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Qualcomm Faces Antitrust Charges In Europe (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Chipmaker Qualcomm is on the receiving end of an antitrust investigation in Europe, where officials say the company has abused its market dominance by offering financial incentives to device manufacturers to exclusively use Qualcomm chips. "Qualcomm was also accused of unfairly setting prices below manufacturing costs to force competitors from the market. ... If found to have breached Europe's antitrust rules, the chip maker could face fines amounting to about 10 percent of its annual global revenue, which was $26.49 billion in 2014, and could be required to change some of its business practices. In previous European antitrust cases, however, companies typically have not been asked to pay such high financial penalties."
This article sucks, and really shouldn't be on Slashdot. Let's talk about something more useful: national security and freedom.
President Obama recently proposed that anyone on watch lists shouldn't be able to purchase guns. As he put it, terrorists shouldn't be allowed to buy guns. I wholeheartedly agree that terrorists shouldn't be buying guns or in possession of them at all. The problem is that Obama equated being on a watch list to being a terrorist, which is a key distinction. There is no transparency about how a person gets on a watch list. It's very difficult to contest being on a watch list. People are being labeled as guilty of being terrorists without due process of law. The difficulty in contesting being on a watch list is contrary to the first amendment's right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
I recognize that many people don't care about the right to keep and bear arms, but this is a slippery slope. We've already taken away the ability of some people to fly, without allowing due process of law. That's being extended to a right that's explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. If Obama gets his way, it will become easier to remove other rights, including other fundamental rights specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights. These watch lists are also awful at identifying actual terrorists, with the evidence that the San Bernardino shooters were never suspected of being terrorists before actually carrying out their crimes. Obama's proposal strips away fundamental rights while being ineffective at providing real security.
On the other side, there's Donald Trump's hideous proposal to ban Muslims from entering this country. It's an assault on the first amendment's freedom of religion. But it's also totally ineffective. It provides a false sense of security because it does nothing to curb the potentially more dangerous threat from citizens who radicalize while in this country. Furthermore, how do you decide who is a Muslim and who isn't? I suppose Customs and Border Patrol will simply ask people what their religion is when they enter the country. Of course, this is easily defeated by lying and claiming to be Christian, Jewish, of some other religion, or not religious at all. This idea reduces freedom while providing no protection at all.
The problem is that Trump's idea isn't universally ridiculed. While the Republican mainstream wants to distance themselves from Trump's comments, his poll numbers are actually rising. A significant portion of Americans agree with Trump's ideas and are very enthusiastic about them. While it's not a majority of people, the possibility of Trump getting elected cannot be ruled out. It's highly likely that some people who share Trump's beliefs will be elected to Congress. The rhetoric against Muslims as a whole is eerily similar to some of the propaganda against Jews in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
It's scary that these ideas are actually gaining traction and have some support on both sides of the political spectrum. It is extremely important that you contact your senators and representatives in Congress and tell them to staunchly oppose these efforts.