Slashdot Mirror
Google Gives the US Government Access To Gmail
schliz writes "Google condemns the Chinese Government for censoring its results, and Australia for planning to do the same. Meanwhile, its lawyers and security experts have told employees to 'be intentionally vague about whether or not we've given access to end-user accounts,' according to engineer James Tarquin, hinting that Google may be sharing its data with the US government. Perhaps Australia's most hated communications minister, Steven Conroy, could be right in his criticism of Google's privacy record after all."
If China government cant get access to Gmail, what it makes it ok for USA? Especially to those accounts not owned by US citizens.
If China tried to get access to gmail accounts of those who tried to start revolts in China and that wasn't ok, what makes it ok for US government to get access to those who try to start revolts in US (aka terrorists)? After all, USA also has a long track record of killing those it considers its enemies and even civilians and journalists, in addition to detaining people and ignoring their human rights along with sexual abuse and torture. US does exactly the same to it's enemies than China. Like most of Chinese people, US people also deny this or say it's not as bad or try to justify it by saying they're enemies or "terrorists". In the end it's all the same.
I'm migrating from GMail pretty soon, and logging out any time I do a search.
inb4 "You're overreacting" warblgharbl.
Duh? Is this really a surprise for anyone that Google would do so? Really?
that sucks.
So in other words this is the opinion of someone who read an article which quotes someone as saying that he was told to do something suspicious. Good stuff.
Why does the summary say "May Be Sharing" while the Title indicates this has already happened?
I hate to say this doesn't surprise me, but it doesn't :/
Living With a Nerd
Look, it doesn't matter who or where you are. The government has guns, you do not. If they want something, they will get it. What separates, or is supposed to separate, this process in places like the USA, from places like China, is that there is supposed to be accountability for the government that gets that information. This is at the ballot box and also due to separation of branches.
That Bush argued that the executive was allowed to unilaterally search due to a commander in chief doctrine was what really got him in trouble with the left, and, I think on that score the lefties were correct. What's interesting, though, is that the present administration seems to be adopting the same doctrine, but is making the "personality" argument, and really, once you start using personality arguments, rather than supportive of a legal process, you've shredded civil rights. To wit, just because Obama might be a nicer dictator for some people doesn't mean that he is still not a dictator. If it is bad for a President to do something when you voted against him, it is bad for a President to do it when you vote against, and vice versa.
This is my sig.
The article and headline makes it seem like Google is just giving away the keys to the US government everything they have.
But it's clear to me that Goggle "gives" them access insofar as when being served a lawful subpoena or other legal procedure.
This story is so bogus and wrong, Slashdot should be ashamed of themselves.
The big brother government uses twitter to track what you are doing, uses facebook to investigate you and your friends, uses google to try and figure out what you think.
The FBI exists specifically as an intelligence agency to spy on American citizens. So when random people add you as a friend on facebook it could be the beginning of an FBI investigation.
And ignorance of the law wont hold up in court, so if you don't know whats in the 1000+ page healthcare reform bill, or the tens of thousands of pages of new laws which pass each year, you could already be breaking some esoteric law and committing a felony.
And thats all you need to do to get the FBI to investigate you. So you better not talk about anything criminal.
"No facts to see here. Move along" -Obiwan Kenobi
Isn't it a shame that Google, once regarded as a leader in privacy, seems to have gone and sold its soul? "Don't Be Evil" seems to be more and more fluid in its meaning, and suddenly Google is looking like another Microsoft. What happened to "The Good Guys"? I'll be sure to cancel my gmail account very soon, such a shame.
Google has never been leader of privacy. "Don't Be Evil" is PR. Google is a marketing company - to begin with your privacy is gone. Microsoft is at least selling you software and has no reason to violate your privacy. The Good Guys? They developed Google and started making money. And you know, Google is a publicly traded company with shareholders who can tell the company to do anything they like.
N.S.A., or more correctly, their proxies, are intercepting ALL electronic communications.
Yours In Akademgorodok,
Kilgore Trout
I don't know how many times I've been criticized for pointing out that gmail TOS do not include anonymity - the government can just ask and google will roll over on you - it's nice to see others finally "getting it."
If a person is sending email to those suspected of contributing to terror groups then our government needs to be able to study those emails. That does not imply that the government has either the intention or the man power to be studying every trivial bit of email that we send or receive.
Being intentionally vague about whether they share data is not the same thing as "Giving the US Government Access to Gmail"
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The only reason I had been trusting Google was that it had made such a big show of putting up a fight against Department of Justice subpoenas during the Bush administration. If it is confirmed that they quietly caved, then I most definitely will not be purchasing any device running a Google cloud operating system like Chrome OS. And out of sheer, ineffectual spite, I will be be blocking all Google-owned ads.
So when random people add you as a friend on facebook - so the FBI has to resort to selling penis enlargers these days, as thats whats these random people wanna sell me. bring back Fox and Mulder, they would never stand for these Shenanigans
The article fails on numerous levels.
1. It cross-compares two different rights issues: censorship and privacy (specifically contrasting Google's rhetoric against government censorship with their compliance to discovery requests under US law). It isn't necessarily inconsistent to argue against censorship but not worry about privacy.
2. Google's compliance with US legal discovery requests (under PATRIOT and other laws) is used to imply that Google advocates breaching privacy. The fact that Google complies with the law isn't evidence that they agree with the law. Indeed they specifically say (and have demonstrated, as far as I can tell) that they fight discovery requests and only deliver private data when the request is necessary/legitimate.
3. The article is also contrasting governmental policies (censorship, etc.) with policies of a private company (Google). The article states "We have far less power over Google." which is true in some sense (Google is not beholden to democracy directly... though it is controlled through laws and through consumer pressure/choice). But this "we have less power over Google" has to be counter-balanced with "Google has far less power over us". If the government mandates censorship, then every citizen and company is affected. If Google mandates censorship on its own, consumers will flock to other services. The difference is huge, and actions taken by government are far more scary because they are far further reaching.
4. Also, no evidence of Google breaching privacy is actually provided. Certainly no evidence that there is a systemic problem; merely that Google is acknowledging that they will comply with US law.
Really the article is just a weak attempt to set-up some a non-existent conflict between Google's open stance against censorship, and their grudging compliance with US discovery laws that could infringe on privacy. But the argument is laughably weak. I'm not trying to give Google a free pass here... but let's focus on the real issues and not trumped-up hypocrisy charges.
A) Sharing information with the Government is not censoring. These are two different issues, and comparing them isn only used to appeal to emotion.
I am not defending either of them, just stating that they aren't really comparable.
B) They are talking about legal request for information.
itNews is just trying to drum up revenue.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I most definitely don't store my critical data using remote email, despite the temptation, however, I do know colleagues that do. I shall pass this information on.
google=evil, time to move on
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
The difference is due process of law, with oversight and consent of the people, versus totalitarian law.
FTFA:
"We scrutinise each one to ensure that it adheres to both the letter and the spirit of the law before complying, and do our best to notify the subject named in any such requests to give them the opportunity to object."
One can hardly expect Google to do much more than that, beyond hiring their own mercenary army to keep law enforcement out of your free web-hosted email account.
--why?
Last year Google gave a presentation to the government I work for (which is not in the US). They made a big pitch as a sizable part of that presentation to try to convince us to move off Exchange and to the commercial Gmail offering. There's some pretty good reasons why that's a good idea.
Unfortunately, stuff like this kills the idea entirely. There is absolutely no sales pitch that will convince people here that we really want to turn over our government email to the US government. (Hell, with the way things are going now we don't even allow people to take laptops with anything on them across the border, even if they're encrypted.)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Almost sounds like the guy who submitted the "story" works for Microsoft. "Google *may* be sharing data with govt. Time to get super mad at Google!"
Sensationalist stuff like this really pisses me off. CmdrTaco posted the story and sure got some ad impressions as a result. But man, do you really have to sink this low?
And you know, Google is a publicly traded company with shareholders who can tell the company to do anything they like.
You had an intelligent post till right there. Everyone knows that Larry & Sergei have complete voting control over Google until they sell their stock (which granted, will be sooner than later).
There is a war going on for your mind.
Every company in the US is required to give data to the US government when they get served a search warrant if they don't comply they'll just get there servers seized by the FBI/US Marshals. If you want secure email run your own private mail server at home with ssl, and an encrypted hard drive with an emergency electromagnet built in the drive cage. Though if you're that much of a nut case or into that much illegal shit it might be better if you just stopped using the internet its bound help reduce your paranoia.
Not really true, except in the sense that serious non-proftable decisions will be penalized by loss of share-value. The founders set it up so that they couldnt be removed very easily not have their long term goals overriden. I'm not a huge fan of Google's size and power, but they are genuinely decent people I'd say. A little arrogant sometimes, but they mean well is the worst I'd classify it as!
From their IPO document:
"The main effect of this structure is likely to leave our team, especially Sergey and me, with increasingly significant control over the company's decisions and fate, as Google shares change hands. After the IPO, Sergey, Eric and I will control 37.6% of the voting power of Google, and the executive management team and directors as a group will control 61.4% of the voting power. New investors will fully share in Google's long term economic future but will have little ability to influence its strategic decisions through their voting rights"
The title should have read: Google is big and scary because a government might serve a warrant on it!
Yeah, imagine that, a government might serve a f#$%ing warrant or something equivalent on Google in compliance with its legal code, which Google can find out about in advance of moving to the country or leave if it gets too onerous.
What is different here is that the USA PATRIOT Act still works within our legal system; China didn't even bother working within its own legal system. The day that the NSA starts extrajudicially attacking Google for Australian labor emails is the day there is a real comparison...
Have Slashdot stories always been this ridiculous and I just haven't noticed before?
We're keeping it in the family baby! (Muah)
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Sometimes when the government subpoenas an ISP for data on a specific customer, they request that this be done in a way that won't let the customer know. You can imagine the nature of criminal investigations that would call for this. The Google policy discussed here may very be for dealing with those types of cases. It's not logically correct to assume that this means Google is secretly sharing all e-mail data with a government.
Ah, but won't it be funny when technology companies dig into their deep pockets to pay for commercials for their liberal, progressive picks?
Can't you just SEE the red-faced, sputtering, frothing at the mouth right wing yelling "BUT... BUT... THAT'S NOT FAIR!"
I can't wait until election season.
And because Google maintains logs and everything else so long, changes in the future can affect current day too.
2. This article is pure speculation and has no factual basis to indicate Google is giving anyone access to anything. A report worthy of Fox News.
Google has always been a proponent of privacy, and they have gone to near-contempt lengths to prevent people from obtaining their records. I highly doubt for some reason they're just handing that information over now.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Perhaps someone should tell Mr. Winterford that it is actually possible to not use Gmail. In fact, it is possible to not use any Google services at all. Furthermore, he can make that decision on an individual basis: no need to convince a majority of fellow voters to go along with him as he must do in order to change his government.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
So in other words this is the opinion of someone who read an article which quotes someone as saying that he was told to do something suspicious. Good stuff.
Seriously.
This sounds like what you would expect from Glenn "Did X do Y? Why hasn't X denied doing Y?" Beck, not Slashdot. It sound like fun, let me try.
Your Rights Online: Slashdot Sells User Data to the Chinese Government.
An Anonymous Coward writes: Certain American corporations are potentially working with the Chinese Government to sell user data. Slashdot is a Corporation. Slashdot is an American Corporation. This Anonymous Coward takes it on good presumption that, therefore, Slashdot is colluding with the Chinese. Given the evidence that Slashdot has not denied selling user data to the Chinese, these suspicions can be nothing but true.
Journalists: Meet integrity. Integrity, meet journalists.
This probably has been said in more words already, but it needs to be repeated. If you have a problem with Google sharing data to the US government because they are required to by US law, you have a problem with US law, not Google. All other companies that provide the same services in the US must comply with US law as well. (Assuming they are companies that want to remain legal.)
Nobody sends email to my gmail address anyways. Seriously. I don't even have any spam in there currently, I guess I'm just not interesting...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
...fears guns in the hands of its citizens..... should.
Say it ain't so, Taco!
Use PGP or some other encryption method of the content itself. ONLY connect to your mail servers via SSL--no exceptions, ever. Store NOTHING on the local machine, be it your iPhone, your laptop, your desktop. Build your own OS that connects to your mail server and build your own mail client software so that you know there are no possible backdoors. Build your own mail server the same. Routinely re-encrypt your entire remote mail store with the highest end encryption available. Don't store keys with the mail store. Don't save ANY mail logs. If you do, encrypt them just as tightly.
Next, only mail with people that use comparable basic levels of security.
Finally, don't mail anyone.
Dude, where's my packet?
The banks will share information on your accounts if the enforcement agencies request it. Nothing is private that you do electronically. Why would anyone think that the cops can't get at information. Our Australian cops are also provided data from google.
FTFA:
"The Patriot Act introduced by President Bush - which allows US authorities to search telecommunications and email communications to fight the 'war on terror' - was not designed by Google. But complying with it places the company in an awkward position."
This places ALL email providers, even me, in this untenable situation. If we wish to ensure our users' privacy, we have no real choice but to shut down. Or change the law.
Google, Yahoo!, Hotmail, etc. will have a hard time lobbying for a change in the law. Me? I can wail to my representatives, to little effect.
Claiming that Google is duplicitous for their attitude towards China while not also pointing out the US' own policy towards eavesdropping is logical, but impractical. The Patriot Act, right or wrong, pretty much demands that if you want to keep your email private, you need to stop using email.
If that's the choice, you end up using your email for anything you hope isn't interesting to the current Administration.
Of course, this is the gun control debate in different terms. If you outlaw guns, only outlaws (and The Law) will have guns. And you don't need a gun for personal defence until you *need* it. Private email almost doesn't exist anyways, but you don't miss it until you *need* it.
Ultimately, we will not change the Patriot Act in any meaningful way, because we have few alternatives to at least try to limit our adversaries' attempts to bring terror to the U.S. It may not be effectie at all, but we do have to try. Damn it, we do have to try.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Congress is forbidden from making laws restricting the freedom of speech.
Despite this, it's currently okay to place "time and place" restrictions on it.
SCOTUS determined that it's definitely crossing the line to include restrictions based on who is doing the speaking.
Would you prefer that the government be allowed to determine who may speak and who may not? If you would, then you may attempt to amend the Constitution.
Store it in your house.
At least in theory, your house has a bit more privilege than some site elsewhere.
The warrant would be served to the resident, not some company. Or, at the very least, they'd have to break into *your* house, which again is something that you're at least slightly more likely to notice.
If you are worried about this, PGP along with thunderbird works very well with gmail.
Google is just like the all the other companies in the US. If they don't comply with the government, their business will become very difficult.
Why do people think this is Google's fault? We should be blaming the government for having the power and authority to force companies in the first place.
You make good points, and the Senate was created to represent that States which was one reason why Senators were appointed by the states elected officials. In short, they were supposed to be the limit on the "unfunded mandates" and take the place of the nullification point you make at the end. Of course, the power-hungry demagogues had to pass an amendment to change this in order to lay the foundation to consolidate power.
I've gotten three troll mods for my comment, which was directly on point and not excessively incendiary. At least it wasn't any more incendiary than necessary to state the plain fact that the Chinese government is a criminal dictatorship, and that's why Google shouldn't give out info on political dissidents to China, but it's maybe ok for them to give info on criminals to the US. I keep getting hit by this possibly Chinese government moderator abuse. Somebody should strip those mods of their mod privileges.
Ha ha, yes, do not forget the one over-arching theme of the Conservatives and the TardBag Coalition is "The Liberal Media". I can't wait... Did they FORGET that Hollywood and New York produce nearly ALL of the movies, shows, and even commercials that are shown or aired in the US?
I think that the "Liberal Media" is just another fury-inducing rally cry for conservative nutjobs, like "Obamacare" and equating patriotism with support for DubYah's decision to finish what Daddy started.
The media is "liberal" only in the sense that they go where the money tells them to go, not where some ideologues TELL them to go. IMHO conservatives are just pissed because they can't CONTROL THE MESSAGE coming from "the media", so they invented a left-wing "liberal media cabal". It's simple, really. If you can't control the information people receive, then discredit the apparatus that disseminates information - and then offer your own "fair and balanced" propaganda organ to tell people "the truth".
Hey, it worked for Joseph Goebbels, didn't it?
Well, in the end the right-wingers will learn the REAL truth; if they keep up the lies, and calling the media "liberal", and deriding them every chance they can, then at some point the "liberal" media take that "liberal" tarbaby the tardbaggers have been trying to saddle them with, and shove it down their conservative throats...
that a pile of money, a corporation, is what the founding fathers meant when they guaranteed rights to actual living breathing individuals, then you have made your point. until then, you, and other deluded fools who think like you do, are merely severely confusing the subject matter, to the detriment of the civic health of our country
to the extent that financial interests supplant the interests of real individuals, is the extent that the intentions of the founding fathers is warped, and eventually destroyed. wake the fuck up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"To give equal say in governance to those who by nature have not the faculties of full reason, whether that be the weaker sex, the darker races or those misfortunates that nature hath cursed with a congenital imbalance of the humors, shall surely lead to the ruination of this nation. You wish to extend the franchise to females and negroes, sir? You shall, over my dead body!"
Thomas Jefferson to John Brown, July 3, 1826
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Hell, I'm waiting to see their heads explode when Chinese corporations start flooding the airwaves with ads for their liberal picks. Bill Clinton's fundraising antics were peanuts compared to what this decision has enabled.
Of course, the REAL issue is that free speech has meant anonymous political speech for centuries now, a proud American tradition dating back to "Publius" at the least. Now that corporations explicitly have the right to free speech, all laws requiring corporations to identify themselves in their political advertisements are theoretically unconstitutional, based on numerous SCOTUS rulings protecting the right to anonymous speech. Nobody will know that the ads are being paid for by Chinese corporations.
Or perhaps its all a setup so that the Supreme Court can overturn those long held precedents protecting anonymous speech. Abandoning the Constitution for the sake of political expediency seems to be the hallmark of the current court, whether it's about property seizure or pot grown in your backyard, and eliminating the right to anonymous speech would be incredibly expedient to any liberal or conservative government.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Paranoia, you ain't doing it right. Now go sit in the cellar with your tinfoil hat and your UN conspiracy manual.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
before you think "why U.S and not China, Australia", think "out of jurisdiction", people...
The China.CN domain name is gained from a registrar in Ireland.
the Google.com.au domain name, and Google's server system is located in sunny California, USA.
So the U.S right now, would be the only likely candidate in a position to legally boss Google around, should they choose to force them to disclose confidential information, unfortunatly.....
when it can easily change to meet the needs of those in power.
Go look at our own government, state and federal levels. The current forfeiture laws show to what extent the governments at various levels will twist the law to get what they want. So, I guess adherence comes down to the meaning of what is is.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
slashdot should be ashamed of posting such a boldly stated article title when the contents contains no concrete facts. Title should be renamed "Google has lawyers, and they like to be ambiguous."
This entire article is bullshit.
It always struck me as strange that there hasn't been widespread adoption of PGP. It seems that it would be pretty easy to build almost seamless PGP into thunderbird, Apple Mail, and even web clients, like gmail.
The fact that we don't, as a society, care enough to encrypt our email indicates that either 1) we're not paranoid enough, 2) we don't have anything to hide, or 3) we're lazy and stupid?
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987 1597 2584 4181 6765
So why the complaints on China, then? After all, they could STOP breaking Chinese law, stop wanting to change government, and so on. STOP DOING IT (for Eric) is merely his way of saying "I CAN, AND I DON'T CARE."
"Perhaps Australia's most hated communications minister Steven Conroy could be right in his criticism of Google's privacy record after all."
Statistically, even the idiots have to get one right once in awhile by accident.
Would you prefer that the government be allowed to determine who may speak and who may not? If you would, then you may attempt to amend the Constitution.
You're right, and it is very problematic that for some reason corporations are not even allowed to run for office! What kind of democracy is this?
All men are created equal! And that includes corporations! It's what the founding fathers wanted!
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
That's different. We have to lie, cheat, steal and kill. We're the good guys.
It's trying times such as this that I ask myself what would Sergey Brin do?
I'm a Republican.
And yet I agree that corporations (or any other group) should not be treated as individuals. If Microsoft Corporation wants to run an ad saying "Vote Obama in 2004", they should be forbidden from doing it. Corporations have no more rights than a rock or tree.
But Bill Gates or any other MS employee? That's just fine and dandy if they want to run a "Vote Obama" ad.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If China government cant get access to Gmail, what it makes it ok for USA? Especially to those accounts not owned by US citizens.
If China tried to get access to gmail accounts of those who tried to start revolts in China and that wasn't ok, what makes it ok for US government to get access to those who try to start revolts in US (aka terrorists)?
China allegedly broke into Gmail. The US government presumably worked with-in the law and simply had warrants or national security letters issued.
If the Chinese government hands over Chinese warrants for accounts hosted in Chinese jurisdiction it wouldn't be a problem.
Whistle blowers in the US get media coverage and sometimes book deals. Whistle blowers in China often get a bullet to the head.
Really? You don't think restricting the power of the government is "constitutionally conservative?"
I'm fully aware that "White Pride" is usually associated with people who live in compounds in the woods in Idaho. That being said, if black pride (pride in one's black heritage) is good, why is white pride bad? Must white pride be inherently racist or is there any way a white person can be proud of their heritage and not be lumped in with the Nazis?
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
nts - i refer to the 'tards, 'burgies and the like who start a sentence in the subject line and continue, with gay abandon and not a care in the world, in the body of the post.
Fuck you all, fuck the horses you rode in on, and fuck the potbellied idols you worship.
His approach just lets him know when someone does really want to read his e-mail.
Also at the point of request, he does have legal options prior to the governmanet reading his e-mails, whereas without the encryption he would have none.
You mean corporations like:
CBS
NBC
ABC
FOX
CNN
Comedy Partners, e.g. The Daily Show with John Stewart & The Colbert Report
Teamsters Union
UAW
Democratic National Committee
Republican Nation Committee
SEIU
ACORN
DailyKos
MoveOn
Pretty much any newspaper in the country
Pretty much any advocacy group in the country
is not a group of individuals
a corporation is a financial interest. it is composed of individuals, yes, with their own views, yes. but when they act in the employ of a corporation, in the interest of the corporation, which exists independently of any one individual, then the financial interest of the corporation is what is at issue and which has now been granted unfair influence over the composition of your government, supplanting your individual rights with that of the "rights" of a legal entity, which exists only for the accumulation of wealth. to your eventual detriment and the detriment of your rights
that is what the case is about. have YOU observed what the case in question is actually about?
maybe if you did, you would think the opposite of calming down is what is called for by this outrage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Comm'n
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Venture Capital? haha
I may be naive - but not outright stupid!
What's good for President AIG is good for the country!
if i told you that a corporation was funneling chinese money into us elections, i'd like to see you quote your bogus Side A above again
you'd have a conniption fit, and you wouldn't even begin to feign the ignorance you currently do that corporate money poses no threat, no risk, and no challenge to what the founders intended
my point is not that funneling foreign money into us elections is all i am worried about, my point is to dismantle the purposely naive lie you write above as if the simpleton's way you describe the issue is the only decisive thought that matters
corporations supplant individual rights in the actions and words of your elected officials: do you deny that? do you say that is what the founders intended? if no, then fight alongside with me and stop feigning the bullshit you just wrote. corporations threaten your individual rights. you either understand that reality or you are a moron, an asshole, or both
in short, be intellectually honest or shut the fuck up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Auschwitz, terrible though it was, was not. Fascism actually highly values the rule of law
Fascism doesn't value the rule of law at all. The first thing any good Fascist regime does, and the NAZIs were no exception, is to sweep aside the vestiges of Democracy with an enabling act that grants the leader the sole power to make laws and mete out punishment. The whole point of the rule of law is consistency, and once you've got it all locked out the window. To wit, under German law, everything was "legal" in the sense of the word, because Hitler was the supreme legal authority per the Enabling Act and other subsequent legislation. But even before then the NAZIs used every illegal trick in the book to try and get power. First they tried and out and out coup, and that failed. Then they had roving private armies beating the shit out of everyone that stood in their path, and got away with it because everyone was either too afraid to stand up or too divided to be effective, or really looking to do the same thing itself.
Obedience to orders is not a substitute for law, and inside any supposedly running fascist dictatorship there is rot and corruption. Even during the peak of NAZI power, fraud and deceipt and disobedience of Hitler was really quite rampant. Hitler's generals ignored his orders as much as they could, and sometimes, Speer ignored his orders, Himmler openly plotted against Hitler, Goering got high all the time, they all did. Hitler basically kept himself in power by keeping everyone playing against each other, but the whole illusion of absolute authority was just that, an illusion. In even a dictatorship, government is by the consent of the governed, and as long as Hitler had the illusion of power, he kept his people in check.
This is my sig.
that you believe somehow to be correct, and without room for any other valid interpretation
why is this?
do you not see that your interpretation is no more valid, and may be less valid (actually, it IS less valid), than mine?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't think the FBI actually goes through the 'proper' channel of actually adding you on facebook so much as they simply download your entire profile and a log of all your recent activity straight from facebook's servers.
.pdf file for the FBI that includes the cost per profile - it just hasn't appeared on Wikileaks yet because FB is still a 'likeable' site after what it has supposedly done for improving democracy in certain third-world countries
of course this has all been nicely set up for the FBI possibly by Mark Suckerberg himself and I'm sure he got one of his many bitches to write up a nice
It's not all or nothing.
We could separate out those corporations who are publishers and give them freedom of the press without resorting to a blanket grant of absolute free speech powers to all corporations.
In such a publishing-based regime, if the president of the Teamsters Union wanted to push Candidate X, then "the Teamsters Union" could either print and distribute their own flyers (aka "publishing") or "the president of the Teamsters Union" could pay (from his own pocket) someone else to publish it for him.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I think you're taking both sides here. First, freedom of the press isn't restricted to literal presses. It's all communications: radios, televisions, newspapers, fliers, whatever. Second, please differentiate "publishing" from hiring a production company to make you a television spot and then paying television stations to carry your spot?
You don't think restricting the power of the government is "constitutionally conservative?"
Granting government the power to create people is the opposite of "restricting the power of government"
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
So in other words this is the opinion of someone who read an article which quotes someone as saying that he was told to do something suspicious. Good stuff.
While the original source (an unnamed Google engineer at a conference) isn't ironclad, it's a good starting point for investigative journalism.
That said, the article has since been updated with the comment that Google has now conceding that it does provide access to the US government on request.
Seriously. The US is in no way less evil than China at this point. They shouldn't help any corporate fascism access individual's emails!!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Now the us government's corrupt classified parts can intercept your online finances, and set you up, or just steal from you if you question their authority.
In only ten years, civil rights have gone out the door, while citizens are left with a fucking infinite amount of UN-prosecuted financial felony, and a big slew of bullshit taxes funding the same motherfuckers!
mark to market the fucking banks.
restore the constitution
get these nazi criminals out of our government
Posted anon so I could give you suitable moderation.
I ran 10.5 on a G4 for a couple of weeks recently with just 512MB (after a 1GB stick failed). It's OK for light use but it's not a lot of fun.
If W7 is usable in 256MB as other posters claim, that is impressive - as long as you can actually get stuff done with it. "It boots" isn't enough. :)
It should also be remembered that W7 has about the level of sophistication of 10.3, at best... :D
Second, please differentiate "publishing" from hiring a production company to make you a television spot and then paying television stations to carry your spot?
In this case, the television station would be publishing it, and an individual person (say, the CEO) would have to pay the television station (from their own pocket).
The idea was just off-the-cuff, it's nowhere near developed enough for me to be certain it's even workable, much less does what I want in every situation.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Last I checked, no one* uses PGP. You can use PGP with gmail just fine (save your attachments, copy/paste the ascii armor, connect over imap(s) with another client, etc).
You might want to check out echelon. It doesn't really matter where your plaintext mails are stored anyway if they are all read in transit.
However, if you and all your friends use a single mail server, and all connect over imaps/https/smtp-tls, then you just have to worry about the malware/keyloggers employed on their hardware.
* = not statistically significant
ThreadThat.com was developed with the assumption that there will be attempts to hack into your private online communications. As such, every bit of information and every file you share via ThreadThat.com is encrypted using 256 AES encryption. You get to create your own passkeys and you can use multi-factor authentication to secure your login. Combining these features makes your ThreadThat account an online Fort Knox. So, if you are concerned about communicating something sensitive online, this free service is probably your simplest solution.
The linked article appears to have changed significantly judging by the slashdot summary and this extract at the bottom of the article.
"Editor's note - This story previously referred to an extract by a local Google engineer recorded at a conference in New Zealand. Google has since made an official response to the issue (as stated in the copy above) conceding that it does indeed provide access to the US Government upon request and the story has been amended with the official response."
So in other words this is the opinion of someone who read an article which quotes someone as saying that he was told to do something suspicious. Good stuff.
While the original source (an unnamed Google engineer at a conference) isn't ironclad, it's a good starting point for investigative journalism.
That said, the article has since been updated with the comment that Google has now conceding that it does provide access to the US government on request.
...Where by "on request," you mean "when we're presented with a lawful warrant or court order."
So, in other words, they comply with the law and follow the same procedures everyone else does (at least, everyone who doesn't want to end up in contempt of court).
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Seriously?!
If there is any server on this planet getting more (classified) TLC from US intelligence community, I'd love to know.
I think you missed the whole point of this exercise.
Sheesh.
...fire is hot and will burn you, water is wet and good to drink, and Earth has an atmosphere made up predominantly of oxygen and nitrogen, with smaller concentrations of other gases. Film at eleven.
How, it is, & always has been.
Face it guys: Men with power? They "knock off" other people, quite a lot (or rather, pay others to do so, to "maintain the status quo").
Fact is, I look at this a LOT like how Don Corleone told his soon to be wife Kate the school teacher
----
Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.
Kay Adams: Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don't have men killed.
Michael: Oh. Who's being naive, Kay?
----
As to her statements about how his father had folks killed, & how "good government" doesn't (that's a laugh - what on earth are WARS about then? "Freedom"?? B.S. - they're about those in power, STAYING IN POWER (more than anything else imo).
I mean, lol, for example: Well - to a DEVIL? An ANGEL is the demon (& vice-a-versa). It's ALL a matter of perspective & perception really - "Good" is a POINT OF VIEW, & that's about it (a purely relative term &/or perspective).
APK
P.S.=> I believe in the United States, as one of its citizens here (1st generation no less) - we're ALL OF THE REST OF YOU, in fact, & PROOF that the entire world COULD WORK TOGETHER AS 1 UNIT, because the USA, the "melting pot" of the world, pretty much does (all races, creeds, etc. in 1 nation basically). Sure, we have our hassles now & since the start too but overall we DO prove the world can be "1": However, per your comment? I also feel that our leadership's a bit "less open/less honest" in some ways, about that which we do, per the above quoted exchange... just in order to "maintain an image/save face" is all... but, come right down to it? We're ALL the same (pretty pitiful @ times, & yet, great too, as human beings)... apk