese workers, no longer "exploited" by multinationals, will go back to 15 hours a day subsistence farming in the hot sun?

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist and had extremely limited foreign trade partners. We were certainly better off before our government let our corporations sell us out to cheap 3rd world labor.

If you look at the numbers, that's just not true. For example, the census bureau has per capita money income data here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/incpertoc.html Look at the first one - you can see that between 1967 & 2008 per capita money income, adjusted to 2008 dollars, doubled. And the years leading up to 1967 were ones of unprecedented growth in the US. The fact is, the people of the US would be much worse off if we were "mostly isolationist" and limited our trade.

Thanks for corroborating my stance that we can sustain growth as isolationists.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

It's nice to see how Slashdot's libertarian groupthink does a complete protectionist flipover when it's the IT jobs on the line. This is the competition, stupid! Work harder and shut up.

I would really like to see a guy run against Obama in 2012 on the premise of reclaiming our outsourced jobs, canceling all worker visas, banning of outsourcing, banning of multinational corporations, and fighting illegal immigration with the greater enthusiasm than drugs and terrorism.

And I would like to see which corporation would fund his campaign.

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist [...]

You don't get it, do you? It's not about the people, it's about the money. People with money are better off with illegal people around whom they can hire at slave-like conditions. That brings down the wage level of the entire market. You, sir, count nothing because you don't have enough money, and that is a fault. Don't like it? Move to Canada, hippie.

(This post could contain traces of irony. And nuts.)

I refuse to align myself with a single political or economic ideology, I am merely commenting on the facts. Every single 1st world citizen that is forced to compete with 3rd world laborers, is disadvantaged from birth. This is entirely the fault of the government. You may be correct that it's about greed and money. I can't argue against that.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

I should add, that is the opposite of how it should be. The reality should be that being born in a 3rd world country should put you at a disadvantage to people like myself, born in a 1st world country.

You, sir, count nothing because you don't have enough money, and that is a fault. Don't like it? Move to Canada, hippie.

I actually do count. Not because I actually have a lot of money (and that is my fault because I work hard and have an eagle eye for opportunity), but because I'm a human being. Just to sink to your level, I'll have to deny being a hippy, and call you a fuck-stick out of principle.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

You do realize that your 200 dollar computers will start costing $800 if you ban outsourcing to China, right? And US exports will fall by about 90% because Canada and Europe will start making their own stuff with Chinese labor? And some of the Chinese workers, no longer "exploited" by multinationals, will go back to 15 hours a day subsistence farming in the hot sun?

Wait what? The US exports something other than food? I can't possibly imagine what that could other than jobs... care to enlighten us?

You fail to fully appreciate the buying power that is the American consumer.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

reclaiming our outsourced jobs, canceling all worker visas, banning of outsourcing, banning of multinational corporations, and fighting illegal immigration with the greater enthusiasm than drugs and terrorism.

That would be so fun...

Watching the states committing economic suicide, becoming unable to sell below any other country's prices or being forced to cut its entire workforce's salaries to china ranges.

Completely unsubstantiated bullshit. You obviously know nothing of the history of the USA's economy and foreign trade policy.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Gerafix]

What? Since when do you have to be smart to be a manager nowadays? Even an "executive" manager? Seriously. Those who can do, those who can't manage.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Jaeph]

Don't put words in the parent's mouth. He said nothing against the buying and selling of goods across state borders. Just the import/export of workers and cracking down on illegal immigrants.

Personally, I'm still a bit unsure where I stand on these issues, but as I continue to see silly responses like yours, I know where I'm leaning.

-Jeff

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[selven]

You fail to fully appreciate the lack of buying power that is the American consumer when everything is suddenly 3 times more expensive.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Myopic]

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist

In what alternate reality was the 1800s better for America than the 1900s? Are you aware of the 1900s being called "The American Century"? Is it warm and sunny inside your imagination?

The fact is, no people of any country have ever been better off with "extremely limited foreign trade partners".

Besides, I don't think even in the 1800s were we "mostly isolationist". We've had aggressive foreign policy since pretty much the beginning.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[drsquare]

That's fine. They can sell their products outside of one of the largest markets in the world. Plenty of other companies will be happy to sell products in the American marketplace, employing Americans to produce them.

Except many industries these days are global. The USA represents around 25% of the global economy. That means, a company would make three times as much money operating outside of the USA than inside it.

Now, let's say you're an investor about to setup a computer chip fabrication facility, why would you spend billions and billions to make a third as much money?

If China could no longer export its products to the US, why would they lend money to the US? They wouldn't, so the US government would collapse, and US standards of living, hit by a double barrel of reduced credit and soaring costs of goods.

Hearkening back to days of protectionism through rose-tinted glasses is deluded. It's 2009, not 1500. What happens to Silicon Valley when the US can no longer export software? You'd lose all your skilled IT jobs in return for unskilled factory jobs. Is that a net benefit?

Then there are all the side effects, such as reduced competition. Can you imagine how bad Detroit's big three would be if they didn't have Toyota and Honda to compete against?

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[frank_adrian314159]

Ha ha. This is what "superior" geeks say to make themselves feel better about their sad lot in life.

But riddle me this, Batman... Who's really the smart one in this relationship? The one who's giving the orders and doing quite well doing so, or the one taking the orders that can be fired on a whim?

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[lawpoop]

Except many industries these days are global. The USA represents around 25% of the global economy. That means, a company would make three times as much money operating outside of the USA than inside it.

Red herring. If the US changed its trade rules, a truly global company would have the choice of adapting to it, or losing 25% of their market. What are they going to choose? The obvious choice is to adapt to the changing demands of the US market. Likewise, a new company would simply do whatever it takes to sell their products in the US market, just like they do in Asia, the EU, etc.

Hearkening back to days of protectionism through rose-tinted glasses is deluded. It's 2009, not 1500.

The fact that some number of years have ticked away is not evidence that the nature of production and economy has fundamentally changed in 30 years. It reminds me what I heard about the financial markets since the 1990s -- we're in a new era of history, where the business cycle doesn't matter anymore; there's only going to be progress and growth. The need to regulate banks hasn't changed since the 1890s or 1930s; neither has the nature of nations and economies. The only thing that's changed is the zeitgeist of the day.

Can you imagine how bad Detroit's big three would be if they didn't have Toyota and Honda to compete against?

This is some kind of logical fallacy, but I don't know which one. When we have a globalized economy, where will competition come from? Other planets? In other words, the big three were already competing against each other. We had imports from Europe, too. If competition didn't work in a unified American market, why would it work in a unified world market? So let's say we have a global economy, and some 20 or so car companies are all competing with each other, and they all get lazy and arrogant and start making crappy cars ala Detroit. How do you break this cycle? Where does the Japan come from then? This almost seems like an argument *against* globalization.

That Honda and Toyota out-competed them is not because of competition -- the big three were already competing against each other -- its because Honda and Toyota were good companies. An American car company could have started producing good cars. There wasn't anybody preventing a new company from starting up. The Japanese companies competed against them in spite of tariffs in the beginning, so an American start up would have been ahead from the get-go.

Did the big three get subsidies and bailouts from the American government? They did -- just has Japanese auto makers got support from the Japanese government.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[geekoid]

haha. Very short sighted.

Guess what you can protect your labor pool AND be a global player. See India.

In fact, protecting the labor pool is the only way to maintain a tax base to pay for there services and civilization people enjoy so much. Other wise we will spiral down until the country is like India.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Beezlebub33]

I didn't know what the answer to the question is: what does the US export? Fortunately, the US has a (relatively) open government and the data is available. It's interesting to see how the data breaks down, though it is in part confusing. For example, we export more than twice as many vehicles to Saudi Arabia than to the UK, but then we export twice as many parts to UK than Saudi Arabia.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Domini]

As far as I was aware the democrats/Obama administration were more against visa holders than the republican opposition.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

You fail to fully appreciate the lack of buying power that is the American consumer when everything is suddenly 3 times more expensive.

You fail to fully appreciate the lack of buying power that is the unemployed American worker.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

mod parent interesting

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist

In what alternate reality was the 1800s better for America than the 1900s? Are you aware of the 1900s being called "The American Century"? Is it warm and sunny inside your imagination?

The fact is, no people of any country have ever been better off with "extremely limited foreign trade partners".

Besides, I don't think even in the 1800s were we "mostly isolationist". We've had aggressive foreign policy since pretty much the beginning.

No, we were very isolationist until a few years after the end of World War 2.

Also, I can think of a few indigenous peoples that were better off as isolationists with very limited foreign trade...

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[YojimboJango]

Do you not understand the basics of how this works? We would setup restrictions on imports. Not exports. 90% of your argument falls apart at that little fact.

The automotive competition part is the only part of your argument that still kinda makes sense, but in the real world it's Mexican labor putting together the Big 3 automobiles vs Americans putting together Toyotas. I live in Michigan and there's a huge Toyota plant 15 minutes away from me. 95% of the GM work force (on the west side of the state at least) is white collar managment or d. So technically if we put up restrictions on imports GM would be the ones paying all the tariffs, while Toyota would get a tax break because they're actually employing American labor to build their cars.

In other words, to compete they'd be forced to bring the jobs back to the US. Sure there are other reasons why putting back up restrictions on imports could hurt the economy in the short term, but you've presented none of them.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[t0p]

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist and had extremely limited foreign trade partners. We were certainly better off before our government let our corporations sell us out to cheap 3rd world labor.

If you look at the numbers, that's just not true. For example, the census bureau has per capita money income data here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/incpertoc.html Look at the first one - you can see that between 1967 & 2008 per capita money income, adjusted to 2008 dollars, doubled. And the years leading up to 1967 were ones of unprecedented growth in the US. The fact is, the people of the US would be much worse off if we were "mostly isolationist" and limited our trade.

Thanks for corroborating my stance that we can sustain growth as isolationists.

Duh! That isn't what you said. You claimed that the USA would be better off with more isolationist policies. B0bby demonstrated that you're full of crap. That ain't what I'd call "corroboration". Idiot.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[selven]

It's not as simple as that. People have a fixed amount of money to spend, and if they're suddenly spending an extra $1000/year on cheap consumer goods then that's $1000/year that they're not spending on, say, movie theaters, and those workers suffer.

Unless American workers can do the same work as Chinese workers for the same or lower wages, that means that Americans are not as efficient in that sector and should redirect their efforts to what they're good at. This is called free trade, and is an essential part of an efficient global economy.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[StuartHankins]

It's already happening in many ways, for instance most products are assembled / fabricated in Mexico or China, where the same laws to protect workers are not present. We're in a race to the bottom. In our current situation, some person somewhere willing to work for practically nothing, under harsh conditions, is competing with American workers. Since the US is not a third world country, our standard of living means we pay more for it.

Since we can't magically settle on a reduction in salaries unless we also magically have a reduction in our cost of living, American workers are getting hit from all sides. We will continue to have massive layoffs while our workers remain unemployed, and then the supporting businesses die. I've seen quite a bit of that in South Florida, as the restaurants / bars / construction companies have all been severely affected by the recession and housing crises. Immigrant workers (many of which are here illegally) take the manual labor jobs because they will work for almost nothing; they will gladly live in houses you wouldn't sit down in. If you're not paying cash for your gardener, the person who lays your tile or hangs your drywall, or the person picking your fruit, you're in the minority. I've lived here most of my life and the underground / illegal alien workforce is HUGE here.

But back to our race to the bottom. What's the first wave, the first sign? Recent high school graduates can't find jobs of any kind -- it's not like it used to be. No one is hiring. Something like 800 people applied for 7 county jobs recently. When local businesses close because consumers aren't buying their goods, the people who own those businesses can't buy things either.

You know, now that you bring it up, perhaps it would be better to isolate ourselves while the rest of the world catches up. We have enough people here and enough companies. We're one of the largest markets in the world. It could probably be done.

In the meantime, let's begin imposing taxes to every US company with holdings in some offshore bank -- fight their attempts to evade U.S. taxes. That's happening more and more, and when US banks don't have money in deposits, they don't have money to lend, which hurts our businesses. Which hurts our people.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[StuartHankins]

I've had many more managers in total than I've had jobs (perhaps double the number). Although certainly this isn't true for everyone.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Myopic]

Whoa. You just blew my mind by suggesting that we were isolationists during WW2. All I can say is that you and I clearly have different notions isolationism, since yours somehow includes "the hugest mobilization of a military to fight in a foreign war in the history of the world".

There is no reason for us to continue this discussion, since there is no way you will convince me that we were isolationist during WW2. Good luck with your theory.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

The fact is, the people of the US were better off when we were mostly isolationist and had extremely limited foreign trade partners. We were certainly better off before our government let our corporations sell us out to cheap 3rd world labor.

If you look at the numbers, that's just not true. For example, the census bureau has per capita money income data here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/incpertoc.html Look at the first one - you can see that between 1967 & 2008 per capita money income, adjusted to 2008 dollars, doubled. And the years leading up to 1967 were ones of unprecedented growth in the US. The fact is, the people of the US would be much worse off if we were "mostly isolationist" and limited our trade.

Thanks for corroborating my stance that we can sustain growth as isolationists.

Duh! That isn't what you said. You claimed that the USA would be better off with more isolationist policies. B0bby demonstrated that you're full of crap. That ain't what I'd call "corroboration". Idiot.

Which part of unprecedented growth doesn't corroborate that?

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

Whoa. You just blew my mind by suggesting that we were isolationists during WW2. All I can say is that you and I clearly have different notions isolationism, since yours somehow includes "the hugest mobilization of a military to fight in a foreign war in the history of the world".

There is no reason for us to continue this discussion, since there is no way you will convince me that we were isolationist during WW2. Good luck with your theory.

Just goes to show how much you obviously don't know about World War 2, or the US's foreign trade policy. The fact is, WW2 spurned us to open up and acquire more trade partners. Good luck being ignorant of the facts.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

It's not as simple as that. People have a fixed amount of money to spend, and if they're suddenly spending an extra $1000/year on cheap consumer goods then that's $1000/year that they're not spending on, say, movie theaters, and those workers suffer.

Unless American workers can do the same work as Chinese workers for the same or lower wages, that means that Americans are not as efficient in that sector and should redirect their efforts to what they're good at. This is called free trade, and is an essential part of an efficient global economy.

I think that a surplus of income amongst the currently unemployed would offset your theoretical rise in the price of consumer goods.

I think a higher cost of goods is an acceptable side effect of everyone having a job, and things being made in America. The problem with your theory is that you forget about competition. Things might become more expensive, but someone else will always be able to do it for less. Even if it's all made in the US by citizens of the US.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[selven]

I don't think our unemployed workers have the capacity to make up for what China is producing for us now. With the current (highly abnormal) 10% unemployment rate, we have about 15 million unemployed people. Paying them minimum wage gives $150 million an hour, multiply that by 2000 hours/year gives $225 billion per year. So if all the unemployed workers were somehow marshalled to the job, we'll still have 30% less than the $338 billion annual imports from China. And that's just labor cost. To match demand, we'll have to cannibalize our other industries.

There are other benefits to having trade with China. It discourages conflict and encourages better political relations. It allows Chinese workers to lead a better life and ultimately those efforts will pay back to the rest of the world.

I think patriotism and a bit of extra unemployment is a pretty small cost to pay for all this.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[fm6]

I think a higher cost of goods is an acceptable side effect of everyone having a job, and things being made in America.

Basically, you're advocating that we protect U.S. jobs by locking out foreign competition. That's been tried, and the results were not pleasant.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Eli Gottlieb]

The USA represents around 25% of the global economy.

Yes, that's right: 25% of the market in one country with either one or a handful (California, New York, Delaware, etc. being special cases) of regulations on each industry. In contrast, nobody can treat "outside the United States" as one market; it consists of more than a hundred separate legal domains -- the vast majority of which have their own rule-sets for doing business and therefore impose the expense of creating separate operations that fit those rule-sets. Where will a company find 25% of the world's economy in one market with one set of rules outside of the USA?

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[Eli Gottlieb]

Bigger problem with the "everyone turns into managers" theory: any given organization only requires and can only sustainably support so many managers per productive workers. After a certain number of managers, consultants, and other corporate middlemen adding another just means adding a parasite.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[NormalVisual]

Unless American workers can do the same work as Chinese workers for the same or lower wages, that means that Americans are not as efficient in that sector

Absolute, unadulterated bullshit. What it really means is that living in a first-world country with worker and environmental protections costs more than slave labor.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

I think a higher cost of goods is an acceptable side effect of everyone having a job, and things being made in America.

Basically, you're advocating that we protect U.S. jobs by locking out foreign competition. That's been tried, and the results were not pleasant.

Not at all. I'm advocating that we stop forcing 1st world US citizens to compete with 3rd world citizens. There are only two ways that is fair is to reduce the 1st world country into a 3rd world country. Now, that would probably have the benefit of stopping illegal immigration dead in it's tracks, but it would also take society backwards a few steps, and I'm against that. The other way is to raise the 3rd world country to a 1st world status. That would progress, and I am all for that.

The problem there is, it shouldn't be my problem. Corporate greed has made it my problem by forcing me to compete with 3rd world citizens, and that is my main point. It's a situation that doesn't need to exist, but is being forced upon us to make .01% of us rich beyond rich, while making 99.99% of us poor beyond poor.

If I wanted to live in a 3rd world country I would move to one, so please stop trying to turn my 1st world country into one.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

I don't think our unemployed workers have the capacity to make up for what China is producing for us now. With the current (highly abnormal) 10% unemployment rate, we have about 15 million unemployed people. Paying them minimum wage gives $150 million an hour, multiply that by 2000 hours/year gives $225 billion per year. So if all the unemployed workers were somehow marshalled to the job, we'll still have 30% less than the $338 billion annual imports from China. And that's just labor cost. To match demand, we'll have to cannibalize our other industries.

There are other benefits to having trade with China. It discourages conflict and encourages better political relations. It allows Chinese workers to lead a better life and ultimately those efforts will pay back to the rest of the world.

I think patriotism and a bit of extra unemployment is a pretty small cost to pay for all this.

As I am not a citizen of China I have no concern for China's domestic or foreign policy, let alone economic policy. China produces a lot for the US. I'm not sure if you understand that once the demand is gone, the supply will increase and the cost will decrease. China needs the US more than the US needs China from that perspective.

If a people do not collectively have the will to demand better human rights for themselves, they do not deserve them. I know that sounds extremely callous, but I honestly believe that if you don't demand better human rights for yourself that you shouldn't have them to begin with.

My rights were paid for with the blood of patriots and tyrants. I fully appreciate that fact, and I find people that don't appreciate that are a disgrace.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[b0bby]

I wouldn't call the post-war years "isolationist" by any stretch.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[fm6]

I'm advocating that we stop forcing 1st world US citizens to compete with 3rd world citizens.

How?

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

I'm advocating that we stop forcing 1st world US citizens to compete with 3rd world citizens.

How?

First by reversing all the legal decisions that allowed the rich CxO's to put us in competition with them in the first place. Then enacting new laws that prevent outsourcing to 3rd world countries where the cost of living is often times orders of magnitude less than in 1st world countries. Then allowing US citizens to reclaim the former outsourced positions.

Would it be hard? I'm sure it would be. It would also be a lot easier than 2nd US Civil War; caused by the deliberate destruction of the US American working middle class at the hands of the .01% greedy corporatists. It would certainly save us from the path of destruction we are on, which is shaping the US backward into a 3rd world country.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[fm6]

Sigh. Like advocates of protective tariffs, you forget that the U.S. economy is part of a larger global economy. You would force U.S. producers to use higher-paid U.S. workers, meaning that American goods would be priced out of the marketplace. Not even American consumers world buy them.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

Sigh. Like advocates of protective tariffs, you forget that the U.S. economy is part of a larger global economy. You would force U.S. producers to use higher-paid U.S. workers, meaning that American goods would be priced out of the marketplace. Not even American consumers world buy them.

You make it a point to conveniently forget that this is how things once were, and everyone was better off for it. You also pretend as if competition would somehow not exist between American goods producers. You've brought yourself to an irrational conclusion based on the facts at hand.

Suppose we do nothing, and let the American middle class be destroyed. Once that happens the US will drop from 1st world status, definitely to 2nd world, and imho probably to 3rd world.

Please explain to me again why it's a good idea to cause 1st world nations to compete with 3rd world nations. Please explain to me again why it's the 1st world nations' responsibility to raise the quality of life in it's 3rd world trade partner nations. The raising of quality of life in 3rd world countries is currently carrying a cost of lowering the quality of life in our 1st world country.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[fm6]

You make it a point to conveniently forget that this is how things once were, and everyone was better off for it.

You honestly believe there was a time when the U.S. didn't trade and compete with the rest of the planet? What's changed is that we have stronger competitors. Fifty years ago, China and India were economic basket cases that couldn't even feed themselves. Now look at them.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

You make it a point to conveniently forget that this is how things once were, and everyone was better off for it.

You honestly believe there was a time when the U.S. didn't trade and compete with the rest of the planet? What's changed is that we have stronger competitors. Fifty years ago, China and India were economic basket cases that couldn't even feed themselves. Now look at them.

Yes there has never been a time when the US didn't trade and compete with the rest of the world. There was however a time when the US had extremely limited foreign trade partners. Perhaps you should read up on the history of this country. Anyone that argues against this fact is delusional.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[fm6]

Save me from my delusions! Tell me when the overseas trade wasn't vital to the U.S. economy!

I'm assuming your argument is based on actual facts. If not, spare me your name calling.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

Save me from my delusions! Tell me when the overseas trade wasn't vital to the U.S. economy!

I'm assuming your argument is based on actual facts. If not, spare me your name calling.

You have generalized my position to add weight to your argument. The nation can be isolationist, and still have foreign trade partners. Such as the US before the years immediately after World War 2. That is a fact. I did not call you a name, I merely stated that I think anyone arguing against facts is delusional.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[fm6]

Characterizing a difference of opinion as a mental disorder is pretty insulting.

Did you look at the links I sent you before? Because they make a case that there was exactly the kind of interdependence I was talking about. (Most economists agree that protectionism helped make the Great Depression as bad as it was.) This goes back to WW I, when American farmers benefited from the sudden drop in agricultural production in Europe. No, further, to the gigantic economic growth of the nation during the 19th century, which simply couldn't home been funded by Americans selling to each other. Hell it goes back to the revolution, which was, in part, about British attempts to prevent American manufacturers from competing with British ones.

Mind you, my opinion of corporate America is not much better than yours. But you can't simply order them to move all those jobs back. Even if you could make such an order stick, the economic cost would be nasty. The idea that it would just make prices a little higher would get you an F in any econ class.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

Characterizing a difference of opinion as a mental disorder is pretty insulting.

Did you look at the links I sent you before? Because they make a case that there was exactly the kind of interdependence I was talking about. (Most economists agree that protectionism helped make the Great Depression as bad as it was.) This goes back to WW I, when American farmers benefited from the sudden drop in agricultural production in Europe. No, further, to the gigantic economic growth of the nation during the 19th century, which simply couldn't home been funded by Americans selling to each other. Hell it goes back to the revolution, which was, in part, about British attempts to prevent American manufacturers from competing with British ones.

Mind you, my opinion of corporate America is not much better than yours. But you can't simply order them to move all those jobs back. Even if you could make such an order stick, the economic cost would be nasty. The idea that it would just make prices a little higher would get you an F in any econ class.

If you disagree with facts, you are delusional. There is no difference of opinion. You keep generalizing my argument to mean that we cut off all ties to the world. That's not at all reflective of the facts about the USA's past. We were isolationist before the years immediately after WW2. Yes we had foreign trade. It was EXTREMELY limited compared to what we have going today. Stop trying to beat around that bush. That is a fact. The other big difference between then and now, is that we didn't have massive agreements with 3rd world countries where the cost of living is pennies a day compared in the 1st world.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[fm6]

I don't get your accusations of "generalizations". I've given yon specific facts. You're the one relying on generalities.

Sure we rely on trade more than we used to. That doesn't mean we can just reset the clock and go back to 1955. A lot of things have changed since then. Agriculture is a smaller part of the economy, and much less labor-intensive. Americans are better educated, reducing the number of workers willing to perform manual labor.

And here's the biggie: we used to be the world's biggest exporter of oil. But our oil deposits have depleted even as our dependency on it has skyrocketed. Now we're the biggest importer. How do you propose to pay for that oil without exports?

You want a simple solution to a complicated problem, so you cherry-pick your facts to make it so. And you call me "delusional!"

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

I don't get your accusations of "generalizations". I've given yon specific facts. You're the one relying on generalities.

Sure we rely on trade more than we used to. That doesn't mean we can just reset the clock and go back to 1955. A lot of things have changed since then. Agriculture is a smaller part of the economy, and much less labor-intensive. Americans are better educated, reducing the number of workers willing to perform manual labor.

And here's the biggie: we used to be the world's biggest exporter of oil. But our oil deposits have depleted even as our dependency on it has skyrocketed. Now we're the biggest importer. How do you propose to pay for that oil without exports?

You want a simple solution to a complicated problem, so you cherry-pick your facts to make it so. And you call me "delusional!"

I agree on the labor. I completely disagree on the oil. We stopped using our domestic oil to reduce foreign assets deliberately. really it's a simple problem, with a simple solution. The sooner you admit that 1st world citizens cannot compete with 3rd world citizens, and therefore should not be forced to; the sooner you will realize the solution is simple.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[fm6]

You really think there's enough domestic oil left to sustain our economy? Now that is delusional.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

You really think there's enough domestic oil left to sustain our economy? Now that is delusional.

You really think we were going to use up all of our domestic oil supplies before depleting those of our competition? That is clearly delusional.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[fm6]

Dude, your arguments are getting weirder and weirder. It's not at all clear what your argument is here.

I went back and looked at the thread, including the older posts from before I butted. Basically, you keep accusing everybody of being misinformed, simply because they conflict with what you "know." But you refuse to look at any evidence that your own assumptions are wrong and you never present any evidence that they're right.

So you'll forgive me if I start ignoring somebody who treats "I know I'm right" as an absolute, undeniable truth.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

Dude, your arguments are getting weirder and weirder. It's not at all clear what your argument is here.

I went back and looked at the thread, including the older posts from before I butted. Basically, you keep accusing everybody of being misinformed, simply because they conflict with what you "know." But you refuse to look at any evidence that your own assumptions are wrong and you never present any evidence that they're right.

So you'll forgive me if I start ignoring somebody who treats "I know I'm right" as an absolute, undeniable truth.

Is it my fault you are the one making false statements about my country's past? No, it's your fault. The only thing weird I see here is how you warped this into a debate about oil... It really has nothing to do with "I know I'm right", and everything to do with your ideas conflicting with historical truths.

You are severely misinformed if you believe that the US did not sustain growth while being isolationist in its foreign policy before ~1947. Because of that you can't add weight to either side of the "debate" that we tried to have here. Hence why I alluded to your state of delusion.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[fm6]

Dude, you're repeating yourself, and you're just ignoring my argument. Done wasting my time.

Re:Job Reclaimation, not creation.

[ground.zero.612]

Dude, you're repeating yourself, and you're just ignoring my argument. Done wasting my time.

No Yuo!

suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the US needs something akin to a license for software engineers. The barrier to entry in this field is too low.

While I have done very well over the last 23 years in this field, I would not recommend the investment in a CS degree alone to my children. Be an entrepreneur, doctor, plumber, electrician, nuclear engineer as your main profession.

CS is a useful SECONDARY profession because it gives you the tools to support your main endeavor.

Due to globalization the field is too unstable and vulnerable to be a main gig, IMO.

Re:suggestion

[Nadaka]

Plumber-Software engineeer?

Are you telling me it is like a series of tubes?

Re:suggestion

[omnichad]

That's hilarious, but somebody still has to design digital water meters.

Re:suggestion

[Nadaka]

I am aware, they also get paid twice as much, and people can loose their homes or even die if a plumber screws it up.

Re:suggestion

[MickyTheIdiot]

And sometimes bad programming can result in death as well!

Re:suggestion

[Nadaka]

Also aware, I don't think you can get through a legitimate CS degree program without having Therac-25 pounded into your head. The two deaths in that case are few compared to the number of people who are sickened or die from contaminated drinking water.

Re:suggestion

[selven]

The field of good software engineers is alive and well, with a high barrier to entry and people making over $100,000 a year.

Re:suggestion

[Surt]

That meme bugs the heck out of me. The internet IS a series of tubes. Plastic tubes with little metal or glass wires inside.

Make them citizens already.

[tjstork]

H1-B is meant to bring Indians into the USA and have them by the short hairs. I rather think that if an employer wants to bring someone onboard to the USA, they can, and should, without restriction, but, once you work in the USA, and pay taxes for six months, you should be made a citizen already.

Taxation without representation is not fair.

I thought we revolted from GB over that very issue, and it is despicable that we even tolerate this modern form of indentured servitude.

Re:Make them citizens already.

[SteveAstro]

I think, in this context the OP is referring to Great Britain, not George Bush Jr.

Re:Make them citizens already.

[shutdown -p now]

I rather think that if an employer wants to bring someone onboard to the USA, they can, and should, without restriction, but, once you work in the USA, and pay taxes for six months, you should be made a citizen already.

To be honest, the amount of time it takes to become a citizen isn't really a big issue (though it may be worth taking a clue from the more streamlined process with reasonable deadlines as seen in e.g. Canada). It's reasonable to expect some more stringent requirements on amount of time spent in the country doing skilled work, if only to assure proper integration and professional level.

To fix H1-B issues, just make it so that a person on work visa can change jobs freely so long as pay is within a certain margin of the original (to prevent frauds such as hiring by a fictitious IT company, and then "changing" job to janitor next day after arrival), and that does the trick. The only reason why there is a potential for H1-B abuse is because if they leave, get laid off, or fired from their place of work, they get a few days to pack, and that's it.

Taxation is fine so long as person sees the proper benefits of it (as it is, H1-Bs pay all taxes American citizens do, but aren't covered by any public social welfare programs). Once again worth looking at Canada, which does that one right.

Copyright Infringement and Libel

[Adrian Lopez]

They're suing for copyright infringement as well as libel? Please tell me there's something more to the libel allegations than just the posting of the contract. Otherwise, they're either suing for libel over the posting of a legitimate document or suing for copyright infringement over a document they do not own.

Re:Copyright Infringement and Libel

[snowgirl]

They're suing for copyright infringement as well as libel? Please tell me there's something more to the libel allegations than just the posting of the contract. Otherwise, they're either suing for libel over the posting of a legitimate document or suing for copyright infringement over a document they do not own.

Yes, the two are separate claims. First the claim is copyright infringement for releasing a contract of theirs, and second is the libel claim for comments made my anonymous posters at the three relevant websites.

It's likely that since the websites refuse to comply with producing the names of the individual tortfeasors that the court is holding the websites themselves liable for the libel by shutting them down.

Good way to end this BS

[causality]

More than that... What exactly is the site doing that would cause a takedown order for the whole domain? I mean, taking down a confidential company document is one thing... But to just issue an order to remove the domain entirely seems like too much.

But, I'm sure that when the sites come back up, they'll have even more readership.

I agree there was no reason to take down the entire domains. This really seems like it's becoming a standard tactic: put conditions into a legally binding contract, and then cry "copyright violation" when the contract is posted in public to the embarassment of its authors. An employment agreement is generally such a contract.

I propose a change to the law along these lines: your contract may be legally binding and public-domain, or it may be non-binding and copyrightable. You are, after all, asking a government agency (a public servant) such as a court of law to enforce it for you.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jbolden]

Excellent policy. Makes sense, contracts should be public documents in all cases.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[mea37]

It only takes a review of the purpose of copyright to see that the claim of copyright over an employment agreement should be thrown out. Whether the law itself is well-enough written to allow for that is another matter.

OTOH, contracts can and routinely do include clauses to the effect that you cannot disclose the terms of the contract. Whether an employment agreement is a contract at best varies by state, but I'm aware of no reason they couldn't contain confidentiality agreements regardless.

Of course, the protection for that isn't as strong as copyright. And in the end, it doesn't matter; if I know that a company isn't proud of its employment agreement such that they want it kept secret, then I'm thinking twice about subjecting myself to said agreement.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Pharmboy]

Well Mr. Know-nothing, if a contract is illegal, such as promising you will give your first born child, then it *isn't* legally binding. That is why contracts have clauses saying that if one part of the contract is found to be illegal or invalid, it doesn't release the obligations of the existing parts.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[bangin]

Wow that's deep. I can't wait for additional useless and argumentative comments from this AC.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[causality]

So there should be no privacy at all in any kind of legally binding arrangement?

If you want my tax dollars to finance its enforcement, in the form of our court system, then no. There should be no privacy in a contract. At least, any privacy would be in the form of "don't disclose it in the first place" and would not take the form of "now that it's been disclosed, use copyright laws to shut down sites which host it." Not only is the latter position a total failure to understand the nature of the Internet and the Streisand effect, it's also inconsistent with the purpose of copyright.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[dcollins]

"OTOH, contracts can and routinely do include clauses to the effect that you cannot disclose the terms of the contract. Whether an employment agreement is a contract at best varies by state, but I'm aware of no reason they couldn't contain confidentiality agreements regardless."

Great, but of course not binding on any 3rd parties.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Pig Hogger]

contracts should be public documents in all cases.

Well, yes, they are by default. Well, maybe not at the time they are signed, but they become so the very second a dispute regarding them reaches the courts

Re:Good way to end this BS

[stilldead]

I think "by Anonymous Coward" should be changed to "by Giant Peutanany" just to keep things correct.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[divisionbyzero]

Of course, the protection for that isn't as strong as copyright. And in the end, it doesn't matter; if I know that a company isn't proud of its employment agreement such that they want it kept secret, then I'm thinking twice about subjecting myself to said agreement.

I don't agree with any of this nonsense but I just wanted to add that a company may want to keep the terms of the contract confidential because they are good, not just, as in this case, bad.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Artifakt]

Apparently, he is claiming that copyright law should override contract law, and he's willing to urge suicide on people to make his point. Mickey, when somebody proudly announces that all the baby seals should be beaten to death with the bodies of the dead baby polar bears, they are a troll. Please don't feed the trolls.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[causality]

Of course, the protection for that isn't as strong as copyright. And in the end, it doesn't matter; if I know that a company isn't proud of its employment agreement such that they want it kept secret, then I'm thinking twice about subjecting myself to said agreement.

I don't agree with any of this nonsense but I just wanted to add that a company may want to keep the terms of the contract confidential because they are good, not just, as in this case, bad.

That made me curious. Generally the assumption is that if a corporation wants to hide something, it's because that something would make the company look bad.

Can you provide a single hypothetical scenario where an employment contract is fair, reasonable, written in good faith, generous towards the employees, and otherwise reflects well on the company, yet that company would fight this hard to keep it a secret?

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jbolden]

Yeah I can live with that. Certainly no right to privacy.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jbolden]

Not quite sure about that. We have contracts, in particular law suit settlements that quite frequent impose severe penalties for disclosure even to the courts. There are people who have refused to answer questions under oath for fear of violating a settlement like this.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Jarjarthejedi]

Yeah, why would you ever need a legally binding document to be private? I think with EULA's out there we can all agree that legally binding documents shouldn't be private.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Aqualung812]

in particular law suit settlements that quite frequent impose severe penalties for disclosure even to the courts

IANAL, but wouldn't that mean your settlement isn't worth the paper it is printed on? After all, couldn't the person ordered to pay just say "Screw you", since no court can see the ruling to enforce it?

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Maxo-Texas]

You really want expert "X" badly so you pay them $150k AND give them 6 weeks vacation to get them but make it a secret to preserve morale of your other workers (making $90k and getting the usual 2 weeks, then 3 at 5 years) and to prevent other desirable employees from requesting the same treatment.

For example, I had a free week of vacation but wasn't to share that information with other employees.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jbolden]

Good example, EULAs should require prior disclosure.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jbolden]

It is the other way around.

Y does something bad to X
X sues Y
Y agrees to pay X say $1m as part of the lawsuit Y can't comment forever
If X talks then X violated the agreement and Y can sue them for breach of contract. Since quite often the statue of limitations has run out on the original bad act, X could end up deeply underwater.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Rob the Bold]

So there should be no privacy at all in any kind of legally binding arrangement?

Why argue such a ridiculous extreme? Why not say "so all weasels should be strangled?" or something equally unrelated.

As long as both parties wish to keep the agreement private, fine. Else, no. You can't hardly keep it a secret if you want to enforce it when your partner won't fulfill his end, now can you? Gonna take a labor agreement to the NSA Star Chamber Court? Tell 'em it's "National Security"?

Re:Good way to end this BS

[orgelspieler]

Am I missing something? Isn't a contract a blank form for you to sign? If it's a blank form, it's not subject to copyright. If it is deemed not to be a blank form, it would still be possible to publish the information. Fair use may be claimed if the publication of the work is just a small part of a larger critical work. Additionally, a paragraph-by-paragraph recap would still be allowed, as would small direct quotations from the text.

That being said, somebody needs to smack this judge with a clue stick. There's not a single justifiable reason to take down an entire domain, much less three, because of something like this.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Surt]

If they violate the contract, you get to walk away too, which means you may return to pursuing your previously dropped lawsuit, the fear of which is why they decided to settle in the first place.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jimbolauski]

If you want my tax dollars to finance its enforcement, in the form of our court system, then no. There should be no privacy in a contract.

So all medical records of Medicaid/Medicare patients should be public?
How about medical records at hospitals that receive tax exempt status?
What about your mail, should it be made public (I doubt you want everyone knowing about your doll)?
Can your conversations be recorded in a car as long as you’re on a public road?
In all these cases the answer is no just because federal money is used does not mean that privacy is waived, and people have a right to protect that privacy. The copyright enforcement may not hold up since Apex is claiming that comments defamed them, they should be able to claim fair use because the original work was copied with the intent to criticize.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Surt]

You pay an h1b worker generous wages even though there are literally thousands of qualified americans begging for work?

Re:Good way to end this BS

[honkycat]

Technical employees are not usually "fungible" assets. Finding an exceptional candidate is very difficult, and it's quite possible that he/she will be foreign. The best candidate might be an order of magnitude more benefit for the company as a "good enough" candidate. Not every H-1B employee is chosen just to save a buck. We had a few of them at my old workplace and it wasn't to save a buck. There simply weren't "thousands of qualified americans" for those jobs. This is a myth.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Psion]

You may be on to something here, but none of your examples represent a 'contract'. There is no public interest in private medical records or mail, or conversations regardless of public funding, but with a contract between the government and a private corporation, that situation changes. When I was working for the public school system, my salary was a matter of public record and posted on the website that I maintained, because the public had a right to know how their money was spent. Why should this be any different. Further, we aren't discussing matters of personal privacy, but corporate privacy, and when tax money's involved, I see no reason for full disclosure.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Ardaen]

It's hard to hide vacation time. People tend to notice when you aren't there. The culture may be such that no one asks or comments but that doesn't mean there is no damage done.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[MarkvW]

Cases say a blank form can be copyrighted. But the form must still meet the copyright standard to receive copyright protection.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[geekoid]

If everything was public, everyone would realize everyone else is just as weird as they are and we can get over it.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[MarkvW]

Easy. Employment contract implementing a trade secret. Employment contract in anticipation of litigation. Many more good secret contracts.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[evil_aar0n]

Just curious, but couldn't your co-workers figure out from your absence that you get more time off than they do?

Re:Good way to end this BS

[cayenne8]

"It's hard to hide vacation time. People tend to notice when you aren't there. The culture may be such that no one asks or comments but that doesn't mean there is no damage done."

Well, people will notice when you're not there...but, honestly, who keeps up with how often someone is not 'there' over the course of a year?? I know when people are out that day...but, I could not for the life of me, tell you how often over this past year the people in the cubes around me have been out in total time.

I simply don't have the time and don't care enough to try to track what someone else is doing...I'd assume most people were the same way?

I mean, sure...if someone is out 1-2 days a week every week, I'd notice, but noticing someone had 4 vs 2-3 weeks vacation a year, I'd not notice over the course of a year.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jbolden]

X is the one violating and for Y's act the statute of limitations has often passed.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[nacturation]

OTOH, contracts can and routinely do include clauses to the effect that you cannot disclose the terms of the contract.

Which only means that you can't disclose the terms AFTER you sign the contract. If you don't sign, one of the few means of protection available is through enforcement of copyright.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Surt]

There's typically no statute of limitations placed on bringing a civil suit. You're thinking of criminal. And with criminal, there is no out of court settlement allowed, as the action is brought by the state, not by a private party.

In any case, you'd be stupid to accept a slow-release payment. Why give up your suit for something Y can ever withdraw?

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Surt]

I've yet to see it in reality though, and i've met a couple hundred h1bs at this point. For every one, I alone know dozens of programmers who would and could have taken the job if the pay rate had been what you would have to pay to get an American instead of an h1b.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Intron]

How are medical records, mail or private conversations "contracts"? When are taxpayer dollars being used to keep them private?

Re:Good way to end this BS

[WitnessForTheOffense]

Your medical records are not contracts nor is your mail or conversations in a car.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[GasparGMSwordsman]

"OTOH, contracts can and routinely do include clauses to the effect that you cannot disclose the terms of the contract. Whether an employment agreement is a contract at best varies by state, but I'm aware of no reason they couldn't contain confidentiality agreements regardless."

Great, but of course not binding on any 3rd parties.

The value of such clauses also vary greatly state by state. In my home state they cease to have any value a short time after your contract terminates (or so is my understanding). In this regard California has even greater employee protections.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jbolden]

That's just not true. For example here is a list of limitations for personal injury by state. And this isn't a slow release payment situation, this is a situation where the person has been paid in a settlement violates it and is then sued.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Maxo-Texas]

Not really. You start with 10+2 days off and most people take 2-3 days of sick time a year (many take 5-7 days). People are out for jury duty, doctor visits (which don't count as sick time if only a half day).

They also don't track the time off that you share with them (if they are off monday to friday and I'm off thursday and friday, they don't know).
The workers who have been there 5 years get 3 weeks and those there for the next break point get 4 weeks.

As long as you are discrete and don't call attention to the time off, it's not an issue.

I supervise a team of folks and the only time I'm aware of how much time off they have taken is when I review the time off reports or my spreadsheet.

Likewise salary, a free company car, a paid move, certain kinds of free travel, or an agreement that you will go to a cool conference in a nice location that costs $12,000 will be missed. Likewise anything that violates the normal company procedures such as extra pension time credit could be hidden.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Maxo-Texas]

I think you misunderstood. I had 2 weeks plus 1 week. My prior job had 3 weeks and I was more interested in retaining the time off than additional salary. For several years, I was at 4 weeks and then after several reorgs they finally said, "we really think this just meant "3 weeks" and not "+1 week". I didn't sweat it since I had a hard time using all 4 weeks and I get 4 weeks again next year anyway.

That was another reason people can't see your vacation. We've had at least 3 reorgs since i came onboard.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[orangesquid]

Man, I was always trying to figure out why Maxo-Texas's vacation time exhibited characteristics of "funny math" the first year he was there!

Re:Good way to end this BS

[NormalVisual]

Yeah, why would you ever need a legally binding document to be private?

Let's say you're a programmer, and you're hired to write code that implements X algorithm, where said algorithm is a trade secret and is described in an addendum to the contract. Stuff like that happens all the time.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Maxo-Texas]

Or it is a way to reward the person that worked nights and weekends and perhaps paid their own money to become an expert in an obscure fields as opposed to the employees who phoned it in and didn't bother with continuing education. So you have a person with unique skills that can make your company a lot of extra money.

---

I don't have an opinion on things being public. Every company I've ever worked at, it has been a termination offense to discuss them. When people did find out other people's salaries, they tended to be unhappy. Even if the pay was similar since people felt they deserved more than joe-bob since they worked harder, had been their longer, had red hair, or whatever.

Feel free to run your company that way tho. It's a real bitch managing "average" performers who expect above average pay.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Maxo-Texas]

Yes that does suck. And based on our 20x productivity improvements, we should have 20 hour work weeks and 6 weeks vacations. We are screwed and being ripped off.

Not much we can do about it. It used to have other benefits, but we are losing them.

I currently get 22 days holiday. Soon it will be 27 days and that's it for a loooong time. I think in most of europe you get 20 days vacation plus 10 days holidays to start with. It's a sweet deal, especially when combined with good state provided health care and unemployment benefits.

The trade offs are 50%+ tax rates, but my understanding is folks are happy and don't mind that very much. It's more relaxed and less grasping than in the US.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[divisionbyzero]

Yes, this is exactly what I am talking about.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Surt]

That's a list of how long you can sue your insurance for failure to cover, not a private party. Yes, there are some exceptions for specific contractual situations like that, but not on the general case being discussed.

In any case, you've also reversed the settlement violation being discussed from the suee being the violator to the suer.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[GumphMaster]

For example, I had a free week of vacation but wasn't to share that information with other employees.

Surely your colleagues, particularly those who sign your leave applications, can add weeks away and will fairly quickly work out your sweet deal. Further, since they are not party to your confidentiality clauses it will be around the office faster than the flu. Morale will still suffer. Ultimately, trying to hide something that is obviously public will achieve nothing positive.

You are correct though, the confidentiality clauses are not to protect the company from employees it has already signed up: they are already screwed and morale has no direct measure on a balance sheet. These clauses serve to protect the company from the next person they recruit. If the prospective employee doesn't start from a position of knowledge regarding salary and entitlements already being paid then you maximise your chances that they'll undersell themselves.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Maxo-Texas]

It's not that simple. There is a labor glut right now. Right now, unless you have a Nuke, you are not risking just losing a job but financial ruin.

In 3 to 5 more years it gets interesting but it still won't get as nice as europe. Don't get me wrong, I know there are drawbacks there too-- I've read some german students go for loooong periods without a job- just living on welfare with no prospects to succeed. That has to wear at you after a while. But once you finally get a job, you are apparently set.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[divisionbyzero]

Well, yes, the example of additional vacation is fairly conspicuous, but the more relevant issue is salary and stock options or RSUs.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[ottothecow]

It is more along the lines of the difference between non-copyrighted (as in the public domain) and copyrighted works.

Think about things like trade secrets...they are not patented or under copyright (though a specific document describing them might be) but still kept secret. Companies like Coca Cola use trade secrets to protect their recipe because asking for legal protection of the recipe would open it up for others to use...If they patent Coke, they can refuse to license it and have the power of injunctions on their side, but after XX years, anyone can make it for free (thus being the initial intent of the patent system). By keeping it a trade secret, they guarantee that it can be theirs forever but at the cost of not being able to use the courts to prosecute someone who came up with the identical recipe.

I feel like most contracts should fit into this arena...you can keep them secret (many good business reasons to do so) but when one party has decided they have had enough (usually a sign of a bad contract anyways), there isn't much that you can do to them for making it public except maybe breach it yourself.

If you are going to allow people to copyright contracts, I would suggest that the only fair thing to do is grant the copyright to all signees. Even if you personally drafted a contract that I signed with you, it is still something that *WE* are agreeing to...most contracts I have signed usually even have a blank where I have to write my name in the body of the contract...wouldn't that make me an author?

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Qzukk]

where said algorithm is a trade secret and is described in an addendum to the contract

I have never been in a situation where this has happened. The NDA always comes first. Once I've signed the NDA, I can see what I'm working on and then can say yes or no and sign the contract or move on with my life.

If someone gives me a contract with no NDA and I decline to sign it, they have no contractual authority to tell me what to do with the contract. If the contract is so offensive that I decide that not only should I not sign it, but I think I should tell others that I think the company has an offensive contract, then they shouldn't have any recourse other than to fire their lawyers for not thinking about this possibility.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[__aawkdb2598]

If everything was public, everyone would realize everyone else is just as weird as they are and we can get over it.

Except for those very few, very strange individuals who really just don't know...

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Maxo-Texas]

They did not.

Scattered out over a year, 5 extra days isn't much.

Do you track all of your fellow employees time off? Sick Time? Jury Duty? Time away at training and conferences?

I sure don't.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[stygianguest]

I've read some german students go for loooong periods without a job- just living on welfare with no prospects to succeed. That has to wear at you after a while. But once you finally get a job, you are apparently set.

While not completely wrong, your statement does seem to skew things somewhat. People in Germany, and Europe in general are quite spoiled from the American perspective.

Practically all students will be able to find some work right after graduation. However, a job in the area of interest, at a location nearby, and at a good salary will be harder to find. So one would have to accept a less than ideal job, or god forbid, start something on their own.

Since most welfare programs in Europe do not require people to under employ and or take a job far away from home (> 100 km), one can afford to be relatively picky. For single person households, welfare is not that difficult to live off (depends on the rent I suppose).

On the other hand, the stigma of unemployment is no less grave here as it is in the USA. Also the inflexibility of the labor marked is such, that it might be better to wait for a job at the right level of education, than be underemployed. For example, it can be harder to find a job at your level once you've accepted a lower-grade job. As a matter of fact, as a recent graduate myself, I do not know any student that has accepted welfare, even if they could not find a proper job for a few months.

Note that all this is changing. Especially in the last few years before the crisis it was hard to justify the bill of welfare given the large number of vacancies. Maybe the crisis will slow change in the labor market, but I doubt it. People have not been moving to the political left in any case.

As always, industry is changing faster than public policy: I can assure you that practically no one will be able to find lifetime employment in his or her first job. Life-time employment was a luxury of the post-war generation that, even in Europe, has ceased to exist outside government circles.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jbolden]

No I'm not reversing it, this is the point with settlements with non disclosure clauses. As for the dates it was an example of tortable limitations, which the gp had argued don't exist.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jbolden]

Just to make sure you have the original context: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1492406&cid=30583874

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Surt]

Right, but the gps question, the one I was directly answering, was whether your settlement was worth anything if the person ordered to pay could just walk away. Your answer was for whether the other person, the person ordered not to disclose in exchange for the payment, could just walk away.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Surt]

Yes, that comment seems confused.

Y does something bad to X
X sues Y
Y agrees to pay X say $1m as part of the lawsuit Y can't comment forever
If X talks then X violated the agreement and Y can sue them for breach of contract. Since quite often the statue of limitations has run out on the original bad act, X could end up deeply underwater.

In fact in real lawsuits it is always X who can't comment forever. If X talks then Y can sue them for breach of contract, to recover the $1M they paid, and more.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[jbolden]

Exactly. Reread the last line.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Surt]

But the error in the 3rd line renders the last line nonsensical.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[RockDoctor]

You pay an h1b worker generous wages even though there are literally thousands of qualified americans begging for work?

I was trying to remember what a H1b was in America - some sort of 'flu virus, I thought - but thanks for reminding me.
It's badly-organised racism, pandering to the neo-facist majority of the American population. You judge people by where they come from, not by who they are, as a person. Racism.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Surt]

It's more like judging people by the cost of living where they come from. It's classism, not racism.

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Thinboy00]

There's typically no statute of limitations placed on bringing a civil suit.

You sure about that?

Re:Good way to end this BS

[Surt]

Yes, as slashdot is a us-centric site, if you read the us-centric portions of that very page you'll see that I'm correct.

If the same happened in Iran or N. Korea,

[BhaKi]

Western media would have magnified it 10 times and portrayed the country as having a tyrannous dictatorship. Before modding this post, make yourself aware of the extent of success in ongoing propaganda and manipulation.

Re:If the same happened in Iran or N. Korea,

[maxume]

What sort of media do you think Rolling Stone is?

Re:If the same happened in Iran or N. Korea,

[khallow]

I stopped reading Rolling Stone after they called Adam Clayton "uninspired". He's a bassist, damn it, not some aural equivalent of van Gogh who's holding back.

Re:If the same happened in Iran or N. Korea,

[BhaKi]

OK. Try these:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/01/360674.html

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

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

Re:If the same happened in Iran or N. Korea,

[frank_adrian314159]

What sort of media do you think Rolling Stone is?

Actually, although much of its content is entertainment-related, it has some very good articles (read "often as good as other general-interest publications like Harper's, Vanity Fair, etc.") on politics, the economy, etc. Matt Tabibi's work on the economy is very nice and, even if I don't agree with his Libertarian leanings, PJ O'Rourke is always an interesting political read. In short, Rolling Stone stopped being a "counter-culture" icon sometime in the mid-80's (go to Mother Jones, the Utne Reader, and/or High Times for that sort of thing, if you want it) and has re-invented itself as a general interest magazine (whether it wants to admit it or not).

Re:If the same happened in Iran or N. Korea,

[maxume]

So is it not Western Media then? If the "Western Media" was a monolithic propaganda and manipulation machine, there wouldn't be a Rolling Stone article about the manipulation for the other poster to link to.

Re:Reviews of Apex Technology Group Inc.,

[MickyTheIdiot]

Uh, is it gone? Score another one for corptocracy.

Re:Sanjay sucks...

[ThatsLoseNotLoose]

No need to be a jerk, dude. Some of us are on company networks and don't recognize stormfront as a racist site - but our proxies do.

Thanks dickhead.

Streisand Effect HO!

[kenp2002]

Ok so who has the torrent link to the docs!?

If it were me, I'd wait 2 weeks, then

[mandark1967]

I'd tell the court that I called in the order to take the site down to my out-sourced IT Support Center and I am still on hold...

Perhaps

[jav1231]

Perhaps everyone should post the doc on their website. let it go viral.

". . . outstanding reputation . . ."

[base3]

Apex had an outstanding reputation in the information technology field . . .

There, fixed that for you.

Re:copyright? confidential terms?

[mea37]

Don't know why I'm responding to an AC, but ok...

I don't know what you mean trying to distinguish copyright from DMCA. DMCA is a particular batch of revisions to the copyright law. To pursue the matter under DMCA means exactly the same thing in the US as to pursue the matter under copyright.

If you would bother to RTFA, you would see that they are asserting copyright. TFA doesn't say whether they formally issued a DMCA takedown notice (as they would to properly suppress distribution of copyrighted material); my guess is that they did not. A DMCA takedown notice would not have resulted in the entire domain being shut down in any case. That was a separate matter related to the libel assertions.

It appears the copyright assertion is being used as grounds to find the identity of the person who posted the material - as in, "I want to know who did this so I can sue them".

Your comments on trade secrets, and your thoughts on which IP laws would cover contracts, have nothing to do with anything, so I assume you're just using them to try to sound smart in spite of being unable to discern that there is more than one legal issue being discussed in the article.

Let them know what you think

[assertation]

I remember a few months ago some local government tried to require job applicants to turn over their Facebook and other such similar logins. Obscure situation.....until it became the buzz in the blogosphere. The resulting public embarrassment and censure got the local government to scrap that policy.

To that end here is the URL for the contact page of Apex:
http://www.apextgi.com/contactus.php

Let them know what you think.

Anyone have the contact information for the judge or the relevant agency of the NJ state government?

Re:Reviews of Apex Technology Group Inc.,

[lastchance_000]

Nope, just a bad URL. Correct link

Re:Libel?

[Svartalf]

Because they're apparently in a venue that spurious charges are considered.

I mean, if there are any defendants out of state, for something of this nature, you're supposed to take this to the Federal Courts... What's with an NJ court issuing orders of this nature in the first place, hm? I didn't think there was jurisdiction for the Judge in this stuff at this point.

What if it were posted here?

[Greg Hullender]

Would the judge have ordered slashdot shut down just because a single individual posted something copyrighted? Even though it had already been removed? Certainly the complaint (from TFA) that it was also about allegations made on the site against the company and its officers suggests that the same argument could be used here.

I guess the big question is how long it'll take an appeals court to quash this order.

--Greg

Re:What if it were posted here?

[Svartalf]

Probably as soon as it's filed by the Defendants. And they'll probably make a motion to remove and remand to the Federal District Court level as I think there's not a single player in this mess on the defendants' side that's in-state. If so, the State clearly has no jurisdiction and there will be a motion to remove and remand to the Federal level- where the whole shebang would not survive very long as there's clearly not any controversy (and wouldn't have been at the State level if there wasn't a sympathetic Judge for Apex there...).

Re: They're suing to protect...

[ibsteve2u]

They're suing to defend the effort they put into gaining a competitive advantage through concocting a new and unique way of underpaying for labor.

Can you blame them? Think how much effort you put into having rousing good sex, and then expand that to encompass the hundreds of thousands of American IT workers who are screwed by H1B each and every day.

Although that may be an inappropriate analogy, particularly if your partners are both willing and leave the arena happy.

Contract Confidentiality through copyright?!

[HydroPhonic]

Is it even possible for a binding contract to be copyrighted? Is it possible for just one party to proclaim that the other cannot make a copy? Is it possible for one party to thereby prohibit enforcement by the other in court because attempting such requires that numerous copies be made?!

Libel trumps Free Speech

[mdmkolbe]

Libel trumps free speech. If the plaintiff's libel case is proven, then issuing a permanent injunction against the libelous page would be an appropriate resolution (legally speaking). As long as a libelous page is up, it continues to cause harm. These two facts together then justify a temporary injunction for the duration of the case.

At least that is the legal reasoning. I'm not saying I agree with it, but that is the way the law currently stands. For example, in this case the information isn't time critical, but if it were then a temporary injunction could be as bad as a permanent one.

Keep in mind that since the defendants haven't yet been identified they probably don't have any lawyers there to speak for them. Taking down the entire site seems excessive but is probably due to the plaintiff making as broad a claim as possible and the judge not being on the ball enough to limit the scope of the injunction.

Re:Libel trumps Free Speech

[jbolden]

OK that's an interesting point. The problem here is that the claim is copyright violation not libel. That is the plantiff is claiming the information is true not false. AFAIK true information cannot be libelous.

Re:Libel trumps Free Speech

[Culture20]

And what's more, let's take a trip down the slippery slope: if this is allowed, then party X is sure as heck going to post fake libelous remarks on party Y's websites and ask a judge for an immediate injunction to "temporarily" take down their site during an election race. And party Y will do likewise. The judge shouldn't be allowed to do that when the speech is political.

Re:Libel trumps Free Speech

[mdmkolbe]

From the summary: "The judge's order was made in response to a libel lawsuit ..."

It sounds like they are claiming both libel and copyright. Now both are possible at the same time if the libel is in some parts of the page and copyright infringement is in other parts of the page. For example, saying "Disney is evil, they employ child labor to animate their movies such as the The Lion King" and then including a rip of the entire Lion King, would probably be both libel and copyright infringement.

Yes, the truth is an absolute defense against libel, but the trouble is that you need someone there to argue and produce evidence that the statements are true. Normally that is the job of the defense, but right now their identity isn't known so they can't be served and so aren't present. (IIUC part of the motion was to obtain the identity of the defendants.)

Re:Libel trumps Free Speech

[jbolden]

True, but the sites are 3rd parties the injunction at least is against the sites not against the page.

But you're right a page could be both.

Re:Libel trumps Free Speech

[cyber-dragon.net]

I can see an injunction taking the offending page down, that is completely legal and proper. Taking the SITE down is very much pushing even your well thought out argument, and I believe reason to investigate and/or remove this judge.

Judges are given very broad powers and expected to use them judiciously, not in sweeping strokes.

development outsourcing's greatest failings...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are not about the nationality (i.e. Indian, Russian, Argentine) nor the location (their home country or here by grace of H1B) of the programmers, nor even of the level of their abilities. The problem is that in any complex application environment, bringing in an entirely new team to work on significant portions of a project with which they have no history, and in which they have no investment is a recipe for failure.

These sorts of teams are great at coding and testing exactly to specification, but without a real knowledge of how the application is used, it's a practical guarantee that they will be turning out code that will break in real-world use.

Once they've delivered their code and met the pre-defined metrics, they're gone off to another project, and suddenly you've got another dozen iterations of coding and testing to deal with which would not have occurred if the coders were in-house.

In-house implies that they have a relationship which goes back in time--so they have history and knowledge of the application--as well as forward--so they have a commitment that they care about. It's one thing to bring on and lay off occasional coders, but when 90% of a project is handed off to people who neither understand it nor care about it, you're doomed to fail.

Posted anonymously to protect, um, nobody, OK?

Slashdot is Letting Us Down

[MarkvW]

The information provided by the linked pages is sketchy at best. It provides no "news" at all. I'm thinking that the admins just want to post provocative statements that inspire discussion, rather than providing "News for nerds. Stuff that matters."

Now I REALLY feel sorry for Apex's bound labor!

[ibsteve2u]

I went to their about us web page, and the prominent link to their brochure at the bottom of the page makes you very aware that here it is on the verge of 2010, and they haven't updated their brochure since 2007.

Now that is cheap .

Made me wonder if they charge their employees for parking.

My take on this

[PDG]

Sure companies abuse H1B visa programs, and I've seen it first hand. I worked for a firm and aside from a large India based branch office, we had a dozen or so Indian workers in the US office on work visa's. I've see the salary numbers, they made considerably less than their US citizen counterparts. As did the Chinese, Russian, and other slavic imported workers.

While I agree that if someone wishes to work for less, that's fine, but the corporations do need to play by the rule currently in place. Specifically that they are unable to find similar workers in the US do fill the positions.

When my company did a considerable downsize, they let go almost all the US workers, and kept the foreign ones. Most of them were junior and at lower salaries than the ones they let go. So, if they claim they 'cannot' find adequate workers in the US, why did they just lay off a ton and keep the ones on visa?

ITgrunt.com still in Google Cache.

[Animats]

See The Thugs At Apex Technology Group.

There's nothing there which could possibly be a copyright violation of Apex's content. They're quoting from "Tunnel Rat" on "endh1b.com".

"...I would like to take this oppurtunity to highlight several aspect''s of the 9 page legal agreement which might be important for you. For example: 30 day termination notice or forget your last paycheck when you quit, If you join a company (including any level between you and Apex) then pay $35000 or face a law suit, $9000 for legal,training and guest services when you quit. $35000 if you quit in between a contract...etc. The legalities of the agreement are convoluted,complex and can/will be used against you if you displease Apex technology Group Inc. So once you sign that document you are at the mercy of the employer and much worse than a bonded labour in India. Apart from above, employees don''t receive their salary at the end of the month. It is usually received @ a random date in the following month, provided you are lucky. Else you would have to chase HR/Accounting to get your pay check. This process helps Apex technology group inc to hold back pay incase you choose to accept employment at another location. The most important aspect of your transaction''s with Apex Technology Group Inc is that they tell you one thing before you transfer your H1B to their consulting firm and then later do not stick to what they say(aka lies & cheating). In other words once you file/transfer your H1B to them you more or less become their slave and you will get entangled in thier web of lies and legal documents..."

That sounds like a legitimate labor complaint. Some of those terms are probably illegal under U.S. labor law. See, for example, California law on prompt payment of wages.

Re:ITgrunt.com still in Google Cache.

[geekoid]

True, but sadly complaining means they will cut you and you end up back into the hell hole you came from.

Re:Oursourced work and criticism

[snowgirl]

Since when does some @$$hole NJ judge have a right decide to shutdown a web site that is critical to corporate interest ?

Since the individual websites allowed defamatory comment, and refused to produce any names or identifying information about the individual posters, and likely refused to take down said defamatory material.

No U.S. hosting, now now U.S. registrars either...

[BemoanAndMoan]

This is precisely why I refuse to host my or my client's websites in the U.S., and now I suppose I'll have to dump GoDaddy and move all my domains to a registrar situated in a "real" freedom-honoring nation (red pill: it actually takes more than flag-waving and rhetoric).

Just sayin'...

.......

Freedom is in the eye of the upholder.

Re:Sanjay sucks...

[thetoadwarrior]

It might be best to do you job rather than playing on the internet if you're not aware of a major racist website like http://www.stormfront.org./

Re:Sanjay sucks...

[thetoadwarrior]

Even if you somehow never heard of http://www.stormfront.org/ the mere fact the guy is implying the guest worker site is racist and his link sounds military-like, there's a good chance it's a place for nazi dickheads so it's probably best not to click on it at work.

Can't copyright a contract. Can copyright a form.

[MarkvW]

A contract is a shared "understanding" between people. You cannot copyright an understanding.

Copyright law is not a tool to protect ideas. For example, if I come up with a note for note, sound for sound duplicate of Britney Spears' latest masterpiece--without ever having been previously exposed to any of Britney's work--then my act of creation does not violate the copyright laws.

An intangible agreement itself is not copyrightable because it is merely a common thought shared in two minds. No "work" has been produced that could violate a copyright.

You can attempt to copyright a contract form. Contract form printers (in the 'old' days) would litigate over whether one form printer wrongfully copied another's form. A big problem in those kind of lawsuits was establishing originality. It is a rare contract that is executed entirely from scratch. A good lawyer takes language that has worked in the past and adapts that language to his present purposes. Using untried language is usually an unwarranted gamble. If Apex did create an "original" contract form, then that form could be copyrightable. There is is insufficient information provided on this point.

There are also "fair use" questions that come up when someone copies a copyrighted document for the purpose of debating the terms of the "understanding" and not for reuse of the form for commercial purposes.

Privacy

[bobbuck]

Legally binding agreements should be public if they expect the public to enforce them.

"Your honor, he cheated me!"
"What did he do?"
"I can't tell you! It's a secret!"

That's not to say that they can't require other information to be kept confidential.

You are doing it wrong...

[jameskojiro]

Why did the post the file on their site, why not make an anonymous Photo bucket/flickr or other photo hosting account and link the document to that site.

Can they shut them down for linking to a document on another site that has been uploaded by anonymous?

It would be a harder case to prosecute.

Apparently for a group of ITgrunt they lack common knowledge on HOW and WHY the internet works the way it does.

Don't host controversial source documents directly on your site, it is only asking for trouble,. Instead create and dummy account somewhere and host it there. Problemo solved.

guestworkerfraud.com seems a tad racist

[MagikSlinger]

Now it's becoming clear what globalization is really all about - it's about stealing from the productive countries and giving the theft to the lazy, stupid, and unproductive ones such as - oh, say Venezuela.

Kind of a sweeping generalization of Venezuela. There were other items like that on the site. It reminds me of the nativist movement. On the other hand, Apex's over-reaction created a perfect Streisand Effect.

Re:guestworkerfraud.com seems a tad racist

[t0p]

"A tad racist"? Yeah, that's one way of putting it. Another would be that the owner of guestworkerfraud.com is using the recession and the attendant fear of unemployment to stir up racist hatred against Indians. Take for instance the current top item, "Christmas airline bomber got on plane with help from an Indian national". Why cover this story on a website apparently dedicated to criticize the US guest worker scheme? The only thing that links this item to others on the site is that it's blaming an Indian for something. I think it might be total fabrication too: I haven't seen anything elsewhere about an Indian helping the bomber; is it really credible that this anti-Indian poster happened to be there when one of the hated Indians helped a terrorist? Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that the site's racism somehow justifies the censorship. I'm just saying that the site is run by a racist, for racist purposes. And anyway, as far as I can tell the site hasn't been taken down. At 1930 GMT the site was still up.

Re:guestworkerfraud.com seems a tad racist

[MagikSlinger]

My favorite was this one: http://guestworkerfraud.com/2009/12/sikh-youth-brutally-assaulted-in-us.html Good grief! It isn't even crypto racism.

An Obvious Truth

[icbkr]

After reading the above, I know a lot of good South East Asian programmers, many Indian, and I know a bunch that really suck. This is not a generalization, it is an observation. I also know a whole lot of WASP programmers that rock, and a whole lot that SUCK ASS. There is no doubt that there are companies that scam the H1-B system and that it affects programmers already in the US, but it affects the formerly H1-B programmers as well, so if we're to get some really good insight into this, how many citizens, formerly H1-B, are pissed off about the corruption in the system? And if you can figure a way to stem the corruption, by all means, be about it. More griping on here isn't helping. Write your congress and senate. Organize. Join your local AITP or whatever and do something.

Re:It is time to end the H1B program for good

[mochan_s]

it is bad enough competing with them there without them being here.

You want the government to reduce competition for you? What else? You want the government to buy you a Cadillac also?

History of crappy adjudication

[orgelspieler]

Back in 2000, he tied for fifth worst family judge in New Jersey. Good to see he got a promotion!

I disagree.

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

"Congress shall make no law..." (emphasis added) means the states can make their own laws with regards to everything after that statement.

Re:I disagree.

[Svartalf]

Actually, they're somewhat limited in what they can/can't do by the Fourteenth Ammendment which applies much of the same laws in that selfsame "Congress shall make no law..." to THEM as well.

Re:I disagree.

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

That is completely false and was not interpreted that way until the 1960's when the Supreme Court decided to change the meaning of the constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment was written to give freedmen the rights to enter contracts, sue, and own property. This was done to override the Dred Scott decision.

Senator Blaine introduced what came to be known as the Blaine Amendment to remove the states' rights to control religion. Prior to being a senator Blaine was a representative and would have voted on the fourteenth amendment, so his understanding of the amendment would have been crystal clear, so the very fact that he submitted an additional amendment is very strong evidence against the argument that the Fourteenth Amendment was suppose to change the First.

There were discussions during the creation of the constitution about how a Supreme Court could virtually take over the country by changing the very meaning of the constitution, and that is what has happened on so many issues, particularly pertaining to any power held by the states. I think they got away with the 1960's decisions largely because the states no longer controlled the Senate.

A book I recommend everyone read is The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas Woods. Very factual, no crackpot stuff and lots of references.

rights and wrongs

[OrangeTide]

I don't care at all about the bullshit you just mentioned.
I only care that individuals have the right to criticize the government.

H1B program is indentured servitude. Instead,

[Brian Stretch]

skilled foreign workers should be fast tracked for citizenship. Any nation that makes migrating to the other side of the world look good DESERVES to lose their best and brightest.

The biggest problem is that H1B visa holders are made dependent on the company that hired them. If that company turns out to be yet more proof that Dilbert is non-fiction, they're stuck. They're forced to put up with the abuse or go home. Removing that dependency would eliminate much of the abuse.

Or maybe the biggest problem is that so many Big Businesses appear to be run by shortsighted sociopaths with MBAs. Or that Congress is corrupt as hell and is easily bought by said sociopaths. Or... anyhow, Indians aren't the problem.

apex employment agreement

[roc97007]

I wonder if we can make the apex employment agreement as prolific as the hd-dvd encryption string.

Re:It is time to end the H1B program for good

[OutSourcingIsTreason]

How about the government just keep its fingers out of my salary negotiations by not issuing highly restrictive work visas to people that my boss can then hire for less?

Well well well...

[countertrolling]

Copyright used as a censorship tool.. Gee! Who'd a thunk?

1st Amendment Violation?

[LifesABeach]

Gasp, I RTFA. It appears that Apex Technology Group Inc., has already admitted ownership in sponsoring a type of Fraud, and or Uncompensated Indenturement, their main issue is the public being made aware of it.

security/privacy?

[Fnord666]

If this order stands, it will rob the security every American expects when they post complaints anonymously or express their opinions on-line.

Seriously? Does every American expect that? Do any Americans expect that? Does anyone in the world expect that?

Taxation without Representation

[SPADjocky]

"Taxation without representation is not fair. I thought we revolted from GB over that very issue, and it is despicable that we even tolerate this modern form of indentured servitude." Which is why the US would never tax the citizens of its own capital and deny them a vote in Congress...oh...wait...

Re:Taxation without Representation

[tjstork]

Which is why the US would never tax the citizens of its own capital and deny them a vote in Congress...oh...wait...

I would almost agree with you, but, um, who actually is NOT on welfare in Washington DC? There's not a soul that actually works in that town. IT's the crack capital of the world.

Re:That's really funny.

[dkleinsc]

As a derivative work, I do. However, since I'm neither rich nor a jerk, I'm more than happy to make both versions available under Creative Commons licensing.

Freedom of Speech - NOT!

[gink1]

It seems to me that this is a direct attack on freedom of speech.

Is there some way that the freedom of speech does not apply here?

You hate the government's policy, you post your complaints on a website and then The Government takes down your site because they don't like your speech?

I smell the stink of Police State here and I cannot stand the stench!

So do you suppose now I can look forward to a 3AM visit for posting this? At least I could find out what an American Gulag looks like.

Idiot.

[unity100]

first learn the terms. what you describe is communism. NOT socialism. what you fools in america are being worked up against is socialism, which is termed as 'social democracy' in europe.

it is a system in which no corporation can trump the individual, noone can go buy laws that easily, and the rich are treated as mere citizens.

and, contrary to what you fools in america brainwashed to believe, it not only works, but it works great. where most of your population has been struggling in shit, scandinavian countries, which have been employing social democracy for the last 30 years have been living in a totally out-of-the-world standard of living and culture. its not surprising that you may not know shit about those countries, since most of you americans appear to have been brainwashed to believe 'america is the place to be', and do not even wonder about whats going on out of your borders. serves you right though.

you are not free. you are a mere serf. the rich can buy laws AND justice in your country, and practically rule you behind closed high hill mansions through 'lobbying'. on the other hand of the spectrum, the 'slaves' of the socialist scandinavian countries have been enjoying freedoms and equality up to the point of being able to wait in the assembly stairs for their prime minister and talk with them about their issues, as a SINGLE, ORDINARY CITIZEN, in extreme examples. and one of the biggest social issues in sweden recently have been whether women should be able to go to beaches topless, in which constitutional court decided that women couldnt be forced to wear tops in beaches and pools. not immigrants. not homeless. not any corporation sucking anyone's blood. no war. no drug smuggling. nothing else, but, the issue of women wearing or not wearing tops has made the constitutional court.

all in the meantime you 'free' people in america have been gutting each other in deep shit, whereas 15% of your population owned 80% of the income and wealth, and the rest 85% of your people only were left with 20% of total wealth.

excuse me, but fuck that freedom. if my 'success' is going to happen at the cost of 85% of population living in shitty conditions, fuck that success.

What the Fuck!

[gbutler69]

ARE YOU A FUCKING IMBECILE? Did you even read what he fucking said. He said, "CONTRACT"! Are ANY of the things you mentioned CONTRACT? NO! Now shut the fuck up you fucking retard!

well

[unity100]

capitalism is the recipe of it. back then land was the economic base, and land was being tied to people, creating feudal lords. now, cash is the basis of economy and its fluid. and the stronger ones establish themselves as lords, because there isnt anyone to stand up to them or limit their power. thats why they are always asking for less regulations, less intervention. so that they may live as feudal as they please.