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L.A. Police: All Cars In L.A. Are Under Investigation
An anonymous reader writes with a link to an article by the EFF's Jennifer Lynch, carried by Gizmodo, which reports that the L.A. Police Department and L.A. Sheriff's Department "took a novel approach in the briefs they filed in EFF and the ACLU of Southern California's California Public Records Act lawsuit seeking a week's worth of Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) data. They have argued that 'All [license plate] data is investigatory.' The fact that it may never be associated with a specific crime doesn't matter. This argument is completely counter to our criminal justice system, in which we assume law enforcement will not conduct an investigation unless there are some indicia of criminal activity. In fact, the Fourth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution exactly to prevent law enforcement from conducting mass, suspicionless investigations under "general warrants" that targeted no specific person or place and never expired.
ALPR systems operate in just this way. The cameras are not triggered by any suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; instead, they automatically and indiscriminately photograph all license plates (and cars) that come into view. ... Taken to an extreme, the agencies' arguments would allow law enforcement to conduct around-the-clock surveillance on every aspect of our lives and store those records indefinitely on the off-chance they may aid in solving a crime at some previously undetermined date in the future. If the court accepts their arguments, the agencies would then be able to hide all this data from the public."
ALPR systems operate in just this way. The cameras are not triggered by any suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; instead, they automatically and indiscriminately photograph all license plates (and cars) that come into view. ... Taken to an extreme, the agencies' arguments would allow law enforcement to conduct around-the-clock surveillance on every aspect of our lives and store those records indefinitely on the off-chance they may aid in solving a crime at some previously undetermined date in the future. If the court accepts their arguments, the agencies would then be able to hide all this data from the public."
I'm going to take a wild guess that claim is going to get bounced out of court. Sounds more like a stalling tactic than a real defense. Unless the L.A. PD is going to try and make the case that everyone in L.A. is suspicious, in which case they might have a point.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
is dying of thirst
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Minority Report Anyone?
LA's cops department is notoriously incompetent -- need I quote chapter and verse? -- and, perhaps the civic leaders see this as a substitute for real police work.
If so, perhaps the courts, in their infinite wisdom, will rein these devices in. If not, well, who cares? They can track my movements through my iPad or mobile phone anyway.
Where do I sign up for the tour of the Gulag?
This is a police force where the Chief of Police in the 1990's, Daryl F. Gates, said that casual drug users "ought to be taken out and shot," which prescription being specifically aimed at those "who blast some pot on a casual basis."
Mr. Gates is no long with us, but not because of any repudiation by the LAPD.
Apparently, all they need to do is tell the Court that they've signed an NDA with the manufacturer of these ANPR cameras. Seems to be working pretty well for police departments all across the US who are sucking up thousands? millions? of completely innocent parties' cellphone connections via "StingRay" devices.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
That's the new reality. The laws just haven't been changed yet. Yet. And yes, the terrorists have won, by making the government and law enforcement do the terrorism for them.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Reasonable suspicion or probable cause first?
Nothing is reasonable about scanning every single license plate you see. If the camera could scan the color/make/year etc of the vehicle, the compare that against known stolen vehicles or vehicles used in other crimes FIRST, then I could see them scanning the plate and doing further investigation, but just blindly scanning plates and recording their location is very disturbing.
Taxes: something used AGAINST you.
Remember that next time you vote.
Of course, the alternative is that they release all of the data they collect, thereby publishing the public movements of everyone in LA to anyone with nefarious purposes.
Not storing the data is of course out of the question.
--why?
...to get/make an IR License Plate frame.
Thats a lie that has been repeated so often that you have started to believe it. In a civil society privacy is expected even when we are walking down the street. How you say? Because in a civil society we respect each other and respect each others privacy.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I don't know where you got your legal training, but you are plumb wrong on several points.
To wit: since the middle of the last century at least, police are prohibited from harassing individuals not suspected of a crime. They may *not* follow you excessively, even on a freeway in a marked car, waiting for you to make an error so they can charge you. Nor may they do similar in person. Case law substantiates this.
The tag on a car is in public view. Therefore anyone has the right to view the tag and even note the when and where of such a tag. Think about it a little bit. When a man or woman hires a private detective to follow a wayward spouse and report back on where they visit that has never been considered illegal and ordinary people were free to do such things and not just cops. This all really points to records at the county courthouse debates. Once electronic postings of those records became common people complained becasue it was now too easy for people to search public records. The idea that one must go to the courthouse in person to see the exact same records is absurd. Now the real complaint is that it is now too easy for the cops to have records of where every car is at all times. Here is the real problem. Criminals sometimes plan crimes. If a man wants to pull a stick up and he is short and skinny with black hair he may leave his car near the crime scene and have a person who is taller, blond and heavy set pick up his car later. But if the cops use computer power they can look back and see all the cars parked fairly near an armed robberies over time and get a very solid lead on who is doing the crimes. Changing who picks the car up will no longer work as a tactic for such crimes. We do not want to throw out tools that help catch criminals.
>When operating a motor vehicle on a public roadway, there is no expectation of privacy attached to your license plate number, or your location. A police officer can >follow you around all day without a warrant, and run as many checks on your plate number as he desires, and make a note of everywhere you go.
Actually no this would be called harassment and is illegal.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
The law also does not provide that the police officers can stalk you 24/7 without some sort of warrant.
The laws were originally written when there was no "Orwellian" state where you could anonymously watched/recorded in public everywhere. Lets no pretend incidentally stumbling onto a suspicious conversation is the same as monitoring EVERY conversation.
It sounds like they have too much time on their hands. Perhaps they are overstaffed and in need of some headcount reductions in order to regain focus.
There is no expectation of privacy when you are out in public
Stop repeating this nonsense; there is some degree of privacy even in public. The kind of privacy that's being discussed is privacy from being spied on by ubiquitous government surveillance devices that are installed in public places.
nor in anything that can be investigated with plain human senses (plain view, plain smell, etc).
The idea that hearing a conversation (or something similar) is the same as sticking surveillance devices everywhere in public places is simply absurd. I don't know why so many people are so stupid as to not be able to see that using humans to conduct surveillance on other humans would require massive manpower that machines don't require, or that this gives them a convenient and cost-effective way to collect all this data in a central location. The differences are absolutely huge; quit being an idiot.
You guys need to get over yourselves.
You need to get over yourself; your mentality literally ruins countries.
Your arguments have been debunked time and time again. I think you people are just willfully ignorant, or hate freedom and privacy.
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No, the Berger court said the 4th does not apply.
The Constitution says no such thing.
Taken to this extreme, how would police officers ever observe anything? I'm all for privacy, but if I get mugged in the street and a cop drives by, I sure as hell want them to be looking out and come to my aid.
Unfortunately, the "expectation of privacy" in what people do in their daily lives is gradually being shrunk to the point where soon it will no longer exist. At that point, the brown stains being wiped across the US Constitution will completely obscure the words of 4th Amendment.
...Join them.
I believe another strategy on this would be to setup a crowdsource movement to create Android based ALPR devices and scatter them all over LA County and have these devices harvest data for uploading to the web for EVERYONE to view, especially with the ability to get real-time tracking on any California (E) plated (governmental) vehicle.
By doing this, it would encourage the lawmakers to make it a requirement to have a specific warrant before this data collected by anyone. This assumes that the new law would be designed to raise barriers to "amateurs" entering the ALPR business and use them indiscriminately.
Best results if that can also be done in the District of Columbia and Sacramento, CA so we can keep tabs on our lawmakers actions.
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
I am not saying, "So we should let LAPD scan license plates". What I am saying is whatever argument you use against LAPD is valid an order of magnitude more for private companies too. And any solution, change we propose should also prohibit such private companies from consolidating such data into some kind of national data base queriable by private detective agencies, repossession companies, divorce lawyers, etc.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I for one welcome our new overlords, the Illuminati.
The LAPD would only need to state that the images were captured with the intent of validating registration tags. Police have the right to look at a plate's registration tag when the vehicle is on a public road, and even stop you and ticket you if it is out of date. This could be automated and a ticket sent in the mail.
...to some of you but police officers are also there to protect you from those who might want to take your money or otherwise commit a crime against you. I'm aware of the potential for abuse from these systems, but if we decide they can't watch us in public, where can they watch us? What deters a robber that knows for a fact there will never be a cop around to catch him in the act?
This argument is completely counter to our criminal justice system
Law enforcement personnel don't think about these things the same way the rest of us do.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
But neither party is interested in ending the intrusive, ineffective "War on Drugs".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A police officer can follow you around all day without a warrant, and run as many checks on your plate number as he desires, and make a note of everywhere you go.
Your whole life, for no reason? Nope.
The 4th Amendment's warrant requirement only applies when there is an expectation of privacy.
And if they can get the data, there's no expectation of privacy.
Circular reasoning at its best.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I fail to see how this is any worse than ARGUS, which _HAS_ been deployed over US cities as well as foreign conflict zones. The limiting factor is currently the storage space, but its not hard to imagine one of these things flying over every US city in the next decade storing a couple months of video.
Really, this has been going on for years with spy Satellites too, and no one really seems to care because the exact capabilities are still classified, but i'm betting ARGUS is just complementary to what we already have.
Random, link...
https://www.aclu.org/blog/tech...
And are all of the controls in place to prevent unauthorized use of the data, or can anyone with access browse at will? The police have already stated that release of the data violates privacy.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
The 4th Amendment's warrant requirement only applies when there is an expectation of privacy. There is no expectation of privacy when you are out in public, nor in anything that can be investigated with plain human senses (plain view, plain smell, etc).
When operating a motor vehicle on a public roadway, there is no expectation of privacy attached to your license plate number, or your location. A police officer can follow you around all day without a warrant, and run as many checks on your plate number as he desires, and make a note of everywhere you go.
An officer does not need a warrant to listen to a conversation you have with someone at a park, nor does he need a warrant to take a sniff of whatever it is you're smoking outside your office.
You guys need to get over yourselves.
In that case, taking a video of a police officer in a public place should not be a problem.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Actually, BOTH parties are interested, but thanks to the culture war (by the right) neither can make a shred of headway.
This is all about pretending the hippies lost.
Careful, you're cloak of anonymity isn't hiding your past in jail, nor your colour. Might as well be open about it.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
If the state didn't have the power to do this stuff, it wouldn't matter whose interests it served. It's been almost 400 years, and we still have to put up with the damned Puritans' idiotic belief that you can make perfect human beings if you just swing the hammer of the state hard enough.
Sorry, but this is BS. I have such an expectation of privacy. That you would deny it to me means that this is a political, not a legal, matter, and merely stating that an officer does not need a warrant does not cut it in political discourse. I would also note that there is nothing, not one syllable, in the 4th Amendment about expectations of privacy in limiting the search of your "effects" (i.e., your personal property, such as, e.g., your car). All of this is a later invention by the courts; being invented, it can be changed as conditions change, and they have indeed changed.
In the internet jargon, surveillance in a free society does not scale. It is one thing if a policeman walks down my street and happens to smell or see something. It is quite another if, say, I woke up to find that there are 20 policemen stationed just outside my curtilage, each trying to peer in my windows with binoculars, and they stayed in position all day, every day. To be blunt, one is reasonable, the other, tyranny. SImilarly, if every time I drove away from my house I was followed by a convoy of police cars tracking my every move, I would conclude that I was the victim of official harassment (or worse), and react accordingly (say, by going to a Judge and / or the newspapers with my complaints).
Now that is possible to obtain this level of surveillance without actually delegating 20 policemen to peer through my windows, or to follow me about, and without it being obvious to the victim, the legal system will simply have to expand the legal expectations of privacy, or we will find ourselves living in a Stasi-like tyranny.
If the EFF really wants to take a bite of Orwellian ass, they should campaign relentlessly to have the phrase "identity theft" replaced by the phrase "credential theft".
FFS, no-one can steal my gosh-darned identity until they can call up any of my nearest and dearest family members and convince them that it is really me over the course of an hour-long phone conversation.
I'd count that as actual identity theft.
All we get for this careless throwing around of the phrase "identity theft" is taking the spotlight off how poorly designed and implemented many of these credential mechanisms really are. The big institutions ought to wear their own failures, rather than making their customers take the heat, in particular, the insane persistence of black marks even after one has conclusively demonstrated that the black mark was a bungle to begin with.
How this isn't covered under "slander" is scandalous.
I love privacy and freedom, but not privacy to conceal criminal acts, and freedom to commit them.
If you want police to have the ability to infringe upon people's privacy and freedom to get at the 'bad guys,' then you don't actually love freedom or privacy.
The bottom line is that police are allowed to engage in general surveillance (it's called "patrolling") for the purpose of controlling crime.
Which has nothing to do with ubiquitous and automatic surveillance of public places. Stop trying to equate the two things.
Your expectation of privacy ends at the border of the public space.
Stop putting forth this nonsensical and incorrect (There is some degree of privacy even in public places.) argument as if it's a justification for automatic and ubiquitous surveillance. I do *not* believe for one millisecond that the government should have to the power to install surveillance devices everywhere in public places just to stop the big, bad bogeymen you're so scared of.
Having an expectation of privacy in the public space is antithetical to freedom, and is antithetical to a civilized society
It's antithetical to neither, and opposing ubiquitous surveillance of public places is certain not antithetical to either. Again, you fail at understanding the real issue.
I've never seen a bigger bunch of vocal kooks who don't want their rights protected, which is exactly what defines you and your ilk. You are the ones who hate freedom and individual liberty, because you want to make it impossible for those rights to be protected.
The government is supposed to be 'good'; it's supposed to respect people's rights. If we surrender our rights for 'safety' (Which likely doesn't even exist.), then we have tyranny. The government should be *better* than mere criminals. When it comes to these rights, you should be afraid of the government, not random bogeymen that the government claims it will protect you from.
I oppose this precisely because I want my rights and privacy protected. In a free society, individual liberties and privacy are considered more important than safety. That is why the TSA and NSA surveillance are evil, and would be evil *even if* they were effective.
If you're going to try to equate patrolling to ubiquitous surveillance again, don't even bother with a reply.
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... check them against their internal "hot list" which might be oh say... 5 to 7 items, ...
FTFY.
It's always best to be honest in your reportings and not make biased digs, people will be more understanding. You will still be attacked though...
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Provide a link or don't — but either way, you can take your recommended surveillance engine and shove it up your ass. I enjoy my privacy, and I'm not going to sell it out for a mere search result that I can get elsewhere without compromising: DDG, IXQ, SP, Qrobe, Privatelee, etc. Why the fuck would I use that other garbage — you collect a paycheck there or something?
I didn't ask what were lawful and unlawful uses of the data. I asked whether proper controls are in place to monitor access to the data. Who is recording the activity of the police?
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
i'm getting tired of this, is anyone else?
they want not just license plate cameras, but to track all of your movements. disable your vehicle if they want. UAVs with cameras now and guns later. wiretapping everything. they want complete tracking of what we buy, who we know, where we go, who we fuck, our entire genome.
all this personal private data in the grimy hands of people that we don't know, and dont trust, collected with our supposed consent because a few people signed a 'protect us from everything at whatever cost' bills after some terrorist fear mongering.
'public view is up for grabs' is a terrifying concept. there's a big difference between someone taking a picture of you on the street, and a cop taking pictures of everyone on the street all the time, so it can be harvested electrically for suspicious activities.
i won't live in a police state, and i wont move either.
we are the nerds. we are the ones that made this shit up! they're misusing our technology here
that also means we are the ones with the capability to destroy these electronic monitoring devices in the least damaging way possible
we also seem to form one of the communities with a very high percentage of people that have a gut feeling that this kind of thing is terribly wrong, and that realise how much it's going to get worse.
we dont need activists or guerilla armies to get ourselves out of this mess, the future is now. we need nerds to fight, not guns.
at what point do we save the power hungry morons and the whining fearful masses that keep signing off on all this stuff from screwing ordinary innocent people over?
at what point will it be necessary to destroy these implements of monitoring with technological means?
i hope this gets me on a terrorism list. this kind of stuff comes to my neck of the woods, i'm going to try my best to fuck it up.
Except that many states have made it illegal.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
When operating a motor vehicle on a public roadway, there is no expectation of privacy attached to your license plate number, or your location. A police officer can follow you around all day without a warrant, and run as many checks on your plate number as he desires, and make a note of everywhere you go.
An officer does not need a warrant to listen to a conversation you have with someone at a park, nor does he need a warrant to take a sniff of whatever it is you're smoking outside your office.
You are being more than a little misleading.
It is prohibitively resource-intensive to follow *every* driver around and listen to *every* public conversation if doing so requires an officer to be physically present. No one makes a big deal about one or two officers conducting surveillance on people because the cost is such that the police will not conduct said surveillance without a pretty strong reason to believe that the individuals being watched are guilty of a crime.
Average citizens did not have to worry about their privacy because it just wasn't feasible for the police to watch everyone at all times.
Now things are different. Technology has lowered the bar to the point where it is now possible to watch everyone and listen to every conversation on the cheap. Unfortunately, the public at large either doesn't realize it yet or do not fully grasp the implications.
So...don't vote Republican?
Government is smaller under Obama, and the Bush tax increase was stopped by his continuation of the tax cuts for the rich.
WHAT
FUCKING
PLANET
DO
YOU
LIVE
ON?
US Government spending, 2008, (last budget sign by Bush II): $2.9 trillion
US govt spending, 2013: $3.8 trillion
What color is the sky on a planet where going from $2.9 trillion to 3.8 trillion in 5 years is smaller?
SMALLER!?!?!?!?!
Oh really?
If every car can be automatically worth investigating, then so can people. After all, cars don't do anything without people at the controls (at least for now anyway), so if a car is interesting, then the driver must be absolutely fascinating.
And it won't matter if the driver is walking down the street or driving, they might drive soon. Heck, if you buy alcohol in LA, they should go ahead and book you for DUI because, you know, you might drive. Or beat your wife or kids in a drunken rage, set the house on fire and go on a stabbing rampage in a hair salon. You might do these things. Might as well assume you will. Stand still while we book you for murder in that hair salon. Wouldn't want to accidentally have you fight with arresting officers.
Sig for hire.
What makes you think that big business wouldn't just step into the power vacuum and use their private police force to enact the police state? Private police have the advantage of not having to even pay lip service to the Constitution as they're not the government and the only reason they aren't as big of players as they were in the second half of the 19th century when the Pinkerton Detective Agency was bigger then the US Army is because it is cheaper to get police funded by the tax payers.
As the 19th century also taught, even a small government can be corrupted, at that it is easier, just corrupt the local judge and sheriff and you can get away with anything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The 4th Amendment's warrant requirement only applies when there is an expectation of privacy. There is no expectation of privacy when you are out in public, nor in anything that can be investigated with plain human senses (plain view, plain smell, etc).
When operating a motor vehicle on a public roadway, there is no expectation of privacy attached to your license plate number, or your location. A police officer can follow you around all day without a warrant, and run as many checks on your plate number as he desires, and make a note of everywhere you go.
An officer does not need a warrant to listen to a conversation you have with someone at a park, nor does he need a warrant to take a sniff of whatever it is you're smoking outside your office.
You guys need to get over yourselves.
This has nothing to do with privacy. It is unconstitutional for law enforcement to target you without probable cause. The fact that new technology allows them to target everyone, all the time, does not make it any less unconstitutional. If private citizens were doing this it would be different and would likely get settled in civil court. But the police are a government organization and the constitution was created specifically to limit governments power.
The "investigation" part may be BS to justify creating a database of driver's behaviors. They know who belongs to what license plate. They know vehicle make and model which gives them an idea of your income. And they know where you are at any given time of day. What's to keep them from selling this information to data brokers?
Equal surveillance for all. It's more fair that way right?
I know some who shot a burglar that broke into his bedroom while he was asleep with an arrow to the leg (sorry, not the knee, it was more of a thigh shot).
What happened?
The police arrested the homeowner and let the burglar press charges.
May you be upvoted.
Nothing is more true than that what the people do not control, the Capitalists will.
Why the police of course.
You know, the same people that arrest police that violate the laws.
It's not like crime by police is almost always completely swept under the rug unless there's a huge public outcry over it.
We all know it's great idea to let the fox regulate the hen house, right?
All sarcasm aside, if the database exists, it WILL be abused, and most likely by the police.
This is exactly correct. When you drive your car from your driveway to a publicly-controlled street, you are implicitly agreeing to be subject to all of the regulations of the state. Can the state stop you and search the trunk of your car without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed? The answer is no, because there you have an expectation of privacy. Can the police note the color and license plate of your car as it passes by some physical location? Absolutely, because anyone can do that and in that respect you have no expectation of privacy.
This isn't a question of constitutional law. This is a question of the laws of California. Unless state law says otherwise, the police get to make such surveillances. Are you angry about it? Well, there are certain things you can do:
1. Talk to your state representative about getting a law passed that stops the activities you don't like.
2. Write your police chief (or whoever is your elected official that decides this stuff) and tell him that he's not getting your vote.
3. Start a movement for a constitutional amendment and try to get enough people to care to pass it. (Good luck.)
4. Take a different mode of transportation. (Bus, bicycle, helicopter, a pied, etc.)
5. Ride with somebody else or take a cab.
This forum is a voice for lots of people who speak very loudly about something they claim to care about (constitutional rights) but know practically nothing about it.
They are in their car, which the courts ruled a long time ago is not in public. Why do you think cops pull people over and then have their search and seizures thrown out on fourth amendment ground?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I would direct you to this amazing new word, that Im sure the police state has just invented, its called 'Public' - lets take a few definitions of it shall we...
Of or concerning the people as a whole:
Open to or shared by all the people of an area or country:
Done, perceived, or existing in open view:
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
You are wrong. See Katz and post Katz cases. Here is a quote from Alito's concurrance in the most recent one, Jones, where the court found that the cops cant put a tracker on your car:
or maybe you like the EFF's analysis better:
Feel free to quote some laws, cases, lawyers, or professors that support your theory that the police following you is harassment and/or illegal.
... yeah, that was pretty much my point. The Puritans were really into you doing exactly what they said would bring about the "good of the many", as they interpreted it, and to hell with your ideas (and freedoms) to the contrary.
Public doesn't mean "The government has the power to install ubiquitous surveillance devices that track people in these areas." We can easily limit the government's powers, even in public places. I know, I know; limitations on the government's power is such a difficult concept to comprehend, but believe me, it's possible.
you are implicitly agreeing to be subject to all of the regulations of the state.
That might be how the law views things, but in reality, going about your business doesn't mean you implicitly agree to anything. Tyrannical governments love this sort of 'logic', though. It's like saying that you implicitly agree to have government thugs molest you at airports merely because you try to get on a plane; I believe that's been argued, but it's bullshit nonetheless.
Absolutely, because anyone can do that and in that respect you have no expectation of privacy.
The whole concept of "expectation of privacy" is garbage, because if the government violates people's privacy enough, any expectations of privacy will no longer be "reasonable." Rather, the question should be, "Should people have privacy in this instance?" The question of whether an individual can observe others in a public place is *completely different* from the question of whether the government should have the power to install surveillance devices everywhere in public places; they shouldn't have such a power.
This forum is a voice for lots of people who speak very loudly about something they claim to care about (constitutional rights) but know practically nothing about it.
It's also apparently a place for cretins to speak of laws in place of morality or ethics, and pretend that everyone else is talking about laws, even when some are talking about morality.
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You forgot, Iraq was off the books.
> A police officer
Bingo. The fact that an actual human resource was required in order for this happen made it so that police departments *had* to be extremely judicious with how they allocated these resources. These built-in constraints forced departments into to maintaining a lawful and constitutional approach to searching. This is the same standard that *ought* to be applied to new technology - merely being able to accomplish the same thing much faster does not in any way diminish constitutional relevance.
There is a certain expectation of privacy while in public - and a cop who follows you around every time you leave your home and then repeatedly cites you for trivial violations would be found guilty of harassment. However, if you are suspected of significant criminal activities and investigators follow you to check those activities out - that's not harassment... it's like porn - the judge knows it when he sees it.
They have been doing fun "wiring" of places like restaurants for years - large numbers of microphones distributed around the room with the signals superimposed to reveal conversation at one specific table...
Lets no pretend incidentally stumbling onto a suspicious conversation is the same as monitoring EVERY conversation.
It's not, but the caselaw isn't firm on how this will be handled, yet.
Laws are for the commoners, not the elite. You should know that by now
Now you know why Steve Jobs' cars had no license plate ?
http://www.thewire.com/technol...
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Expanding on an idea I posted above:
There are gunshot monitoring systems installed in many major cities - a network of microphones that can be used to determine where a shot was fired from. This is considered reasonable and not an invasion of privacy.
On the other hand, it would also be possible to install a network of microphones that monitor all conversations on the public street, with frighteningly good ability to zero in on individual conversations. The audio could be compressed and stored cheaply, and recalled at any time in the future. Use of this kind of information is generally NOT accepted in criminal investigations today....
Summary says:
Taken to an extreme, the agencies' arguments would allow law enforcement to conduct around-the-clock surveillance on every aspect of our lives and store those records indefinitely
I thought it was already the case. Why did the NSA built a new datacenter in Utah?
It is unconstitutional for law enforcement to target you without probable cause. The fact that new technology allows them to target everyone, all the time, does not make it any less unconstitutional.
The Constitution doesn't say anything about "targeting" someone. What is unconstitutional is performing a search—that is, forcing you to grant the police access to your property as part of an investigation—or seizing your property without a warrant for that specific search or seizure, supported by documented probable cause to expect that the search or seizure will turn up evidence that the owner was involved in the particular crime being investigated.
On the other hand, no special police powers are required to simply record anything and everything visible to the public, even if the recording is ubiquitous and systematic. Doing so may be rude and uncivilized, but it doesn't violate anyone's rights.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
You speak of "the law" as if it were some decree from a tyrant. In the United States, it's evolved from the opinions of countless legislators and judges, appointed by the people (by election or indirectly). This isn't how "the law" sees this: this is how the population sees it. Without "the law" that you so resent, you'd be hunkered down behind a mud wall in your hovel trying to hold back the hoards. Law and civilization go hand-in-hand.
If you want to get technical, the constitution does not confer a right of privacy. It protects you from "unreasonable" searches and seizures. What is reasonable, and what is unreasonable is decided by judges. They are the ones that fashioned the concept of an expectation of privacy, and they did that to enlighten us as to what was a reasonable search by the government.
Laws reflect our morality; they do not define it. If you want to talk about morality, then you'd be better off not speaking of the constitution or using terms such as an "expectation of privacy". By using that language you enter the legal realm.
And if to be a lawyer is to be a cretin, then I certainly am a cretin.
In that case, taking a video of a police officer in a public place should not be a problem.
It all depends on the officer, and how much time you want to spend in court(s) defending your rights...
Once, I got buffaloed by a postmaster for taking a picture of a letter being mailed at the post office. It seems that the clerk was "uncomfortable" with her picture being taken by my friend as the letter was posted, so she reported me to the postmaster... if we had cleared the building before the postmaster came out of her office, I doubt anything would have come of it, but as it was, she cornered us and "made" us erase the pictures on the digital camera - which we could have easily lied to her about whether or not the photos were erased... thing was, the clerk was "uncomfortable" her boss wanted to stick up for her, all we were trying to do was get proof of what was in a letter that was posted to my landlord (which I ended up getting anyway because the landlord failed to pick up her certified mail, so it came back to me...) Yes, we could have all resisted the postmaster's request, she might, or might not have called the cops, the cops might or might not have arrested us, we might or might not have decided to pursue it in court, etc. I'm fairly certain no laws were being broken, but it wasn't worth the hassle to find out for sure.
You speak of "the law" as if it were some decree from a tyrant.
I speak of the law as if it isn't the same as morality. I speak of the law as if bad laws can be created quite easily, even in countries like the US.
This isn't how "the law" sees this: this is how the population sees it.
That would be true if the population were perfectly informed and agreed with their representatives 100%. Otherwise, claiming that that's the case is just bad logic.
Without "the law" that you so resent, you'd be hunkered down behind a mud wall in your hovel trying to hold back the hoards. Law and civilization go hand-in-hand.
I don't know what nonsense you're trying to put forth, but it isn't working, cretin. Objecting to certain laws and such is far from advocating anarchy. What I have a problem with is when people start referring to laws as if they're the be-all end-all and ignoring that many here refer to morality. I also have a problem when people appeal to authority figures and act as if their interpretations are objectively correct, but in this case, that's not the point.
If you want to get technical, the constitution does not confer a right of privacy.
If you want to get technical, the government will do anything to give itself more power, as we've seen. Using bullshit lawyer logic to justify their disgusting activities is obviously not below them, sadly.
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A sleeping burglar with an arrow in his leg broke into someone's bedroom?
If those cameras get suspended drivers off the road, I'm totally for it. They're suspended for a reason.
Unless they make walking or cycling illegal as well, of course.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's that new math.
What? How was Iraq off the books? You mean like they funded it through private donations? Maybe they had a car wash to pay for it?
Yeah, I call bullshit too.
More to the point, about half of the abuses perpetrated are done by hiring businesses to do the dirty unconstitutional part. It doesn't seem likely that those corporations wouldn't just keep doing the same things for the highest bidder.
Privacy is relative. We expect to be seen and possibly recognized by people when we go in public. We do, however, have a reasonable expectation that we won't be the subjects of a large coordinated network of spotters reporting our position into a massive historical database.
Which word ? "Soviet" ?
In my youth we learned Russian in schools, and if I do not know what that word means, I might as well be blind.
The current situation in America is such that the councils are filled with people such as Feinstein / Obama who want to change the United States into a Police State.
And we have nothing else to fall back on...
Used to be that the congress / the court system and the White House are the three prongs of our government, and each of one is used to check the other two.
No more.
Nowadays the courts are being populated by judges who think we ought to give up our liberty in exchange for "security".
Congress ? That place is filled with dead woods who do nothing but looking for ways to create even more pork barrel projects.
White House ? You kiddin' ???
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
with the police http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Have a look. Then Google.
Don't forget 'deferred costs'.
The same people who are happy to demand that the USPS save up for the retirement of employees not even born yet are also perfectly happy to not count any of the future costs we have committed to in the war.
But to the broader point, for the last several decades it's been the Republicans running the huge deficits (even while talking about 'small' government). Clinton actually got us to a budget *SURPLUS* briefly, but GW Bush took care of that!
Obama hasn't done as well, but then he inherited an economic disaster of epic proportions.
... I moved out.
Currently I stay outside of America, only go back for business reasons (and for voting).
Oh yes, I, an American citizen, couldn't stand the way my country which is turning into a police state.
And the most disgusting thing that I see is, *MOST* of my fellow Americans still think it's good to trade in their liberties so that the BIG BROTHER get to "protect" them.
What can I do ? I have thought very long and hard at it, and still, I can't come up with a solution.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
every day we inch closer and closer to a Shadowrun-style world with megacorp armies enforcing their law on their own territories...the only thing we're missing is the Great Awakening...
Well then you shouldn't read liberal blogs either as they're always trying to justify expanding the size of the state that those 'capitalists' use.
In a civil society privacy is expected even when we are walking down the street.
Not necessarily. Pre-industrial revolution most people lived in small enough communities that they would be recognised by many of the people they would meet in the street. The difference was that you would recognize the observers so it was a symmetric loss of privacy. With modern surveillance it is a one-way privacy loss: you have no idea who is doing the observing and yet they can look up all your details and track your every move which is a bit different from having the village gossip noticing your comings and goings.
If a police officer followed you constantly throughout the day would you be alright with it? Because the courts are not, it requires a warrant, otherwise it's called harassment and is illegal. How does changing the surveillance to an electronic type alter the law. This falls under surveillance abuse, a form of harassment.
Surveillance abuse is the use of surveillance methods or technology to monitor the activity of an individual or group of individuals in a way which violates the social norms or laws of a society.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
the constitution gave the court the power to make that decision.
citation or STFU.
you're an idiot. your precious constitution explicitly says that it means what the court says it means. and taking a picture of your license plate does not meet any definition of the words search or seizure. And your license plate is not even yours, it is the property of your state DMV, hence not included in the definition of your effects.
It's not illegal for law enforcement to target you without probable cause. It is illegal to issue a warrant without probable cause. And since your license plate belongs to the DMV and not to you, if they are violating anyone's rights, it is those of the state DMV.
Thomas Jefferson never said that.
Please don your tinfoil hat, remove yourself to your bunker, and leave sane people alone.
His term started with a huge deficit after Regan and Bush. By the end of his term he got it turned around. Just in time for Bush Jr. to screw it up again.
It's not actually that hard to understand.
Had we maintained Clinton's policies, avoided a needless war and not let Wall Street crash the economy, the debt would be just about gone by now.
He hasn't done enough to make it better, but it's certainly not worse.
However, if you are suspected of significant criminal activities and investigators follow you to check those activities out - that's not harassment...
Now, explain how that relates to the current discussion. Because it just doesn't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'd say it does, having perpetually stored recordings of all public activities enables the cops to effectively follow you around after the fact.
So, if that capability is used to nail a criminal committing serious crimes with warrants approved for the investigation, then - that might pass the non-harassment test.
On the other hand, if some organization decides that they can turn a profit by perpetual monitoring, for example: identification of people who commit fineable misdemeanors on a regular basis, then tracking their activities and sending them a bill with a threat of a summons to court - that would be harassment.
The interesting question is: where is the line drawn? and at this time, I don't think it has been.
No. The surplus was real and existed while he was in office. People retiring had nothing to do with it since SS keeps seperate books.
Say goodbye to "Innocent until proven guilty" and say hi to "Suspicious until proven... not suspicious in this one instance but still suspicious for future instances."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
You're confusing Debt/Asset and Deficit/Surplus. Debt is what we owe, Asset is what we Own free and clear. Deficit is what we are spending above what revenues are. Surplus is the amount of revenue above spending. Clinton, while raising the amount of Debt the country had, was able to get Congress to pass a budget that generated a Surplus. Over time, if the Surplus was maintained, it would have started eating up the Debt and hopefully may have eventually turned it into an Asset. Unfortunately, Bush had turned that all around in his first term and began marching up the Deficit again...thus increasing the Debt. At least Obama has reduced the Deficit, even though it is still raising the debt, just not as fast as it was when he started. You may ask, how can Obama be spending more but reduce the deficit? Simply because he didn't increase spending at a faster rate than the increase in GDP.
Sources:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/25/barack-obama/obama-says-deficit-falling-fastest-rate-60-years/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/03/05/obama_budget_sees_deficit_reduction_from_health_law.html
WHO
GIVES
A
SHIT?
Two sides of the same coin.
Stop throwing your votes away.
If you voted (D) or (R), you voted for more assrape.
Stop pretending that either of the major parties would have decreased spending, ceded executive authority, or done anything remotely in your best interest.
If you voted (D) or (R), you as an individual are a huge part of the problem.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Except there is essentially no change Clinton would not have gone into at least Afghanistan. Clinton had one of the most interventionist foreign policies ever. "Police actions" left and right.
How we handled Baltic conflicts are apparently still a sore point with Russia which is causing us grief even today, 15 years on.
The left loves to talk about needless wars but loves to ignore the fact that all of there guys pretty much been the ones who got us into some of the most costly and fruitless ones such as Korea. Ike did all he could to keep us out of Vietnam but pressure from the establishment left as much right eventually forced him into it. The problem is not the American Left of the American Right, its the American Establishment in general that is ridiculously hawkish.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I speak of morality, not law. If you're such a mindless drone that you have no opinions of your own, then please don't reply to me.
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The countless people abused by governments throughout history show that I'm not wearing a tinfoil hat. To say otherwise is to admit that you're completely ignorant of history. If you give the government the power of near ubiquitous surveillance, it will be abused and used to target those who do things the government does not like, whether those things are morally wrong or not. And again, to say otherwise is to say that you believe the government is made up of perfect angels that would never abuse their powers or make mistakes, and that you believe that all possible governments in the future will be like that. Guess what? That's not sane. We put limits on the government's powers for a reason; because they can't be trusted with easily exploitable powers.
You're the one who's not sane.
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You've got nothing to hide in public? You've got something to hide *everywhere*. You seem to think that it's you who decides whether you've got something to hide; that's false. The government decides. The government can decide that certain speech is illegal, that doing something perfectly innocuous is grounds for harassment, or something else that's nefarious. Once they have ubiquitous surveillance devices in public places, things that used to protect you from government abuse--like the fact that they can't be in more than a few places at once, or the fact that they didn't have recordings of everything that's going on--will vanish. Governments aren't made up of perfect angels; the countless abuses throughout history show that. Even in public places, you have everything to hide.
As an example, and since we're talking about surveillance devices in general, there was a case where someone made a bomb joke on Twitter and was harassed endlessly by the government. Anything that can be misinterpreted to harass someone will be, whether it's malicious or not.
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In addition, privacy (The kind of privacy where you're free from mass government surveillance.) is important all by itself, so even absent the government abuses, this surveillance shouldn't be allowed.
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This is simply saving time and money
To say that this is the same thing, except more efficient, is absurd. Whereas the individual cameras were controlled by individual businesses, these cameras will collect data for one entity: The government. That's what makes them far more dangerous. Unless you believe that the government--which misinterprets bomb threats and treats them as if they're real, molests people at airports, spies on everyone's communications, and sends protestors off to free speech zones--is capable of not abusing this information? If that is so, then you're ignorant of history.
How much time and money was spent on tracking that vans path down?
What matters is not time or money; it's privacy, and it's the sort of privacy where you're free from ubiquitous government surveillance. I'd rather have privacy than 'safety' or time or money.
I'm all for this technology, just make sure there are checks and balances in place.
The checks and balances would be not having this at all.
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To play the devils advocate a bit on this, I ask how this would be any different than a network intrusion/attack detection system that runs on an ISP on links that carry peering traffic on it?
For one thing, it's the government that's doing it, and the government has the ability to ruin lives with ease. Also, governments have restrictions put on their powers that companies do not have, and ubiquitous surveillance should be added to that list of restrictions.
If this type of monitoring is a little creepy and offends you, then perhaps we should force every single other industries on the planet with a similar situation, to stop logging their data for the purpose of defending against attacks as well?
Why do you think that individual companies storing some data is at all equivalent to government surveillance? It's not. But yes, I'd say even companies need to be regulated somewhat.
Long story short, get over it.
As soon as people "get over it," we've lost more of our privacy. Ubiquitous surveillance of public places will allow them to track and harass individual targets who have done nothing more than angered the people in power, and they'll be able to do so far more efficiently than they have in the past. Tracking down innocent people and harassing them is nothing new, but now the scale is entirely different. If you think this is a good thing, or that we should "get over it," you're a fool who's utterly ignorant of the countless abuses of government power throughout history.
Ubiquitous surveillance is bad. Get over it.
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And if we have no expectation of privacy while in public, then there would be no problem with recording every phone call that took place on public phones. (Not that there are many of those left anyway.) It seems that wiretapping laws do recognize an expectation of privacy even when in public places.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Wow, that's a desperate stretch. You had to go all the way back to Korea to find a Democrat leading us to war.
I love the smell of desperation in the afternoon.
I disagree, My money went further under bush than it does today
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
. These guys are thieves and or cheating the system. We have laws that people can not wear masks in public, which we except at Halloween, why should we have masked cars.
This would catch guys with 50 parking tags unpaid - towed to pound, and I can go on.
Should we allow meta-tracking? I think they should store meta tagged data and ask a judge if they can inspect the meta-data for a location and time period to follow that car, without any ID at that time?
This would be useful in hit and runs, robberies, car thefts. All it will do is give a partial set of data that shows what pints the car had passed for the time mentioned, after the judge has said OK, no data voyeurs allowed to follow their girlfriends etc.
its also not hard to understand that it was not until the republicans took the house and senate that the numbers got better, Add in the tech bubble etc. Im not saying clinton didnt do alot, hes been one of the better presidents over the past 40 years, but the facts are it took the republicans taking both houses for the numbers to drop
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Sorry, but this is BS. I have such an expectation of privacy.
That is so cute! YOU have an expectation of privacy -- but sadly, the U.S. government does not share your view. But why?
The reason is that the U.S. uses something called the "exclusionary rule," whereby evidence seized or derived from an unconstitutional act are suppressed. In other words, during a criminal trial, the court will disregard any evidence collected by the government in violation of the Constitution, or derived from an unconstitutional act. This is often summarized as "fruits of the poisonous tree" are themselves poisonous and shall not be used. Of course, what this really means is that many (though clearly not all) people asserting a constitutional defense during a criminal trial are guilty -- at least in the sense that they committed the crime they are charged with.
The search and seizure cases that come before the Supreme Court therefore usually involve a guilty person getting off on a "technical" violation of the 4th Amendment. The Supreme Court then bends over backwards to find some exception to the 4th Amendment to allow the police to put the guilty person away. It's human nature for the Justices to side with the cops over the robbers. But it's also enormously destructive to our social fabric.
This is where the story gets political. The Supreme Court justices most eager to surrender our freedoms in the name of punishing the guilty are overwhelmingly "conservatives" appointed by Republican presidents. I hope you will all remember this when you go to vote for the next president.
So, that rule applies to anyone who can swap out leased vehicles in CA every six months. Granted, that's probably not something most individuals would be able to convince the leasing company to do.
Just another day in Paradise
I am absolutely denying that the crash that happened in Bush's second term was Clinton's fault. I don't deny that Obama continued the bailouts.
Even after the crash in the last days of Bush's second term?
You should do some fact checking before you continue.
I'm not sure why people can't remember or don't actually comprehend one of the most obvious lies made by a Democrat (before Obama).
> Clinton actually got us to a budget *SURPLUS* briefly, but GW Bush took care of that!
Clinton laid out a plan toward a surplus, given the government made specific budgetary changes, including not increasing spending for 7 years. I can give the government a surplus too. Cut government spending by 100% There I just did it with the same optimism and power as he had to enact it (at the end of his second term).
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
> Better yet, use a camera that automatically uploads the photos somewhere. That way you still have a copy to *prove* what was in the image (and that the image existed) if it does happen.
I discovered something recently -- Dropbox can be configured (at least on Android) to automatically copy your photos to "the cloud", where it's synced to any number of computers of your choosing. I have this set up now. In tests, photos I take with the phone are uploaded within seconds. I'm pretty sure erasing them would take a court order and more forensic work than most police stations have at their disposal.
I'd like to say I got the idea from the Veronica Mars movie, but I actually figured it out before seeing the film. :-)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Yeah, and look what happened to the deficit when Republicans controlled the Presidency and both houses of Congress. Since Reagan's inauguration, no Republican president has shown any interest in balancing the budget (and we thought Carter before him let the deficit get too big). When I was a kid, Republicans were fiscally conservative.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Are you saying that police forces should be private? TFA was about the police, and approximately everybody who isn't an anarchist thinks police are a legitimate local government function.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You think this is just the "Republican" way? Democrats are all about redistributing wealth, but not of the 1%. Methinks your "hate-tinted" glasses need to be cleaned. Everything you said in your post after that may be true, but the Democrtats are just as complicit and guilty of pandering to the top 1% and ensuring their position at the expense of the rest of us.
I dont know the rest of your posting history, but whenever I see anyone with that strong of feeling towards either one of the parties foisted upon the US electorate I have the same response you did: "You are a slave. They won, you lost." Even worse, you're a house slave. You're defending them and attacking their supposed enemies. Good slave, keep up the good work.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I don't know why Republicans are so blind to the black and white numbers. Here's a picture.
Here's a table.
You're not one of those people who will now concoct a bizarre story involving a potato chip and a particle accelerator where Obama reached into the past and made Reagan run a deficit, are you?
Mass disagrees, They JUST passed a law stating that you cannot take upskirt photos anylonger even when in public. How does that play into your strange view???
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Actually, the US Constitution doesn't explicitly say that. The power to interpret the Constitution was pretty much assumed by the Supreme Court early on, rather than granted by the Constitution. I don't see how things would work well without that particular power grab, but it wasn't specifically in the Constitution.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
What power does money have without the state behind it? The wealthy are thus because they're tied to the power of the state, not in spite of it.
Patrolling is patrolling whether it is done with eyeballs or cameras.
If you're fucking idiotic enough to not be able to see the difference between individuals seeing something and ubiquitous surveillance devices recording everything and sending the data off to some central authority, then I'm surprised you honestly know how to reply to comments; you're that stupid.
They are practically and legally indistinguishable.
They're not practically indistinguishable in the least, and I've already explained why. Don't restate arguments I've already refuted and pretend as if I never responded to them.
If they're legally indistinguishable, then the law needs to be updated to reflect reality.
It does not matter how knowledge of those activities comes into the possession of the state.
It does matter. That's what people are saying, and what you refuse to hear.
You didn't even truly respond to my comment. Instead, you just restated what I've already debunked.
Again, you do not understand that the ability to police is necessary to protect YOUR RIGHTS.
Again, you do not understand that we can still have police without having ubiquitous surveillance, *just like we had long before any of this technology was ever invented.*
You keep pushing this nonsensical line where you want to keep your rights, but you don't want the government to be able to protect them.
I do want the government to protect them. It's not 'criminals' that infringe upon these rights; it's the government.
In other words, you're a mental toddler.
You're the one that can't even be bothered to truly respond to my arguments. You're even worse than a mental toddler; just human garbage.
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Yes, I am saying that people have a right to be free from ubiquitous government surveillance.
For the sake of argument, let's say that's true. Rights are inherently subjective; the only constraint is consistency. If you have the right, so does everyone else. On that basis, let's say someone did put you under surveillance, and you found out about it. What would be a proportional response? Your only "damage", if you can call it that, is the subjective emotional impact of being aware that you're under surveillance. Imprisonment and/or loss of property would clearly be out of proportion. Reciprocation would be fine, of course, but would also be unlikely to have much effect on someone who truly believes in ubiquitous surveillance.
Legal rights work because there are some rights that it simply doesn't pay to disagree with. The right to life, for example—if you disavowed that then anyone could try to kill you without any legal consequence. Or property rights—if you claim that property is a right then others can deprive you of the products of your labor at any time, leaving you with no more than the barest minimum you need to survive. The proposed "right to be free from ubiquitous government surveillance" doesn't work that way, because the people wanting to do the surveillance don't mind having it applied to them.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
You completely misunderstand. I love privacy and freedom
but not privacy to conceal criminal acts, and freedom to commit them.
These two statements are irreconcilable. How can we know if the acts are criminal unless we're observing them? And how can we catch all criminal acts unless we're observing all acts?
One word: Warrants.
Two words: Probable cause (because just "warrants" doesn't do it anymore, sadly).
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Wow, out of an entire nation's budget, you are reduced to complaining about a statesman's air miles.
Those couldn't possibly be related to attempts to repair international relations relating to our little snipe hunt in Iraq, of course.
Resorting to ad hominem already?
*PLONK* doggie raper.
Yes, the Republicans raped SS years ago. It's part of the deficit that would have been paid back had Clinton's policies been maintained.
Kennedy led to Vietnam. Clinton bombed hell out of both Iraq and Bosnia. I make no attempt to justify or condemn these actions. They simply, factually happened. Sometimes partisanship blinds.
> I don't know why Republicans are so blind to the black and white numbers
I'm not a Rep or a Dem. I did vote for Clinton and Obama. That's irrelevant, so get your panties unbunched.
The sources you cited are about as credible as the CBO, which I can confidently say, hasn't been credible since Clinton came to office (maybe before, but I wasn't able to cross reference facts earlier). Bush and Obama have also had their way with it, so it's no big deal anymore. While everyone in finance is very much aware (despite the feeble talk about job or spending or any CBO report influencing the stock market), somehow political bulls seem to keep relying arguing over fiction. This is the American way of socialization. Repeat the same myths until a generation has passed and the lies become truth.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Search around, they all say the same thing. That's because they're actual black and white figures, not pie in the sky projections.
Meanwhile, I am no loyal democrat, I just find them to be the lesser of the two evils these days.
Clinton definitely carried out military action. I don't question that. He just didn't get us entangled in wars with no end in sight.
Kennedy seemed ambivalent about Vietnam. Johnson was the one who moved us from a few military actions to all out war (yeah, still a Democrat). Future Democrats seem to have learned from that.
Police cars, redlight cameras, etc do lookups on numberplates to see if the registration is current, to check if the primary drivers license is current, or has things outstanding on it. That's why we don't have car renewal stickers as well anymore. The next step, yes, will be to keep the data, regardless if you're 'clean' or not.
Guess McNeally was right.
Unless the L.A. PD is going to try and make the case that everyone in L.A. is suspicious....
....And they would be right. ZING!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
If you look at history, most 'empires' lasted about 200 to 400 years before they imploded, became irrelevant, or were burned to ashes by the neighboring states. The US is a bit over 200 years old, so we are probably shortly due a revolution or invasion, statistically speaking.
The sad thing is, is when it happens, the mouth breathing anti-government radicals will insist that 'they knew it was bound to happen, because gay black heathens have taken over the gubbermint, and baby Jeebuz wanted to see them burn.'
(Of course they are technically right, because Baby Jeebuz was a 8 foot long monitor lizard with pyrokinesis.)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
well you got the 'slogging' part right.
the Hippies were opposed on principle to exploitation, prejudice and hatred, opposed to oppression and class and in favor of pleasure for its own sake (think legalized pot). In these considerations, they were right.
They were also young and idealistic. Eventually, they sold out. Their kids and grandkids may or may not believe in the possibility of a better world.
That being said, the insular world of the bigots, profiteers and haters is indeed a minority and in that the Hippies did win.