Slashdot Mirror
Lawmakers Threaten Legal Basis of NSA Surveillance
Nerval's Lobster writes "The author of the Patriot Act has warned that the legal justification for the NSA's wholesale domestic surveillance program will disappear next summer if the White House doesn't restrict the way the NSA uses its power. Section 215 of the Patriot Act will expire during the summer of 2015 and will not be renewed unless the White House changes the shocking scale of the surveillance programs for which the National Security Administration uses the authorization, according to James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), an original author of the Patriot Act and its two reauthorizations, stated Washington insider-news source The Hill. 'Unless Section 215 gets fixed, you, Mr. Cole, and the intelligence community will get absolutely nothing, because I am confident there are not the votes in this Congress to reauthorize it,' Sensenbrenner warned Deputy Attorney General James Cole during the Feb. 4 hearing. Provisions of Section 215, which allows the NSA to collect metadata about phone calls made within the U.S., give the government a 'very useful tool' to track connections among Americans that might be relevant to counterterrorism investigations, Cole told the House Judiciary Committee. The scale of the surveillance and lengths to which the NSA has pushed its limits was a "shock" according to Sensenbrenner, who also wrote the USA Freedom Act, a bill to restrict the scope of both Section 215 and the NSA programs, which has attracted 130 co-sponsors. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has sponsored a similar bill in the Senate."
Obama has a pen and a phone, and he's not afraid to use them.
"MOVIN’ ON UP" my ass
Yesterday, I had a child. My dear son. Today I found him dead. He left a suicide note: "The only reason for my death is Slashdot Beta."
Also I had a daughter a few days ago. But then I also found her dead. This time she had been murdered. The autopsy came back: She had been mauled by Slashdot Beta.
This must end!! Think of the children! Kill the Beta!
Screw Beta Slashdot. Stupid dumb asses.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
And this is why it can be smart to put time limits on bills, even if you think they are a good idea at the time. In that sense, the original authors of the Patriot Act were smart.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If the NSA is a DoD/Military "agency", and Eric Holder approved using them to assist the civilian Dept. of Justice, then American's are truly living in a military state. How long until Holder and Obama are impeached for this? As if International Watergate wasn't bad enough....
Vote up the Firehose stories http://slashdot.org/recent
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
The Republican bloc is unlikely to do anything that would curb military or intelligence related activities.
Unless there's a Democrat running those intelligence related activities. Then there's actually a good chance.
Reminds me of that time when Slashdot hired a gang of meth-addled rhesus monkeys to redesign their site.
Pardon me for not leading with a negative comment on Slashdot Beta (if I did comment it would be highly negative) but, let's stay on topic. It will make zero difference if the NSA has a "legal" basis or not. The govt will simply assert the president's "right" or power to "defend the country" and which court is going to say no to that?
Section 215 of the Patriot Act will expire during the summer of 2015 and will not be renewed
Its time to put this experiment to bed. Like prohibition, which lasted 13 years, the Patriot act (now 13 years old), and damage it has caused needs to be rolled back. Not just Section 215, but other major portions of the act as well.
We are not safer now. We are simply less free now. It has not prevented terrorist attacks, either here or abroad. Boarder security continues to be a utter joke, and secrecy provisions are the antithesis of our supposed freedoms.
Its probably time to start yanking your congressman's chain. Its time to point out that the simple fact we are not asleep any more is basically all that is needed, and all that was ever needed. Its time to point out that 13 years of lies and secrecy is enough. Its time for them to stop carrying the governments message to their constituents, and start carrying their constituents message to the government.
Do I expect this to be successful? No. Not as long as a single one of those congressmen were in office for the initial passing, or the prior re-authorizations. They are too heavily invested in the act, and the administration has too much control over them.
Time to clean house. Stop fearing your district's loss of seniority by electing new people. Vote them all out. If we do it piece meal, career bureaucrats and career politicians will just co-opt the new members. Remove the leverage.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You apparently don't pay much attention to defense matters. You should look into the "peace dividend" in the 1990s, and the current defense sequestration cuts.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The Republican bloc is unlikely to do anything that would curb military or intelligence related activities.
You haven't been paying attention. The Republicans are up in arms over this, with the RNC calling the NSAs activities straight up unconstitutional and calling for their end with no mention of terrorism nor other weasel wording.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Day 1: It wouldn't stop, the redirecting. At first I thought it was malware. Had my first drink in a long time.
Day 2: Barely had the strength to carry on as the BETA REDIRECTIONS continue.. trying not to talk to hallucinations at the bar and in the bathroom which laugh at me about these redirections.
Day 3: Discovered the BETA redirections were random, and while at first they looked somewhat usable, when I looked at me and my monitor screen in the mirror, a horrible woman with flesh hanging off of her body looked back, trying to lead me into a dance as the word BETA appeared across her rancid breasts.
Day 4: These BETA corridors go on FOREVER! On the plus side, I've taken up disassembling vehicles to corner this BETA beast and sacrifice myself rather than lead others to discovering it. I ate some red snow.
Day 5: Finding it harder to concentrate. I've ate some more of the red snow. The taste is starting to grow on me.
Day 6: This typewriter is the only entertainment I have, apart from throwing things at the walls, trying to get some response from the BETA which is now taking over my mind.
Day 7: Hahahahahha! Would you believe it? I'M STILL BEING REDIRECTED TO SLASHDOT BETA PAGES! AHAHhahahaah! Type, type, ding, ding! Wooo!
Day 8: The hallucinations are actually real! Would you believe it? They have offered to help me if I agree to work for them. I'm thinking about patenting this delicious red snow, the taste is unreal!
Day 9: Having black out sessions where I cannot remember large passings of time. Found some makeup, thought I'd paint a joker smile on my face to amuse the people only I can see!
Day 10: Productive today, part of what I wrote for my new screenplay:
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slas
(drops of blood on paper)
I think this is great. We just need to get Congress to not reauthorize the Patriot Act and then all this crap can finally get rolled back. Hopefully the TSA can be next.
I'm willing to burn my not-inconsiderable karma on this, the beta really destroys the flow of what I actually come here for - the discussion! If it becomes mandatory it'll kill a site that has been my favorite place on the web for a long, long time
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Has anyone tried to email the editors directly to see if the can talk some since into their DICE pointy haired boss's or maybe we could find the email of the DICE PHB responsible and we could slashdot his inbox...
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
It may make sense to have an automatic expiration on bills like the PATRIOT ACT, but as a general rule for law that would result in complete chaos. Good God, we would never get anything done if we had to rehash out **EVERYTHING** every 5, 10 or 20 years.
It's bad enough when it comes to the damn Federal Budget every damn year.
And the demonization we've seen of "Obamacare", that would become the general rule. Nothing would ever have time to be fully implemented, given a run and known. It would be hell an order of magnitude beyond where we find ourselves today.
Is this REALLY about the NSA surveillance? Or is it about leverage for Congress critters, particularly Republicans, on the Executive branch?
"You want your PATRIOT Act renewed? You need to cut back on your surveillance. And my surveillance, we mean repeal Obamacare (or whatever the bill(s) du jour are)."
Besides, whether or not the NSA surveillance is authorized, do you think the NSA gives a fuck. They are going to do it anyways. They'll just have to be sneakier.
I'd like to participate in this article. Seems interesting. Instead Im wasting my time trying to make Dice realize that they are messing up
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
>James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.)
A laughably empty threat. The Republican bloc is unlikely to do anything that would curb military or intelligence related activities.
The two prior extensions were pushed through by Democrats. After 8 years, its time to stop blaming Republicans.
On Saturday, February 27, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law legislation that would temporarily extend for one year three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act that had been set to expire:
Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones.
Allow court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.
Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.
Its useful divisive idiots like you that keep trying to make this a partisan issue rather than getting you own party to actually READ the constitution.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
What about all the other Democrats that pushed through the last reauthorization?
The scale of the surveillance and lengths to which the NSA has pushed its limits was a "shock" according to Sensenbrenner, who also wrote the USA Freedom Act, a bill to restrict the scope of both Section 215 and the NSA programs, which has attracted 130 co-sponsors.
The author of the Patriot act has seen the light, and yet you do nothing but call him names?
What has YOUR guy been doing all this time? Oh yeah, reauthorizing it year after year.
How can you be so ignorant of the truth, yet so quick to post insults?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Actor Maximilian Schell died last week. He played the defence lawyer in Judgement at Nuremberg. It's a film about the trial of judges who were around before Hitler came to power and stayed on rather than resign. It's a great, great, film. Here's a bit of Spenser Tracey's verdict at the end:
'There are those in our own country, too...who today speak of the protection of country...of survival. A decision must be made in the life of every nation...at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy...to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. The answer to that is: Survival as what? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult.'
The trouble is, there is no practical existential threat from Al Qaeda. There is no unified command structure amongst the Muslim nations - many of which have the same ethno-linguistic-political-economic divisions that have the western nations bickering all of the time. They have no army. No navy. No air force. They are not a fundamental threat to the west and the overreach of this sector of government needs to be brought back into perspective.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Sadly, they're only up in arms about it because it's democrats doing it. The same would be true the other way around.
No one actually seems to care about the freedom aspect of this whole situation.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Dice, I am protesting the beta site. I will not follow any links from a beta redirect and I will not participate in any meaningful discussion.
Your new Slashdot design is hideous. The comment layout is an abomination which is /.'s strong point, its why we come here. This isn't twitter or Facebook, we come here to get away from that. Please abandon your attempts to cash in on this site, you will loose more members then you will ever hope to attract with your new and unimproved design.
Fellow /.'ers, join me in this protest. Do not post a comment related to a beta redirect article or click any links. Instead, post a comment in protest of the beta design.
Comments almost never load in Firefox 26.0 under windows 7, generally have to reload the page several times.
How can you be so ignorant of the truth, yet so quick to post insults?
Pot. Kettle. Black:
What has YOUR guy been doing all this time? Oh yeah, reauthorizing it year after year.
Never have I voted for Obama.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
Please help all attempts at browsing to beta.slashdot.org have failed. After intensive troubleshooting noted cause traced to DNS returning a non-routable IPv6 address. While it is great to see Slashdot embracing brand new technology like the now 16-year old IPv6 protocol and 15-year old TLS protocol you would think they would have tested the site better before deploying such a leading edge technology stack. I'm sure if I could actually get to it I would be equally amazed at its ultra childish modern look.
[superuser@superslashfailed.us ~]$ dig AAAA beta.slashdot.org
; > DiG 9.9.4-RedHat-9.9.4-8.fc20 > AAAA beta.slashdot.org ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 14240 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;beta.slashdot.org. IN AAAA ;; ANSWER SECTION: ;; Query time: 1 msec ;; SERVER: 8.88.888.8888#53(8.88.888.8888) ;; WHEN: Wed Feb 05 16:49:21 PST 2014 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 131
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1280
beta.slashdot.org. 1337 IN AAAA f0ad:be1a:d1e:d1e:d1e::1000
Admitting your side is wrong, too, is the first step.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Screw Beta Slashdot. Stupid dumb asses.
Someone sold this to their bosses, so there is no way they can back down now. 2014, the death of slashdot.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
The beta doesn't seem to have any way to vote up comments or filter by score.
The Republican bloc is unlikely to do anything that would curb military or intelligence related activities.
Unless there's a Democrat running those intelligence related activities. Then there's actually a good chance.
No. Unfettered spying ^B^B^B^B^B^B intelligence gathering is the most bipartisan issue there is. Repubs and Democrats have both controlled houses of Congress with the other party in the White House. Have they actually done anything, even to score political points? No. No, they haven't. Will they? No. No, they won't. And no, voting Ron Paul won't fix it either -- sorry guys. Basing the whole thing on the promise and integrity of one guy doesn't work if there's no one to hold him accountable. Until Congress is willing to do its job, this won't get fixed.
I am not a crackpot.
There is literally *not one single thing* that works in any manner that can even begin to approach what is commonly referred to as "usability". That in and of itself is constructive criticism because it would be impossible to enumerate every problem with the new site.
But to answer your question, here is the official thread with plenty of detailed criticisms and suggestions
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
So, what is Congress going to do? Oh, I know. They'll allow this law to "time out" - a law that doesn't allow this, anyway - and then it'll be even more illegal! Yes, it'll be so illegal that......... what? Eric Holder will finally get off his ass and investigate?
Here's what makes this stop. Rather than saying "you no longer have statutory authority to do _______" (which they don't have now, anyway, but stick with me) we need to write a simple law that says "the government may not do ______, and if they do, it'll be a class A felony with a penalty of _______ for all employees involved".
Oh, that's crazy talk! Really? Oddly, any law that restricts non-governmental officials from an activity is written exactly like that. Read through statutory law sometime.
It's only when government is supposedly "restricted" that they conveniently forget penalties. It's time we put them back in. Throw a couple of people in prison and this crap will stop.
Do you have ESP?
The editors know... we made it clear in the beta announcement thread and at least one editor said he was going to bubble it to the top of the foodchain. This is a topdown order and going to straight-up KILL slashdot. I don't think DICE even cares, and apparently neither do the editors as their still drawing paychecks. This is some serious shit; I don't know how things went down but I'd like to think Taco had the integrity to leave when he knew which way the ship would be going -- maybe he had family concerns financially. But the others, I feel bad for them, but damn, goddamn indeed, they need to stage a revolt because the users of /. are about to if this shit is forced down our throats....
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
Well, if the author of the Patriot Act hadn't been such a cowardly anti-American prick back in 2001, along with all the other cowardly anti-American pricks that voted for it, we wouldn't be having an issue now... would we? Your "truths," however, seem to be missing a little something...Obama signed it, yes (and he shouldn't have), but it was congress that passed the authorization he signed.
Why is it you want to single Obama out for what the majority of congress passed, without calling them out as well?
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
If it helps free us from illegal mass surveillance, fine, I'll take any legislative allies I can get. Digital rights is one of the worst and saddest parts of the Obama administration's record.
The penguins use harsh words, reptiles proceed to nod, wink, and critique the theatrics.
Every time I've tried the beta and try to see the comments, I get
Shazbot! We ran into some trouble getting the comments.
Try again... na-nu, na-nu!
signed another long time user who will be gone if the classic interface goes away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The Republicans are the ones who passed the Patriot Act in the first place. They're only against this because they think they can pin it on Obama.
Is anyone going to address the NSA surveillance issue behind the law? It's pretty well established that they're sucking up every possible piece of information because their world view is based in maximum paranoia (if the other guys are capable of doing this, they're probably doing this). Yet their info-vacuum yields little to no results. If we judged their potential for abuse like they judge the world's threats, there would be no NSA. So what kind of intelligent intelligence agency do we rebuild the NSA and it's ilk into? Anyone? Boehner?
Obama will "act on his own" using his phone and pen.
No one has stopped our nascent "emperor" from ruling by Diktat yet...
Corporatism != Free Market
Take it from someone who's worked for a few places: Caring about what happens with your projects only results in your being flagged as a doormat that can be manipulated.
You end up doing all the work without suitable credit.
You end up taking the blame because you act guilty when you jump on any fires.
Because the people who don't care can use the fact you do care to push your buttons, you don't get to make the decisions, they do.
Because they get to make the decisions, they can keep reminding you and everyone else how important they are, and how foolish you are, by undermining your progress.
Loop
You don't have to be an asshole. Heck, you can care, if you do so in private. But, unless masochism is your thing, don't be the nice guy that sacrifices himself. It won't be appreciated enough to justify it, even on the best of days, if at all. Oh, either way, you do still have to maintain that "I'm just telling you what you want to hear" fake caring that passes as social discourse at the risk of being branded as some other form of misfit. It is meant to sound fake. And, again, don't be an asshole about it.
dude beta sucks big giant hairy goat balls
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque a rhoncus dui. Quisque aliquam lorem commodo tincidunt dignissim. Morbi nunc est, dignissim quis ullamcorper eu, varius sed mi. Vivamus tempor vehicula feugiat. Fusce dictum est faucibus mauris adipiscing ullamcorper. Phasellus id erat pellentesque dui ultrices dapibus. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Etiam nibh ante, malesuada eget lacinia ut, commodo nec diam. Proin fringilla metus nibh, ac sollicitudin lorem congue ut. Nunc quis metus auctor, luctus turpis vitae, varius purus. Sed non augue est. Sed consectetur feugiat nunc vel sodales. Etiam semper arcu quis lorem scelerisque, eget aliquam tellus blandit. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Etiam et odio ut eros semper ultricies quis nec nunc. Maecenas enim quam, semper ac elementum et, euismod ut diam.
Slashdot has been an institution, despite it's owners best efforts; one of the last vestiges of the bad ol' days. Wallowing in death throws for so long, it's almost a release to see it go down. The only sad part is the community that gets snuffed out as part of it.
--- Bigger bits, softer blocks, tighter ASCII.
Small point, you meant to say Minnesota's 6th district which is stuck on crazy, not Minnesota's 5th District who elected the first Muslim to serve in the house of representatives in the form of Keith Ellison. The two districts are close geographically, but very far apart politically.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
The beta doesn't add any useful new features. All it does is remove them and severely fucks up the best part of this site: the commenting and moderation system. If the commenting system goes out the window, why would I come here? The stories are always several days or a week old, the editors are terrible at their job, and all of the actual articles are on other sites I could browse instead.
What the hell, Dice?
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
With third party doctrine relied upon almost exclusively to produce with little or no showing what everyone in modern society assumes and thinks to be their property as constitutional basis to legitimize what otherwise would be constitutionally illegitimate what really could one expect legal effect of the patriot act going away to be?
The linchpin seems to be the third party doctrine you pull that patriot act, stored communications act and all manner of accumulated doublespeak becomes unconstitutional overnight.
What is sad to me I personally don't object in principal to governments being allowed to access information or search you or your home as long as evidentiary standards are met and a non-puppet legal regime reviews and signs off on it.
By all the shenanigans and overreach (both real and imagined) where things are actually headed is a situation where governments lose that capability more than would ever be necessary had they simply behaved themselves.
2014, the death of slashdot.
and, I'm sure, netcraft will confirm it, eventually.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Every time I've tried the beta and try to see the comments, I get
Shazbot! We ran into some trouble getting the comments. Try again... na-nu, na-nu!
signed another long time user who will be gone if the classic interface goes away.
The lawmakers ARE the threat.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
The Republicans are the ones who passed the Patriot Act in the first place.
Don't be an ignorant fuck.
H.R. 3162 aka "THE PATRIOT ACT" passed the House in 2001 with 357 Yay votes and only 66 Nay votes. 145 of those Yay votes (40%) were Democrats. Only 15% of the House voted against it.
Then it passed the Senate 98 Yay to 1 Nay. The only Senator to vote against it was Feingold from Wisconsin.. yes, a Democrat.
Somehow I can amazingly find information on the internet such as which Representatives and Senators voted for which bills. Good thing indeed. It allows me to not exist in a state of ignorant fuckness.
"His name was James Damore."
You must have some weird kind of Stockholm Syndrome to be linking the official thread as beta.slashdot.org
Just say no to beta: http://slashdot.org/~slashdotblog/journal/634763
/and no to shortened urls: http://slashdot.org/~slashdotb...
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I've read /. from the sidelines for years and it was perfect for me, but I just HATE this new design and everything about it. Why change it?! It worked, it was clear. Not it's a ghastly MESS just like so many other marketized sites for the masses. I came here to quick assimilate new and interesting information and I had immediate access the the messages most relevant to my interests. Now..... oh this is really awful. I'm actually upset, because /. was so special. Why can it not be left alone but promoted for the "specialness" that it has, rather than changing it to make it look superficially familiar to the Facebook crowds etc. It's just so awful.
So it's legal right now? Just asking.
You've confused me. How have you refuted what I said? Republicans passed the bill. The only reason they're against it now is because they believe that they can pin it on Obama. These are true things. What you seem to be pointing out now, what is also true, is that Democrats passed it too. So what?
If you want to turn this into partisan dick wagging, I'll point out that the largest number of opponents of the bill and it's extensions, both in quantity and proportionally, have been Democrats. The most recent extension in the house was 196 Y - 31 N for Republicans in the house and 54 Y - 122 N for Democrats, in the Senate the majority of both parties supported it but the no votes were 19 D and 4 R. However, overall the bill has gotten support from both parties.
Hm. It's possible that you are upset over my use of the words "the ones." I'll grant that my statement would have been better made if I had said, "The Republicans were the ones in power when Patriot Act was passed in the first place." My intent was to emphasize that Republicans were firmly behind the bill when it was passed, and have been firmly behind it since then, not to imply exclusivity.
... but I had the impression that nowadays the only legal justification anything needs is that the Fuehrer (sorry, President) wants it to happen.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Or mod points. I cannot see if I have some, how many ect.
Sorry but I tried it and found it unworkable in 10 minutes. If it takes longer than that to find the functionality they are doing it wrong...
What has YOUR guy been doing all this time? Oh yeah, reauthorizing it year after year.
Never have I voted for Obama.
He's not talking about Obama. He's talking about your Representative and Senators. You know, the people who actually write, sponsor, and submit bills for presidential signature. House votes have been 275/174, 280/138, and 250/153, Senate votes have been 89/10, 89/10 and 72/23. Those are pretty sizeable bipartisan majorities, especially in the Senate.
So, how about your senators? How many times have you written then about your privacy concerns?
I don't. Those of us who've been around for a while remember when the current batch of editors came onboard, and compared to the original crew they're useless; about as effective at editing as patent examiners are at examining patents.
I used to have most of them filtered out, but unfortunately if I kept those filters Slashdot would be (more) content-free.
So, fuck 'em. And fuck beta, of course.
Log in or piss off.
Just so you know, Clinton was successfully impeached, just not convicted by the senate (he was in fact acquitted).
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Or ... whatever.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I took a look at Slashdot Beta. I don't get it. It doesn't add anything, but instead takes away from what Slashdot is. I don't care about Slashdot BI or Cloud or whatever. Slashdot's entire value proposition is and always has been its community. If a pointless redesign alienates and destroys that community, Slashdot will quickly vanish from the Earth. All the hokey moves the MBAs at the acquiring companies have pulled the last 5 years have really dented my love for the site. When Malda left it felt like losing a brother. The site is a shadow of what it once was, but I still come back for the community. I don't know where the community will go if Dice pushes through this catastrophe, but I'm sure it wouldn't take long before a successor would step into the void.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
And the author of the section of the Patriot Act that the NSA is using to justify it's actions is leading the charge here. Do you really find it impossible to see past your prejudices?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You think I should be more selective? That I should only oppose section 215? I think there's much more that's wrong with the Patriot Act than just that little bit.