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Mass. Court Says Constitution Protects Filming On-Duty Police
Even in a country and a world where copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park, and openly recording visiting police on your own property can be construed as illegal wiretapping, it sometimes seems like the overreach of officialdom against people taking photos or shooting video knows no bounds. It's a special concern now that seemingly everyone over the age of 10 is carrying a camera that can take decent stills and HD video. It's refreshing, therefore, to read that a Federal Appeals Court has found unconstitutional the arrest of a Massachusetts lawyer who used his phone to video-record an arrest on the Boston Common. (Here's the ruling itself, as a PDF.) From the linked article, provided by reader schwit1: "In its ruling, which lets Simon Glik continue his lawsuit, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston said the wiretapping statute under which Glik was arrested and the seizure of his phone violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights."
lawer?
All the way to the Supreme Court, and we can have a final ruling that recording public officials in public is, you know, legal.
The police just learned an important lesson: Don't charge lawyers with the stupid rules you use to get away with shit.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
That makes me optimistic, if we see a shift in the law accompanied by the reasonable expectation that *anyone* could potentially be carrying a recoding device, perhaps we will see a moderation in police behavior.
YES!!! =D
Haven't the courts found it legal to record your employees when they are on the job?
constitution
All it took was an earthquake to show the judge gods will. ;)
But instead he came to his senses and made the right decision
re: "Even in a country and a world where copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park,"
that policy for Millennium Park was removed, permits are only required for filming crews 10 persons or larger.
"Overreach of officialdom"? Please don't try to shield us from reality. Let's skip the sugar-coating and call it what it really is: oppression.
The relationship between government and the citizen is defined by physical force. Therefore it is prudent to speak of that relationship in terms of physical force. Terms like "over-reaching", "cracking down", and "misuse" only soften the impact of what's really happening: oppression of human rights.
You are missing the recent case in Rochester where a woman was arrested on her own front lawn for videotaping an arrest going on just off of her property. IIRC the D.A. decided to not bring the case to trial, but the police continued to harass the woman and a demonstration held against the arrest. There was also a news conference with one of those great police organisations going off about how the video recording makes them "less safe."
What bollocks... if the tables were turned you know the police would scream that there was no expectation of privacy on a public street... and the woman was standing on her very own lawn.
With respect to the sculpture in Chicago, the "don't photograph with permission of the sculptor" statement was specifically with regard to commercial photography since the sculptor retained copyright on his work. I'm not actually sure even that would stand up in court, since it's a public space (just like you don't need permission to photograph people in a public space, even though it's still a good idea) - however I can understand the thinking behind it.
With regard to the police arresting Michael Gannon for "wiretapping", they returned his equipment when they figured out they didn't have a legal leg to stand on (apparently he's still waiting to get the tapes back though). I agree the Nashua N.H. police need better training - as well as someone to teach them how to behave professionally, even when dealing with slimeballs - but the summary makes it sound like what they did was legally supportable in the United States, when obviously it's not.
This is one of the reasons people should be reading newspapers, or at least spending five minutes Googling for information when stuff like this comes up - so many people have trouble separating truth from internet memes because they don't bother to read past the headline.
#DeleteChrome
Will likely have a different opinion. To them the constitution only applies to corporations.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
So, when is the arresting officer going to be charged with violating the civil rights of the videographer? Don't police make some sort of oath to uphold the law, and this ruling makes it clear that the officer violated the law, thus breaking their oath, shouldn't that get them fired as well?
The real issue here is "government violates the law with impunity and nobody cares."
Learn to love Alaska
For the court system. Hopefully the supreme court refuses to hear this thereby granting this the force of precedent.
Even in a country and a world where copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park, and openly recording visiting police on your own property can be construed as illegal wiretapping, it sometimes seems like the overreach of officialdom against people taking photos or shooting video knows no bounds.
'Even' in a world that dismal, things can sometimes seem bad? Does anyone proof read this crap?
This isn't a Massachusetts court. This is a federal court that actually knows what the 1st Amendment is, and more importantly thinks that it matters. The Supreme Judicial Court, which is the Massachusetts high court, has had its chance to look at this law more than once, and has come to the wrong conclusion every time. It took a federal court to realize what any moron should know - that prohibiting citizens from recording public officials doing their jobs on a public street is an invitation to abuse.
constitution
Seriously, though, the First Amendment is the biggest con in modern politics. In America, everyone thinks they're free because they believe that the right to speak is more important than the right to be heard.
This ruling is in line with Comm v. Hyde. There is NOTHING new about this ruling, at least regards the recording issue. There is nothing wrong with OPENLY recording cops in MA or anyone else who are speaking in normal voice in public. By being in public, they are forfeiting their privacy. This is inline with 4th Amendment thinking.
In technical terms, the above is 3rd party recording that is not considered 3rd party eavesdropping because there is no REP (reasonable expectation of privacy).
Now, what this ruling DOES bring as new is the cops who think that they have veto power over your OPEN recording of them are now on notice, in federal court you have zero shelter from the liability of arresting someone because you don't like that they are recording you in public. This is new. The cops are not being granted qualified immunity and are on the hook for the damages of denying Glik his rights by improperly arresting him. That is a step in the right direction.
The problem here is if you are recording your interaction with a cop, what does that cop have to do to stop your recording? "Detain" you, that is what. Once they do, for their "safety" of course, they now control your recording equipment and can turn it off. Nothing in the above ruling changes this. They can do this, beat you to a pulp, or just ignore you to illustrate both extremes, and there will be no record of it.
What has not changed is Comm v. Hyde which makes 2nd party recording a privacy issue. This is not the case in 38 other states but here in MA, people are presumed to have a REP right from secret recording even when the recorders are privy to what is being said. That is absurd if you dissect it, but that is where Hyde dropped us. So for an example, if party A has a conversation with B, A can't record it because B supposedly has a REP privacy right yet A has heard everything B said. They were having a conversation for christ's sake. B gave up their privacy to the statements once they engaged in said conversation. So A can detail the conversation to whomever will listen but if B denies what was said or that the conversation even took place, it becomes a he said, she said situation. Now, who does this protect? It protects B. It protects liars, cheats and thieves. Because it allows them to lie about what took place. There is a line in Hyde where the SJC basically acknowledges this by stating to allow surreptitious recording of cops will allow the citizens to monitor and find corruption.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
Your right to speak stops at your neighbor's earplugs.
Especially if that voice isn't a fellow citizen, but a government that wants to indoctrinate you.
I have as much right to open my mouth as you do to close your ears.
You have no right to "be heard" and such a "right" means destroying other people's freedoms. The right to refuse to support something is just as much of a right as it is to support something. For example, if you disagree with the Ku Klux Klan's message, you don't have to support them, you don't have to give to them financially, etc. On the other hand, if there was a right "to be heard" it would mean that everyone would have to pay money to support the KKK's message, otherwise it would infringe on their rights. What we (should) have now is a better balance, the KKK is free to say what they want, people are free to support them if they wish, but you don't have to listen to them if you don't want to and you certainly don't have to financially support them.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
"What are you afraid of if you have nothing to hide...pig?"
What happen if I got my surveillance camera on the road where the police is on duty? This mean the can arrested me? for owning the video?
"Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less."
Say the person who benefits from the city fire department, police department, highway department, health department that enforces sanitation and public health regulations, the water and sewer, departments that provide safe water and take away sewage, the diverse Federal departments that ensure clean safe food, safe medicines, keep aircraft from colliding in mid air, will carry a letter from coast to coast for you in a few days for less than half a dollar, etc etc etc.
Don't bother to quote Ayn Rand or any other libertarian bullshitter at me. The ONLY quotation that matters is this:
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: 'I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.'
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Yes, I know it's bad form to reply to yourself, but I neglected to RTFOpinion... had I done so, I'd've seen that this case is a 1983 suit, and we're long past settlin' time. F*ck the Police!
I have as much right to open my mouth as you do to close your ears.
I bet you've never read your local noise ordinances.
Some jurisdictions will specify decibel levels and distances (no more than X decibels at Y feet),
while other jurisdictions will use language like "loud, unnecessary, and unusual noise" or
"causes discomfort or annoyance to any reasonable person of normal sensitiveness".
Feel free to get up on your soap box, just don't be so loud as to disturb the peace.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
And the state of Mass get sued for so much that the people finally see the reign of terror that is being visited on the American people is un-American and un-sustainable!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
I know my taxes aren't buying any type of civilization in the middle east, despite the trillions going there. In fact, my tax dollars are doing the exact opposite by creating anarchy, pollution, death, and destruction. If those things are the hallmarks of civilization, well, you can keep it.
Most everything you list is a local function BTW. Maybe the world be a better and safer place if government was not allowed to be so large. The scale of death and destruction my county could cause is a mere fraction of that my country is causing, and my county could still build roads and put out fires (I live in a donor state BTW, without the Feds, we'd have MORE money for these things than we do now).
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
But yet most of those things can be, and should be, provided by private enterprise and would be better suited to private enterprise.
Taxation buys civilization at a much higher price and at a much lower quality than what private enterprise can do. While there is a use for court systems, and armed forces to protect the country along with limited (elected) police officers, such things can be paid for in a much better way than the current tax based on income, instead it should be paid like everything else, based on use.
Taxation is exactly a form of theft when you look at it for what it is.
Lets say a man comes up to you and demands your car and threatens you with bodily harm, surely we can call him a thief. Lets say 2 men come up with you and do the same thing. Does it stop being theft? Lets say 3 men come up to you, take a vote on if you should have your car, and all three of them vote to take your car and you are the lone dissenter. Is it still theft? What if 10 people came in much the same way and took your car and left you a bicycle. Is it still theft? How many people need to be in a mob for it to stop being theft? Surely even if 100 people came, took your brand new 2011 Porsche and replaced it with a 1988 Honda, it would still be theft, correct? Taxation is much the same thing, it is still theft no matter how many people are in the mob trying to take your property.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
the purpose of taxes is to supply public goods that a) everyone wants, b) nobody wants to pay for, and c) whose benefits cannot easily be denied to those who choose not to pay.
That's the theory. Now look at the practice, yeah? Reality is what we object to.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
IANAL but reading the ruling made it clear to me that in states where wiretapping laws imply that it be done secretly then it's important to hold your recording device in plain sight. Many states define audio wiretapping in terms of "intercepting" the audio which this appellate court has determined to mean "secretly". The ruling states that since Glik was holding his cell phone in plain view then he was not doing anything in secret and thus was not wiretapping. You don't have to annouce that you are taking pictures or videos, however. Just holding it where the officers could have seen it is sufficient. But if they ask you if you are taking videos or pictures or recording then you should probably answer truthfully. YMMV so check your state's laws before relying on this ruling.
Of course, if officers cannot see it they would be unlikely to arrest you. So apparently just by them noticing the device would be evidence that it was not done in secret and therefore not wiretapping and therefore not "probable cause" for an arrest.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Without taxes to pay for police and defense, a lot more people would take your property. Large scale services like utilities require either a unregulated monopoly, a regulated monopoly or a government agency. Do you really believe an unregulated monopoly would work better for providing you power and water? Private fire protection was tried and failed miserably. Do you really want all of your neighbors houses blazing away because they don't have fire protection? It's a really really bad idea, only someone who has no idea of history would propose there is no need for government or that a government can somehow run with no money. Don't want to pay taxes? Buy a sail boat and eat fish for the rest of your life. No one is stopping you.
Huzzah.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Says the guy on the internet, a creation funded by those tax dollars.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
Reality is what we object to.
You know, you can take that statement several ways....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
And it didn't truly flourish beyond the limited bubble of military and academia until private companies -- not the government -- began making it cheaper for the average person.
Your point?
According to the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_First_Circuit
The states covered by the USCoA for the First Circuit are:
District of Maine
District of Massachusetts
District of New Hampshire
District of Puerto Rico
District of Rhode Island
NO MORE CALLS! We have a winner!
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This is about the dumbest argument I have ever heard for avoiding taxation!
Randroids with mod points. As inevitable as death and taxes.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
It's not an argument, it's a definition. You don't argue with facts.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Whats never made sense to me about these arrests is that many municipalities and police departments are putting up cameras everywhere (in the interest of preventing crime, but nevertheless, on public land and with taxpayer dollars). The blatant double standard when they become upset about you recording them in public just doesn't hold up.
It said that this is what makes the difference from a police state and not.
Glad to see the court could plainly see we are a police state.
Go ahead try to film cops good luck with that.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: 'I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.'
Cute, but fallacious. SOME taxes buy civilization. Some are simply squandered. Some buy oppression, including of those who pay the taxes. Some buy wars we didn't need. There's also a lack of causality. If a building falls on you tomorrow, we still have civilization. Something like 50% of USians don't pay taxes (ok, federal income) and yet we still have way more government than many of us want. Those of you who don't think that are, in my not so humble opinion, just ignorant of how the sausage is made. It also assumes paying taxes is the only way to get civilization, or the best. It makes as much sense as "I like amputations. With them I remove splinters from my fingertips." or "I like chemotherapy. With it I slow or stop cancer." In both cases the end is great, but if there's a way to do it with fewer or no amputations, less or no chemotherapy, or lower or no taxes, that's obviously much better.
The no-nonsense version of this quote would be "I like civilization, and I accept some taxation as the price we have to pay for it."
Yeah. Those invisible exceptions to free speech sure are nice.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Randroids with mod points. As inevitable as death and taxes.
To answer the objection to that sig about taxes... taxation is done by force or threat of force. If you don't pay your taxes, armed men will come to take your assets eventually. If you resist these armed men, they will use force up to and including lethal force. We call them IRS agents or we call them police. In any other context this is known as robbery. The fact that the theft is legal and the proceeds taken by theft are often put to beneficial uses that serve a commn good does not change the fact that it is theft. You might steal your neighbor's TV, sell it, and donate 100% of the money to charity; you'd still be a thief. It's really that simple. We continue to use this model mostly because we have not yet implemented one that is more viable, not because it is inherently virtuous.
... not to those whose political views tend towards the maximization of liberty and the minimization of coercion and hierarchy ... but paradoxically she is most useful to those who want to dismiss such views. Think the burden of proof is on the person who recommends coercion by force or threat of force (otherwise known as police power)? Well you're just another Randbot, and we'll call you names like that to avoid explaining why we think our position is superior.
Ayn Rand's writings were the greatest gift ever
I hate to break it to you but what is now called (small-l) libertarian thought has been around for a long time. The Founding Fathers with their distrust of government, love of liberty, and general view of government as a necessary evil have this kind of philosophy. Also, Rand was a staunch materialist; there are lovers of freedom such as myself who reject a materialist view. I also have the non-Randian belief that logic is a tool, it's a stunningly versatile tool, yet like all tools there are situations where it does not apply. But no, we're all just mindless droids and labeling us as such lets you remain safely within the boundaries of your comfort zone where your own view never needs to be tested against other incompatible ideas.
After all, anyone who feels a need to name-call, pigeonhole, label, marginalize, and smugly dismiss other views is only demonstrating their personal security and the correctness of their own position. Right? People like me who cultivate an openness to new ideas and a willingness to entertain notions with which we disagree prior to dismissing them, well obviously we have no idea what we're doing. One day we'll learn. One day.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
You can already buy a HD pencam for about $30 on Ebay, with about an hour of recording, and really good quality video, what's it going to be like in five years' time? Probably eight hours battery life, and eight hours of recording, in a tiny camera which you can wear all day, and nobody can see it (i.e. a button cam or pen cam). How are the scum in power going to stop this? They can't. We will be able to catch them 'in the act' wherever they are. There will be nowhere to hide.
Now, who does this protect? It protects B. It protects liars, cheats and thieves.
Which would explain why Massachusetts, above and beyond all other states, put such an idiotic law in place in the first place. Any state that would send Ted Kennedy to the Senate for 47 years has a vested interest in protecting liars, cheats, and thieves.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
But yet most of those things can be, and should be, provided by private enterprise and would be better suited to private enterprise.
Yes! I would love for the police and prisons to be more privatized! Please sign me up for this new order of corporatism! You so enthralled me with that that I didn't even bother to read the rest of your post t be bought hook, line, and sinker just like you!
Parent is on point with this post. They are referring to this from earlier today.
> Maybe the world be a better and safer place if government was not allowed to be so large.
Smaller governments might have prevented the civil war at the cost of allowing slavery. The fourth amendment and the right of minorities to vote and be treated equally under the law would not exist in much of today's United States. For almost every non-technological advancement that has been made to our society as a whole, someone has argued against it on the platform of states' rights.
Smaller governments are also, in some ways, more susceptible to bribery. It costs less to bribe a smaller government and it is more likely that the people policing for bribes know the people getting them. I know states that are corrupt through-and-through on local levels. Washington is bad in a lot of ways, but there are still rules about bribes that if you break them, you are supposed to go to jail, and sometimes you actually do.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
everytime they wish to rally or hold a function they usually have to obtain a permit. That permit usually comes from chamber of commerce or some other city/state ran building in the town they are in. Which state/city workers are paid with taxpayers money.
Therefore regardless if you don't want to pay to hear them, taxpayers already pay for them via protest/rally/public speaking permits.
So even though I support the Militia and I hate Nation of Islam and a few other groups as a taxpayer I am still paying for those other groups indirectly via the permit system this country requires.
Yea you have the illusion of free speech.... as long as you purchase a license to obtain free speech in public.
License is a really dirty word. Especially if defined in the government's dictionary, look it up in Black's Law Dictionary used by the government for defining words such as address (you will learn anyone with an address automatically becomes a corporate citizen under black's law)
anyhow a license is a permit that gives you permission to do what is otherwise illegal.
So ask your governments why must you get a licensed permit to protest, why must you have a drivers license even with constitutional right that transportation be unhindered, or even moreso why must we have a marriage license.
under the government's dictionary used to define words legally, license is pretty fucking scary
and yes all tax payers support KKK, Nation of Islam, Militias, Religious sects, neo nazi rallies, etc. Since they must all purchase permits to hold such rallies, those workers handing out the permits and the building that houses it and all are paid for by tax payers.
So no there is no real freedom of speech.
True freedom of speech, even offensive, is achieved in it's greatest form in anonymity.
And the only reason the internet was created by the government is because it was simply the only organization with enough computers to create the internet.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
That's dumb.
I can't force you to listen to me, but you can't force me to shut up.
That's sort of how rights work. It's a hands-off approach. The right to be heard is not a right -- it is not freedom. The right to be heard can only be construed as forcing people to listen to things they don't want to, and that's not.. that's just.
You're dumb.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
It's not an argument, it's a definition. You don't argue with facts.
Of course you don't. If someone else accepted the facts, they would already have your position.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
It's not an argument, it's a definition. You don't argue with facts.
Of course you do. The facts given by another party may not be the facts as you see them.
We will leave the idea of objective facts aside, since they are rarely used in arguments of any kind--even the selection of the rare objective fact is usually just a rationalization of a policy position already taken.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
wow. Just wow.
Am I reading comments on slashdot?
Private companies which are currently doing their best to unmake the Internet and turn it into an AOL redux.
don't get your hopes too high: bush/cheny supremes will overrule.
A federal court is never a state court........fix the title of the post.
Since persistently loud levels of noise damage a person's ears, noise ordinances are just a nicer infraction than the assault charges your neighbors could have you up on.
I meant "unnecessary" obfuscation. But edit fail.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: 'I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.'
Given that Holmes was a progressive of the stripe who would fully approve of Obama's domestic policies, the fact that he loved taxes is hardly a shocking revelation.
A can't record it because B supposedly has a REP privacy right yet A has heard everything B said.
So?
The recording has not one goddamn thing to do with A hearing everything B said. It has to do with C,D,E,F,G,AAA,QQ and fucking ZZTop hearing everything B said. They were not who B was privately speaking to.
Sure, A can tell everyone what B said, but it is a perfectly reasonable expectation that if C,D,E,F,G,AAA,QQ and ZZTop want to hear what B said from his own lips, they ought to have been there when he said it.
Whether you agree or not, it's definitely a privacy issue. If you were speaking with your doctor or shrink, would you be okay with them secretly recording you?
Good for you, using your head like that. However, there's a difference between people who read Rand, people who agree with Rand, and followers of Rand.
For a group that claims to value reason and the sovereignty of the individual mind, I've never met a group of people so intolerant of dissent than (big-o) Objectivists. If you don't agree with all of Ayn Rand's positions, you're not just wrong, you're dishonest (evading) and evil and you must be banished. Suits me, I'd be happy if I never had speak to a Randroid again.
"Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less."
Say the person who benefits from the city fire department, police department, highway department, health department that enforces sanitation and public health regulations, the water and sewer, departments that provide safe water and take away sewage, the diverse Federal departments that ensure clean safe food, safe medicines, keep aircraft from colliding in mid air, will carry a letter from coast to coast for you in a few days for less than half a dollar, etc etc etc.
Don't bother to quote Ayn Rand or any other libertarian bullshitter at me. The ONLY quotation that matters is this:
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: 'I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.'
No quotes, huh? How about a headline?
Firefighters watch as home burns to the ground
You can keep your civilization.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Police and fire departments are funded mainly through property taxes and local sales taxes, NOT federal income tax. Yet, people always trot out the police and fire excuses to justify all taxes. Sorry, no.
Um... what about more modern techniques like videotaping or recording to digital media? If recording to film is all that's supported, it will only be trendy art students recording police on their vintage cameras.
"My girlfriend was a 'tard. Now she's a pilot."
Satire, warning, or prophecy?
Ask me again in 100 years.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
That part about the Prius.. that's a joke, right?
The tapes were all the police wanted anyway. It allows them to prevent anyone from seeing how they behaved.
So for an example, if party A has a conversation with B, A can't record it because B supposedly has a REP privacy right yet A has heard everything B said. They were having a conversation for christ's sake. B gave up their privacy to the statements once they engaged in said conversation. So A can detail the conversation to whomever will listen but if B denies what was said or that the conversation even took place, it becomes a he said, she said situation. Now, who does this protect? It protects B. It protects liars, cheats and thieves. Because it allows them to lie about what took place.
Interesting comments although I disagree with the above. It is perfectly reasonable to not want part of a conversation to be recorded without your knowledge or consent. Privacy does not stop at one individual - a conversation between two people can also be private.
I also think you have an unrealistic view of human relationships if you think that the constant threat of secret recording wouldn't make our interactions awkward at best, and unmanageable at worst.
For example, you might in a private conversation with another person choose to express views which are unpopular, or offensive, or in some other way not views you would choose to express to a larger audience. You might tell someone something off-the-record in a conversation which you would never put in writing. A person secretly recording you takes away your right to choose your audience if they then republish the recording.
Look at in on the flipside. What is the problem with simply telling someone you are going to record them? Then they may choose how to proceed, instead of you misleading them (because most humans assume that they are NOT being recorded at all times, so your non-disclosure is misleading).
Read Pynchon.
Which is why, frankly, our federal system was supposed to be a pyramid. The tiny little federal government has just a *few* über-powers, while the state governments below have broader general powers. And it kinda worked that way -- I never said it was perfect -- up until the New Deal and later courts' incredible loophole expansion of the Commerce Clause. Checks and balances, not just within the government, but between them as well.
Reading cases like Wickard v. Filburn (1942) or Gonzales v. Raich (2005) makes me want to wretch.
The statement under question is "Taxation is legalized theft", not specifically federal income tax. So police, fire departments, and education are state and local taxes. Military defense is federal taxes.
Did you read that story? The people whose house burned did not pay their fire department fee. Basically they were given the option of paying this tax, and did not. As a result, their house burnt down. This is exactly what would happen if the fire department were not tax supported at all.
You forgot drunk. ;)
I'm confused, because it sounds like you're disagreeing with the GP and yet your link is a perfect support for his argument (and against the libertarian privatization argument). That fire department was NOT funded by taxes. Unlike the neighboring counties, that county voted not to have a taxpayer-funded department and instead people had to BUY coverage from a city fire department. This guy chose not to buy said coverage. Welcome to Libertopia.
Did you read that story? The people whose house burned did not pay their fire department fee. Basically they were given the option of paying this tax, and did not. As a result, their house burnt down. This is exactly what would happen if the fire department were not tax supported at all.
And it is a system that works.
Say the person who benefits from the city fire department, police department, highway department, health department that enforces sanitation and public health regulations, the water and sewer, departments that provide safe water and take away sewage, the diverse Federal departments that ensure clean safe food, safe medicines, keep aircraft from colliding in mid air, will carry a letter from coast to coast for you in a few days for less than half a dollar, etc etc etc.
Call his bluff. Take away the goodies and the taxes. The thing is that taxes are compulsory. It doesn't matter if you do good things with the money or not. You are still taking money by force. If it were any party other than government, it would be theft or extortion.
I don't know, I'd say they both have the exact same insight. That both can be used to control people, though I haven't figure out what her angle could have been. Hubbard's should be fairly obvious.
Say the person who benefits from the city fire department, police department, highway department, health department that enforces sanitation and public health regulations, the water and sewer, departments that provide safe water and take away sewage
I don't know about where you live, but where I live we pay for water and sewage. Thankyouverymuch.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Obviously it doesn't work if it results in the community losing valuable property because some petty-minded bureaucrat failed to see the purpose of such public services - that the community has a vested interest in NOT letting the house burn down, regardless of who owns it or whether they paid their fees?
Seriously, the guy offered to pay whatever it costs to put out the fire but they let it burn down anyway just to prove a point. Maybe in your mind that's justifiable, but as Wanda put it, "Was that smart? Was it shrewd? Was that good tactics? Or was it STUPID?"
That's one assfucking I would pay to see. Good for him! Don't SETTLE. FUCK THEM LONG AND HARD!!!
that the community has a vested interest in NOT letting the house burn down, regardless of who owns it or whether they paid their fees?
Why should the community have a vested interest here? The person isn't paying for an expensive service. If they buckle under and saved his property, then there'd be more people not paying next time. This approach keeps the fire fighting service funded and hence, saves property.
Seriously, the guy offered to pay whatever it costs to put out the fire but they let it burn down anyway just to prove a point. Maybe in your mind that's justifiable, but as Wanda put it, "Was that smart? Was it shrewd? Was that good tactics? Or was it STUPID?"
It was simply the right thing to do. I don't see this Wanda paying for the service so her opinion is worth its weight in words.
"I know my taxes aren't buying any type of civilization in the middle east, despite the trillions going there. In fact, my tax dollars are doing the exact opposite by creating anarchy, pollution, death, and destruction. If those things are the hallmarks of civilization, well, you can keep it."
This IS a participatory democracy, you know.
Feel free to participate by instructing the Hired Help in D.C. as to your wishes for how your tax dollars are spent.
Feel free to participate by running for office locally.
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As previously stated:
This IS a participatory democracy, you know.
Feel free to participate by instructing the Hired Help in D.C. as to your wishes for how your tax dollars are spent.
Feel free to participate by running for office locally.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
Nobody in my local government is wasting trillions on war so I don't have any need to displace them. As for "instructing the hired help in D.C." -- I'm not in the class of people with a few million to drop at a candidates feet, so none of the candidates are my hired help, rather, I'm just one of the annoying proles they can safely ignore and rob.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
A & B were having a conversation in my example. Read it again.
There is no privacy expectation for B once they state something to A. Period. They chose to divulge the information and once they do that, they lose their privacy right. Think of it this way, imagine a suspect tells the cop "I did it" and the cop testifies to this effect. The suspect has no right to privacy from the cop and those words can be used against them. However, if the cop records this conversation with the suspect, under the logic of Comm v. Hyde, the suspect has a privacy right and the recording can't be used against them.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
Oh and to this:
If you were speaking with your doctor or shrink, would you be okay with them secretly recording you?
Yes, I would. I am already expecting them to be discriminating. I don't have a problem with them recording so long as they accept the responsibility to protect the recordings.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
So for an example, if party A has a conversation with B, A can't record it because B supposedly has a REP privacy right yet A has heard everything B said. They were having a conversation for christ's sake. B gave up their privacy to the statements once they engaged in said conversation. So A can detail the conversation to whomever will listen but if B denies what was said or that the conversation even took place, it becomes a he said, she said situation. Now, who does this protect? It protects B. It protects liars, cheats and thieves. Because it allows them to lie about what took place.
Interesting comments although I disagree with the above. It is perfectly reasonable to not want part of a conversation to be recorded without your knowledge or consent. Privacy does not stop at one individual - a conversation between two people can also be private.
I also think you have an unrealistic view of human relationships if you think that the constant threat of secret recording wouldn't make our interactions awkward at best, and unmanageable at worst.
For example, you might in a private conversation with another person choose to express views which are unpopular, or offensive, or in some other way not views you would choose to express to a larger audience. You might tell someone something off-the-record in a conversation which you would never put in writing. A person secretly recording you takes away your right to choose your audience if they then republish the recording.
Look at in on the flipside. What is the problem with simply telling someone you are going to record them? Then they may choose how to proceed, instead of you misleading them (because most humans assume that they are NOT being recorded at all times, so your non-disclosure is misleading).
A) In 38 states your conversations can be secretly recorded without your knowledge. Humanity has not crumbled under the weight.
B) "Privacy does not stop at one individual". Correct, but it requires the consent of all of those people to maintain the privacy. You are trusting the other party to not repeat what you said, therefore you trust they won't use the recordings.
C) "You might tell someone something off-the-record in a conversation which you would never put in writing." Security via obscurity. If you don't want anyone to know you think it, don't write it or speak it.
D) "What is the problem with simply telling someone you are going to record them?" Because in interactions with people with authority, they can use this to force you to stop doing so. See my original post. The right to record conversations you are a party to is a defensive one.
At the end of the day, the prohibition on 2nd party recording is to protect liars, cheats and thieves by removing the ability to accurately capture evidence of the conversation one was a party to and does nothing for privacy.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
In other words, you're just a lazy fuck, sitting on his ass, while the country goes to hell.
Got it.
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Taxation is theft in the same way laws are oppression.
Did you read that story? The people whose house burned did not pay their fire department fee. Basically they were given the option of paying this tax, and did not. As a result, their house burnt down. This is exactly what would happen if the fire department were not tax supported at all.
Did you read that story? It wasn't a tax, it was a fee levied by the fire department for "protection". Any other "protection" schemes ring bells? How about the fact that it was an optional fee because they didn't live in the city? How about the fact that the trucks showed up anyway, and then stood there?
Also, at what point is it ok to stand there and watch while someone's entire life burns to ashes in front of you, when you're leaning against a truck full of water while You do it? when it's your JOB to put out fires?
Imagine how that felt, to see the fire trucks pull up, sirens and lights blaring, and then all the firefighters get out and stand there watching everything you own burn down, while you beg and plead with them to save some fraction of it.
Let me know where you live, I'll bring a lawn chair and marshmallows... and I doubt I'll be alone.
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Disagreeing, yes. They claimed all kinds of things that taxation supposedly paid for. I posted a link with a different story to tell. If you couldn't tell the difference, then I'm sorry for your reading comprehension skills, and you should apologize to your teachers.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
A) In 38 states your conversations can be secretly recorded without your knowledge. Humanity has not crumbled under the weight.
A bit less privacy wouldn't cause society to crumble but would still be a bad thing. Ref: Soviet Union.
B) "Privacy does not stop at one individual". Correct, but it requires the consent of all of those people to maintain the privacy. You are trusting the other party to not repeat what you said, therefore you trust they won't use the recordings.
Yes, but also because it creates the inherent doubt of "my word against yours". Anyone can claim that something was said, a recording proves it with a much, much higher degree of reliability.
C) "You might tell someone something off-the-record in a conversation which you would never put in writing." Security via obscurity. If you don't want anyone to know you think it, don't write it or speak it.
...or just don't let them record it and tell them in person. Which is a tried and true technique used by people since, I would guess, writing was invented. What if I do want them to know what I think, but I don't want them to record it and republish it? Would it be ok with you if I am concerned about secret recording in that situation?
D) "What is the problem with simply telling someone you are going to record them?" Because in interactions with people with authority, they can use this to force you to stop doing so. See my original post. The right to record conversations you are a party to is a defensive one.
Since when is there a positive "right" to record conversations you are a party to? You seem to have a lust for entrapment - presumably you would enjoy living in a panopticon-type society where everyone records everyone else. Personally, I prefer a society where people can't covertly record one another in private interactions.
At the end of the day, the prohibition on 2nd party recording is to protect liars, cheats and thieves by removing the ability to accurately capture evidence of the conversation one was a party to and does nothing for privacy.
Yes, liars, cheats. Confiders. Penitants. Those seeking advice. Those seeking support. Those seeking comfort. Whistleblowers. People engaging in conduct which, while not wrong, would be judged by many. Those trying to show empathy or build camaraderie.
To be honest, your views on all this seem quite sociopathic to me. Human interaction is built on trust. Secret recording of conversations utterly destroys the scope for trust.
It is of course a totally different question as to whether police should be subject to secret or open recording. I happen to think that so long as they are acting as instruments of the state, they should be subject to recording. But private citizens should not without their informed consent.
Read Pynchon.
Oh and: a recording creates an independent record of a conversation. You can trust the other person as much as you like, but that record exists beyond their mind and can, and in some cases will, be obtained by third parties who were not part of the original implied agreement about the level of privacy of the conversation.
I mean, what if your confidant dies? Is arrested themself? Has their house burgled? Loses the recording? Forgets about it? Stores it in the fricking all-singing all-dancing data cloud?
Read Pynchon.
Ah, the no true flourishing Scotsman fallacy, a camp version of the original.
you can't force me to shut up.
So you can write what you want in my paper/blog/site/notebook/whatever?
Freedom of speech will always belong to the owners of the presses. A man in a totally privatised country has by default no voice at all, because he has no right to stand anywhere to speak. And a man in a country with some public land has his right to "free" speech limited to that land and under the regulations in force on that land.
For some reason this is obvious to anyone outside the US, but very hard to explain to anyone inside the US. It's like the value of the First Amendment is some religious thing indoctrinated in youth.
That doesn't matter to my point at all. You are reaping the benefits of the taxes of others. As long as you are accepting the benefits of a taxed society taxes have a lot more in common with a commercial transaction than theft.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
now go after this officer: http://www.lvrj.com/news/exclusive-police-beating-of-las-vegas-man-caught-on-tape-120509439.html
Police beating of Las Vegas man caught on tape
When Mitchell Crooks checked out of the county jail last month and checked into a Las Vegas hospital, the 36-year-old videographer knew he had a fight on his hands.
His face was bloodied and bruised. His $3,500 camera had been impounded by police, and he faced criminal charges for battery on a police officer.
One month later, things have changed for Crooks.
The Clark County district attorney's office has dropped all charges, and Crooks has retained an attorney of his own. The Metropolitan Police Department has opened an internal investigation into the Las Vegas police officer, Derek Colling, who Crooks says falsely arrested and beat him for filming police.
And his camera -- which captured the entire March 20 altercation between Crooks and Colling -- has been returned.
As previously stated:
This IS a participatory democracy, you know.
Feel free to participate by instructing the Hired Help in D.C. as to your wishes for how your tax dollars are spent.
Feel free to participate by running for office locally.
So, either become a lobbyist, a large donor or vote.
I think that a lot of people might be feeling a little disenfranchised across the board here in the USA, namely many people who voted in the last presidential election. Many of those who voted for "change" didn't get anything like what they thought they were voting for. Many who didn't vote for "change" got "change" anyway. Those who voted for a third option (neither for "change" or against "change") didn't get what they wanted either.
Many people are also upset because the "change" is changing things on a massive scale even though the polls are saying that the vast majority of people don't want "change" to change those things at all.
I'm not talking specifics here I'm talking observed results of efforts to do what you are saying we should do.
Instructing the Hired Help in DC is a nice idea but seems to fail as a concept once they actually reach DC.
I like your last option though. Running for local office. How many of the people who typically have had the time to do so have that time because they aren't particularly busy doing anything else constructive? lol, get a bunch of slashdot types running for office. SLASHDOTTERS UNITE! LETS TAKE BACK THE USA!
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
a conversation between two people can also be private.
Seriously? Really, only in the sense that "two men can keep a secret if one of them is dead" style of privacy... And as far as behavior goes, just look to the religious who know that their God is recording every one of their words and deeds, and still manage to act like scum. Would they change knowing that a human was also recording?
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
FTFY, you're welcome.
That's part of the solution. I'm not sure how many people are killed by the police every year (maybe 8-10 in Colorado alone) but if they don't want to be recorded, then the masses should vote to disarm them, give them pepper spray and nothing else.
When did the US turn into a society that has to pass laws to make things legal. Didn't it use to be they passed laws to make things illegal?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
[breaths]
ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... ...sorry, it's just that that is hilarious. Hilarious because you are thinking exactly how they want you to think. So long as the general population really believes what you believe they will be able to continue to o as they wish, business as usual.
You know what would actually be a sensible democratic system though? If you think your country should go to war, you fund it yourself separately. Wars funded solely by war bonds or donations. Good luck ever seeing this implemented.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Yep. The story shows what happens when you decide *not* to tax people to cover the costs of a fire department. (You end up with a few cheap-skates who decide it's not worth the money, and then complain when something bad happens to them.)
Had there been a tax (rather than a voluntary fee), the man would have paid it, and the firefighters would have tried putting out the fire, rather than arriving and making sure it didn't spread to the homes of the people who *had* paid the voluntary fee.
captcha: rebuking
Well, there's a reason that Freedom of the Press is included in the first amendment. Remember, the amendment declares that Congress shall make no law forbidding or hindering Free Speech. It does not say that Congress must facilitate it.
So, what are you doing?
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
The actual wording is "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."
So obviously it applies to the people who own the presses. I would categorize the "right to be heard" as the right to be free from censorship in voice and print, i.e. nobody can stop someone else from hearing/reading your words.
"Tell me, what good is a (paper/blog/site/notebook/whatever) if you are unable to speak..?" </agentsmith>
were tapped in the making of this video.
small pond said this: "If the government thinks it's necessary to record my overseas phone calls me and touch my junk at airports in order to stop terrorism, then the natural conclusion is that the government needs to be equally open. It consists of the same kind of people as me, just as (un)likely to be terrorists. Therefore, I need to see what they are doing. No more secret meetings. No more closed negotiations. No more situations that I can't record what's happening to me. In a democracy we don't have a separate ruling class with different privileges." I say this: Get the friggin' 28th amendment put into place. Until we do, what smallpond said will never happen... there will always be closed doors, rooms of negotiation that are often against us, and a ruling class above us. Corrections to our society, when they are about the corruption in govt, MUST come from us at the lower levels, a grassroots movement. If you do not get moving and start talking this 28th about, it'll never happen, and we'll stay as we are, until they make it even worse. The 28th amendment is or best hope! jmho
The article summary should not refer to the court as a "Massachusetts court." That means a STATE court of Massachusetts. This is a FEDERAL APPEALS COURT which just happens to be located in Boston.
How come firefighters never go out their way to harass people taking pictures or videos of a fire and rescue. Or EMS employees freaking out after having their picture taken after helping out an accident victim. Maybe it's because they're actually their job and doing it correctly. And they're doing it for the public good, not for some ego trip.
Do you actually have a right to be heard? What if I don't want to listen to you? Should I be barred from changing the channel, or walking away, or simply zoning you out?
Good. Why should you be able to make loud enough noise to where I can't sleep?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
No it fucking isn't. You agreed to pay those taxes when you moved into the area. Ignoring that fact shows you to be a fucking retard.
No. Fucking no. Private enterprise is good for most things. Functions of government are NOT one of them.
Taxation is exactly a form of theft when you look at it for what it is.
An agreement whereby I agreed to pay a portion of my income or purchase to the government in exchange for the ability to live there and many services it provides? Yeah, totally sounds like theft.
Lets say a man comes up to you and demands your car and threatens you with bodily harm, surely we can call him a thief. Lets say 2 men come up with you and do the same thing. Does it stop being theft? Lets say 3 men come up to you, take a vote on if you should have your car, and all three of them vote to take your car and you are the lone dissenter. Is it still theft? What if 10 people came in much the same way and took your car and left you a bicycle. Is it still theft? How many people need to be in a mob for it to stop being theft? Surely even if 100 people came, took your brand new 2011 Porsche and replaced it with a 1988 Honda, it would still be theft, correct? Taxation is much the same thing, it is still theft no matter how many people are in the mob trying to take your property.
--
None of that is anywhere close to applying because... YOU AGREED TO PAY TAXES WHEN YOU MOVED INTO THE AREA You agreed to follow the laws of the locality when you moved there. Those laws include taxes. If you don't like it, then you're saying that a localities laws shouldn't apply to you. If they shouldn't apply to you, then why should you get to live there and enjoy the benefits, protections, and services that they provide? Why do you get to prevent the right of a people to rule themselves?
So? How does that change things in the least? Or are you still too stubborn to admit that government can actually do things, and do them efficiently.
You do when those facts are completely wrong. You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts.
taxation is done by force or threat of force.
No it isn't. No more than any other law or agreement is enforced.
Do you honestly think that if you didn't honor your agreement to pay for the gasoline you pumped into your car, that there would not be a use of force to compel you to?
Ahh yes. The story which shows how PRIVATE FIREDEPARTMENTS WORK.
The story is about a family who didn't pay their Fire Department fee, and so paid for it. Something that you idiots clamoring for private fire departments seem to forget would be happening.
it was a fee levied by the fire department for "protection". Any other "protection" schemes ring bells?
Yeah. The EXACT SAME THING a private fire department would levy on people. Do you honestly think that a private fire company would not do the same?
Imagine how that felt, to see the fire trucks pull up, sirens and lights blaring, and then all the firefighters get out and stand there watching everything you own burn down, while you beg and plead with them to save some fraction of it.
I would imagine it'd feel the exact same as when a private fire company does it. Oh wait, because they're private, they're saintly and holy, and would put the fire out for free.
They claimed all kinds of things that taxation supposedly paid for. I posted a link with a different story to tell. If you couldn't tell the difference, then I'm sorry for your reading comprehension skills, and you should apologize to your teachers.
No, your teachers need to be beaten with a stick for the poor job they did with you. Read it again. He had an OPTIONAL FEE that he would have had to pay to get fire protection. He was NOT paying taxes to get fire protection like most people.
The thing is that taxes are compulsory.
If by compulsory, you mean compulsory in the way that not committing rape and murder are compulsory, then I guess so.
However, at the same time, they are citizens just as you are, and they have the right to speak on public lands, just as you do.
Yeah, private prisons are great. Please, we need more of this! Gotta keep showing that quarterly growth!
So the only people allowed to complain are the politicians and lobbyists themselves?
Got it.
> You have no right to "be heard" and such a "right" means destroying other people's freedoms.
I agree with the point you are making about not being able to force other people to listen. But I would phrase it differently. I must disagree with the portion I quoted.
Consider this: You have the right to speak all you want, as long as it is after I arrest you and put you in a soundproof cell. Once imprisoned for disagreeing with my new state policy, you can't claim I am infringing upon your right to free speech. You are free to speak. I'm just not going to let anyone hear you.
When put that way, maybe you want to reconsider how you phrase it about a right to be heard. You don't have a right to force other people to listen, but maybe you should have a right to be heard.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Moved into the area? Really? That's the best you can do?
"You agreed to pay those taxes when you chose to be born."
Or compulsory as being forced to pay for someone's boondoggle because he bribed the right politicians. Civilization isn't just about preventing rape or murder. It's also about fancy and low risk ways of taking other peoples' stuff.
Once again, call his bluff. Stop weaseling around. The theory behind government is that you need an organization to ride herd on humans, which involves compulsory taxation and the resulting corruption. The libertarians claim to have an alternate way, but people piddle in fear at the mere thought of trying it out even in a small location. Crazier stuff (such as 20th Century Communism) has been tried on vast scales so what's the big deal?
I've long thought that police officers should be required to carry video and/or audio recorders (portable radios already exist that have that feature) that continuously record their actions, and that any interactions with the public that are captured by those recorders have to be made public if the person recorded requests it or it was highly in the public interest (a judge would have to rule on that).
Do you have a right to petition government for redress of grievances? Well, yes. Sorta. That was the idea, anyway. Still true, if you have the money to buy an ear. We call them `lobbyists'.
So, yeah. Some people have the right to be heard.
If there's one thing I've learned from watching 10,000 cop procedurals, it's that if the DA dares charge even en ex-cop with anything, all the other cops will "lose" evidence resulting in a 0% conviction rate, and then he won't get reelected because he'll seem incompetent.
What reality are you living in? Supposing that the cops actually did this, why would any DA not immediately haul the fool who tried to pull this up on evidence tampering charges? The DA chooses to press charges against people he can get convictions against. If cops that are breaking the law aren't getting charged, chances are it is simply because the DA doesn't see a case.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I don't recall agreeing to pay ANY taxes, ever.
I do recall being told it's required by law, though.
Because letting the place burn will undoubtedly end up costing more than a paltry $75. And the goodwill squandered over the owner can't be measured in dollars.
No, the right thing to do - the prudent thing - the moral thing - would be to put the fire out anyway, and then fine the guy for causing an unnecessary danger. Just like Search and Rescue will charge you for the cost of fishing you out of the tide or pulling you off a mountainside - after they rescue you. Oh, and I'm sure the neighbor who actually paid his protection money was happy to see the fire department stand idly by and let his house catch fire. Stupid.
Everybody with a conscience or a communal bone in their body knows it was the wrong thing to do. That's why it provokes outrage: you don't deny aid to a neighbor in an emergency, holding their safety and property for ransom when you are perfectly able to help.
Unless, of course, you're a petty-minded dick who has a twisted sense of "justice." Why don't you go live in a treehouse somewhere if you don't think you feel no responsibility to help your neighbors. When floods come and everyone else is filling sandbags, you can stand there and smugly refuse to lift a finger until they pay you. When a tornado rips through town, you can gleefully charge a fee to your neighbor trapped under their collapsed house. You can smirk at the gunshot victim lying bleeding in the street and say "not my job."
Reading Slashdot.
How about you?
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Because it doesn't show that the government can do something and do it efficiently, it only shows that someone with a lot of money and a lot of computers spread across a geographical network can create a worldwide network.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
You don't need a lot of computers to create the backbone of the internet. IIRC, they tested the first TCP/IP packet network with just 2 computers.
The reason it was created by the government is that the military had a need for a robust network that could survive an enemy attack, and could work with different types of computers - goals that no private company put any priority on. It cost more only because it had to be mil spec.
Of course IBM or DEC could have done it too - the hardware and the brainpower were there. It doesn't mean that the government can't do things better than private industry in some cases. In fact, the whole history of government programs seems to grow out of needs that private industry couldn't or wouldn't address. The majority of it was built by private contractors anyway. Of course adding government red tape on top will increase the cost.
I think the real problem with tax money is the same as with any source of revenue - those receiving it come to take it for granted and think of things they could do... if they just had a little more money... over the years it builds a lot of cruft.
it was a fee levied by the fire department for "protection". Any other "protection" schemes ring bells?
Yeah. The EXACT SAME THING a private fire department would levy on people. Do you honestly think that a private fire company would not do the same?
Actually, I was referring to the infamous mafia line of "it would be awful if something were to happen to your store", spoken by one of the pair of thugs or goons standing in said store with an expensive object balanced precariously on the edge of a shelf.
Imagine how that felt, to see the fire trucks pull up, sirens and lights blaring, and then all the firefighters get out and stand there watching everything you own burn down, while you beg and plead with them to save some fraction of it.
I would imagine it'd feel the exact same as when a private fire company does it. Oh wait, because they're private, they're saintly and holy, and would put the fire out for free.
I never said they should put the fire out "for free"... and as a matter of fact, the guy in the story offered to pay "whatever it took" for them to put the fire out.
Also, as other posters in this thread have pointed out, by not putting the guy's house out, they allowed other paying customers' property to become endangered, and even damaged. They stood there and not only watched his house burn, they watched it light his neighbor's house on fire, as well... and that guy DID pay the "tax".
Search and rescue will cheerfully charge you after the fact for being dumb enough to need rescued. They don't require you to be paid up on some sort of "life saving" insurance to do so, and they don't stand there and argue with you about how much it's going to cost to bring your broken body down from the ledge on the side of the cliff.
Is it really your point of view that a FIRE DEPARTMENT should stand by and let someone's house burn down while that someone stands there and offers to give them whatever they want in return for saving it?
Is it really your point of view that it's ok for them to let someone else's house catch on fire because they're not going to save the first house? Even if the second house was owned by someone who DID pay for "protection"?
You're a terrible human being, with no sense of duty to your community, and no sense of right vs wrong. Sorry for being ad hominem, but... wow. You take the cake, and knock the rest on to the floor because the other dinner guests didn't pay you for it. Good job.
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Good business would have been to show up, tell the guy he didn't pay for the fire protection, and give him a dollar figure he would need to cough up before they would put out the fire... not to show up and stand there with your thumb up your ass while you watch his house burn.
I'm willing to bet that the private fire department has a hard time getting *anyone* to pay their "protection fee" next year. I know I wouldn't... I'd instead invest in a few fire extinguishers, and maybe a hose connection at that tree in the backyard, so I could deal with it myself instead of paying some thugs' extortion racket.
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And as a matter of fact, if I worked at that fire department, I'd have been fired for disobeying a superior's direct order, because I would have saved that man's house, fee or no. We can always go to court later to settle up the bill.
If I worked for that fire department right now, I'd be ashamed to leave my house, for fear my neighbors would see me.
This is like a doctor refusing to perform a life-saving operation because you don't have insurance.
I hope the man and his family sue the fire department, all of its employees, and most especially the fire chief for deliberate and malicious dereliction of duty.
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Don't be intentionally dense -- no, I can't write on your paper/blog/site/notebook/whatever, not without your permission.
That would be an invasion of your rights. That would be FORCING you to allow me to scribble on your stuff.
You cannot, however, stop me from writing in my own paper/blog/site/notebook/whatever. And I can't stop you from doing the same in your own.
And I can't force you to read what I write, and you can't force me to read what you write.
That's how rights work. If something involves forcing anyone to do anything, it's probably a violation of the target of that force's rights -- unless the force is being used to prevent that person or entity from exerting force over another person or entity in a violation of that third party's rights.
You might be thinking of how protesters are often shut down and their "right to free speech" violated? Here's the deal. Very, very infrequently is that actually what's going on -- typically those "protesters" are, in fact, violating the rights of everyone else because they believe their right to be heard supersedes the right of others to freely travel and engage in commerce.
So, yeah. Giant protest, human chain across a roadway? That's not exercising freedom of speech, that's, well. Hah. That's terrorism. That is -- let's just go whole hog here -- a bunch of entitled trustafarian wankers who think their private agenda is more important than me getting to my job, or me getting to the store, or me getting to a friend's house or even my own house.
That's not freedom of speech. They are infringing the rights of others, and are RIGHTFULLY removed and prevented from their petty little public temper tantrums. They're trying to FORCE others to hear their speech. That's not freedom of speech -- that is tyranny.
Hell, look at this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_(street_protester)
I've seen that guy. He hasn't been shut up. Wanna know why? He doesn't force anyone to pay attention to him. He doesn't interfere with anyone's right to travel freely or engage in commerce. He is crazy as hell, but he's got one thing right. He understands freedom of speech. He understands that he can say the craziest shit he wants to, and he's within his rights to do so -- so long as he does not infringe upon anyone else's rights. He does not, and so is not stopped from exercising his right to free speech.
For some reason this is obvious to any rational human being -- and a few irrational ones -- but is very hard to explain to entitled little snots who have been grown with the notion that they are special and have a right to be heard.
There is no right to be heard, only a right to speak.
That's the only way you can have freedom -- anything else involves the imposition of force on unwilling parties.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
This ruling is in line with Comm v. Hyde. There is NOTHING new about this ruling, at least regards the recording issue. There is nothing wrong with OPENLY recording cops in MA or anyone else who are speaking in normal voice in public. By being in public, they are forfeiting their privacy. This is inline with 4th Amendment thinking.
For this reason I sponsored a voter Initiative Petition (three of them) for the MA 2012 ballot to amend MGL ch272 S99:
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=cagoterminal&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Government&L2=Initiatives+%26+Other+Ballot+Questions&sid=Cago&b=terminalcontent&f=government_initiativepetitiontracking&csid=Cago
Chapter 272, section 99, subsection (D) , item 1 is modified by inserting the following paragraph after paragraph (f):
g. for persons to record a public official in the course of performing his duties in a public place. For the purposes of this definition, a ‘public place’ is any venue where said public official does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The question is whether the right to free speech should supercede the right to private property. In your tedious ramble you've assumed a "no" without even bringing up the point.
But in most jurisdictions, the answer is "yes, sometimes". For example, in Britain political parties satisfying certain criterion are granted equal airtime on certain television channels - so a mainstream political party and the racist BNP will both get their evening slots on the main channels (quite rightly - even though I disagree with the BNP I think only harm can come out of its opinion being pushed underground while the usual corrupt but well-funded parties are able to carry on their meaningless droning). They have a right to be heard. In the Californian state constitution, the right to free speech is considered a positive one, so canvassers can walk around Walmart giving out leaflets and Walmart has no right to eject these people. They have a right to be heard.
Finally, there is the right which every vaguely democratic government supplies: the right to vote/petition. This is a very important form of the right to be heard and means that your speech influences government behaviour which in turn determines the laws of the land. Good luck ignoring the voice of the people when they give their opinion at the ballot box or form lobby groups. The US certainly grants these rights to be heard.
So if that oath is not legally binding, and cannot be enforced by law, why perjury?
And if an oath cannot be binding, why are contracts?
No, they don't. They have the right to petition the government, but that doesn't extend to making other people listen.
It was an implied agreement. Like it or not, when you move into an area, you agree to follow their rules. One of those rules is taxation.
Good business would have been to show up, tell the guy he didn't pay for the fire protection, and give him a dollar figure he would need to cough up before they would put out the fire
You mean extortion?
This is like a doctor refusing to perform a life-saving operation because you don't have insurance.
Which is how things work in the privatized system. You really want to extend that to more areas of life?
I hope the man and his family sue the fire department, all of its employees, and most especially the fire chief for deliberate and malicious dereliction of duty.
Because he decided of his own free will he didn't want to pay the fee when asked, and he only decided he'd be willing to when it was too late?
According to privatization and the "Free Market", he got what he deserved.
No, and your entire premise is retarded. Taxes are not theft, and they are not "extorted". There is no more force used to collect taxes than there is to collect any other debt or enforce any other law. By repeating this stupid and ridiculous line, you are saying that no laws should ever apply to you, because you're "special", and apparently you can trump a people's right to self govern.
Your POV totally ignores the distinction between emergencies and normal situations. If the guy failed to pay his sanitation fee and his garbage piled up, no harm done.
When you're talking about danger to life, property, and community the rules are different - but since you apply the same blinkered yardstick to everything and money is your only concern, it will cause pain to someone. Hopefully to you, at some point.
Because letting the place burn will undoubtedly end up costing more than a paltry $75.
A firefighter response costs more than $75.
And the goodwill squandered over the owner can't be measured in dollars.
There's another label for this value, "worthless".
No, and your entire premise is retarded.
A sign your argument isn't based on fact or reasoned argument.
There is no more force used to collect taxes than there is to collect any other debt or enforce any other law.
First, willful failure to pay US federal taxes is a federal felony. Not so with private debt. This is a really big thing to get wrong.
Debt is limited in extent by what you owe while taxes are at best proportional to what you earn. Debt is fixed, taxes are open-ended. That's another similarity with theft and extortion which depends on what is there to steal.
And laws can be just and unjust. They tend to be enforced the same. So the degree of enforcement for taxation isn't an indication of its legitimacy.
apparently you can trump a people's right to self govern.
Ummm, and what's so bad about that? That should be the case. The peoples' right to "self-govern" should like any potential form of tyranny stop when it starts imposing on my rights beyond the minimum necessary for a civil society. So sure, have punishment for rape and murder. Don't have punishment because I don't pay into the latest pension fund scam (Social Security in the case of the US).
It's worth noting at this point that the US Constitution does, particularly in the Bill of Rights, trump a peoples' right to self govern.
Yeah, you don't have to listen to the legislative process. And you can ignore the laws which result from it. And close your eyes and ears to the official instructions which result from those laws. They don't apply to you. You don't have to listen.
Good luck!
Because it doesn't show that the government can do something and do it efficiently, it only shows that someone with a lot of money and a lot of computers spread across a geographical network can create a worldwide network.
It shows that government can do something unbelievably valuable, that others can't or won't invest in. We've all benefited immensely from it though.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
taxation is done by force or threat of force.
No it isn't. No more than any other law or agreement is enforced.
Do you honestly think that if you didn't honor your agreement to pay for the gasoline you pumped into your car, that there would not be a use of force to compel you to?
There's a key difference.
The gas station owner had to pay for the gasoline he owns before he could sell it to me. He did useful work to earn that property. When he bought that gasoline from a refinery, it was a mutual, voluntary transaction. Both the refinery wanted to sell the gasoline at that price and the gas station owner wanted to buy the gasoline at that price. No coercion. When I stop at the gas station and put 10 gallons into my car, I am voluntarily choosing to purchase that much at that price and the gas station owner is voluntarily choosing to put up for sale that gasoline at that price. No coercion. The money with which I purchase the gasoline was earned by another voluntary arrangement in which I performed useful work at a negotiated rate.
If I tried to take gasoline from the gas station owner without paying for it, that he did not tell me I may have for free, I am violating his wishes. I am unilaterally engaging in a transaction that does not have mutual consent. He did not consent for me to take it for free. By taking it anyway, I am effectively coercing him into an arrangement he does not want to be in. Thus, I am depriving him of his property rights.
Because in your hypothetical scenario I would be, without provocation, depriving the gas station owner of his property rights, it makes sense for the government to use force against me to stop this crime. That's one proper role of government, to prevent a person from using force or fraud to deprive another of natural rights.
With taxation, the difference is that the government is not trying to persuade me to give that money. Then it would be a mutually voluntary arrangement. Then it would not be theft. The government is taking it by threat of force, and the threat is very real. I would be a fool not to pay when they tell me to. If I have a problem with Big Macs I can choose not to purcahse McDonalds products. If I have a problem with fighting offensive overseas wars against countries that are no threat to us, because I believe them to be murder, I am not given a choice - I still have to financially support (effectively purchase a share in) those wars.
You have to get over this idea that there is something special about government, that its actions do not need to be justified morally/ethically the same way you would want an individual to be able to justify his or her actions. Government is just an abstraction of human beings and their actions. If it is theft for me to take someone's property against their will for what I believe is a really good reason, it is theft when government does the same. To say it is different in principle when government does it is the same thing as saying that "might makes right" since government has lots of armed men to carry out its wishes.
Government is special in one way: it is the only entity legally allowed to use force to achieve its goals. To any thinking man, that means it needs *more* justification for its actions compared to someone who does everything voluntarily, not less. To suggest otherwise is effectively a form of worship, a deification of government because you can imagine no force greater. When you call these things what they are, they become much more clear.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Hey! You made Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World." Congratulations!
If you didn't notice, I was arguing AGAINST privatization.
First, willful failure to pay US federal taxes is a federal felony. Not so with private debt. This is a really big thing to get wrong.
I fail to see much difference, as when you owe a private debt, they're either going to bring criminal charges of theft against you, or they are going to bring the court system into it for breach of contract.
Debt is fixed, taxes are open-ended.
Wow, you couldn't have put that more backwards if you tried. You even contradicted it in your previous sentence, when you said that debt is limited only by what you spend. In contrast, taxes are proportional to what you owe, meaning they are pretty limited.
That's another similarity with theft and extortion which depends on what is there to steal.
Only if you're stupid enough to make that comparison.
Ummm, and what's so bad about that? That should be the case. The peoples' right to "self-govern" should like any potential form of tyranny stop when it starts imposing on my rights beyond the minimum necessary for a civil society. So sure, have punishment for rape and murder. Don't have punishment because I don't pay into the latest pension fund scam (Social Security in the case of the US).
And there's NO EVIDENCE OF THAT HAPPENING. Seriously, people like you are completely fucked in the head, and extremely selfish to boot. "Oh, look at me, I'm special! I'm better than everyone else, so I don't have to follow the rules!"
And in case you forgot, YOU AGREED TO PAY INTO THAT PENSION FUND. You agreed to follow the rules by continuing to live here. Had you not, then you would not be welcomed here.
Wow, you went full retard with that one, didn't you?
Again, you have NO RIGHT to make a private citizen listen to you. Your contrived example doesn't work, as that's not a citizen expressing their right to speech. Not to mention that just because you might not choose to listen to what the laws are, that doesn't mean you aren't bound by them. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
that's not a citizen expressing their right to speech
It's a citizen expressing their right to be heard, which is what's being discussed here.
Not to mention that just because you might not choose to listen to what the laws are, that doesn't mean you aren't bound by them. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Exactly. Because citizens have a right to be heard via processes of voting and petition. And you must listen to this in the sense that you must, at the very least, hear the law which results. In your most lazy, pathological form of participation in democratic government you can ignore everything which happens before or after the law, but don't whine if your non-participation results in a country you don't like.
You can't directly check whether people have heard and processed something about the opinions of their fellow countrymen. You can give everyone an exam - I hear many countries have citizenship classes for childen and immigrants - but that gives merely the right to be heard and potentially ignored. The suffrage, petition and legislative processes give the right to be heard and have your words taken into account.
Bad luck, dude. As long as people are willing to express themselves via official methods, even in the US you have to listen to what people around you think. The libertarian dream of everyone thinking the same inconsistent way is, fortunately, just that. The country is much better than you wish it were :-).
The Slashdot news link "copyright can be claimed as an excuse to prevent you from taking a photo of a giant sculpture in a public, tax-paid park" seems to be obsolete by six years now. I clicked on this alarming news to see it, failed to notice it was from August 12, ... 2005 (!), quoted it on a forum, and soon enough people was telling me how wrong I was:
http://gochicago.about.com/od/attractionsandlandmarks/ss/millennium_park_6.htm
It is right from Slashdot to keep the outdated news from 2005, what is wrong is for timothy to quote it in 2011 pretending it's still actual.
-Ignacio Agulló Sousa
Who are edging closer and closer to being at real risk of being shut down on the basis of the content that passes through their pipes. They've only narrowly avoided the bullet by handing over their customers whenever they can. The ISPs trying to pull AOL redux are Big Media, and the rest of them are being screwed like all of us. What do we do?
First, willful failure to pay US federal taxes is a federal felony. Not so with private debt. This is a really big thing to get wrong.
I fail to see much difference
I already told you the difference. Federal felonies are a far more serious matter than civil remedies.
That's another similarity with theft and extortion which depends on what is there to steal.
Only if you're stupid enough to make that comparison.
You meet that threshold quite handily, for example, by arguing that felonies are equivalent to civilian court things like fines and such.
Ummm, and what's so bad about that? That should be the case. The peoples' right to "self-govern" should like any potential form of tyranny stop when it starts imposing on my rights beyond the minimum necessary for a civil society. So sure, have punishment for rape and murder. Don't have punishment because I don't pay into the latest pension fund scam (Social Security in the case of the US).
And there's NO EVIDENCE OF THAT HAPPENING. Seriously, people like you are completely fucked in the head, and extremely selfish to boot. "Oh, look at me, I'm special! I'm better than everyone else, so I don't have to follow the rules!"
No evidence that what should happen does actually happen? That's what's called "injustice".
And in case you forgot, YOU AGREED TO PAY INTO THAT PENSION FUND. You agreed to follow the rules by continuing to live here. Had you not, then you would not be welcomed here.
Oh look, yet another difference between taxation and debt. Most ways to incur debt require formal authorization (usually the signing of a document) by all relevant parties. You "agree" to taxation by not running or resisting hard enough. You know what other activities work that way? Theft and extortion.
So to summarize, you've accused me of being stupid, selfish, and insane. You have yet to show the most important claim, namely, that the original poster's comparison of taxation with theft is in any way inappropriate or incorrect.