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Pentagon Creates 'Do Not Buy' List of Russian, Chinese Software (defenseone.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Defense One: The Pentagon is warning the military and its contractors not to use software it deems to have Russian and Chinese connections, according to the U.S. Defense Department's acquisition chief. Officials have begun circulating a "Do Not Buy" list of software that does not meet "national security standards," Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said Friday. The Pentagon started compiling the list about six months ago. Suspicious companies are put on a list that is circulated to the military's software buyers. Now the Pentagon is working with the three major defense industry trade associations -- the Aerospace industries Association, National Defense Industrial Association and Professional Services Council -- to alert contractors small and large. Lord said defense officials have also been working with the intelligence community to identify "certain companies that do not operate in a way consistent with what we have for defense standard." Asked if programs and weapons were compromised by foreign software, Lord said, "These are more widespread issues. I don't think we're focused on one particular system."
Debate with delusional people isn't possible, even without insult. But thanks so much for making it about politics and YOUR delusional ideology when it wasn't.
Windows 98 sux. Run Red Hat 4.3 instead.
Citation needed on the "would help us economically". AFAIHR, it would basically be as effective as handing a few hundred billion dollars to a couple construction conglomerates - once the construction is done, how does the wall itself improve the economy? It produces no value - no products or services that are needed or desired. And if we're going to stimulate the economy by throwing money at projects, how about ones that actually provide value - overhaul the highways and bridges (lower transportation costs = lower economic friction), or build some protection against natural disasters (a penny of prevention is worth a dollar of repair).
I'm also calling false dilemma on your "either we get a wall or we get unrestricted immigration". Nobody is arguing in favor of unrestricted immigration, and the status quo is in fact heavily restricted immigration. The best argument against the wall is that it already exists in the places where the cost/benefit makes sense to have a wall. Our net immigration with Mexico itself is negative - more people now emigrate to Mexico than immigrate from. The total flux is only positive because of immigrants from central/south America via Mexico. If your sole concern is preventing illegal immigration to the US, the best place to build the wall would be on the borders between Mexico and Guatemala, and Mexico and Belize. ("Mexico is going to build a wall, and we're gonna pay for it!", as it were)
The general argument being made by "us liberals" is:
1) Building a wall is a fuckton of money and a not insubstantial amount of environmental damage for negligible impact on immigration
2) We should not violate our own laws regarding due process, search and seizure in an attempt to enforce immigration laws
3) We really, really should not violate international humanitarian law while enforcing immigration (the "detention camps" are definitely breaking a few of these).
4) Illegal immigrants who have a valid claim for asylum should not be deported unless necessary - it is generally unethical to deport someone if it will result in their death at the hands of an angry dictator or warlord.
Additionally, I would present a further argument, which is not generally discussed among liberals so I'm not sure if it's popular or not:
5) Abuse of legal visas (H-1B etc.) causes economic problems on par with or greater than those caused by illegal entry, and a wall does jack shit to stop it.
The reason that America is attacking Iran is because Saudi Arabia pays well to attack their enemies. And the US Government will happily overthrow a democracy with a good human rights record at the behest of a terrorist spawning (Taliban, ISSIS) oppressive dictatorship any day of the week.
> false dilemma on your "either we get a wall or we get unrestricted immigration". Nobody is arguing in favor of unrestricted immigration
Many, many people, especially Democrat politicians, are in fact saying we should not enforce immigration law, and indeed violating their oath of office by refusing to enforce the law. Ignoring, and even actively frustrating, the law is acting for unrestricted immigration, and then some. Giving driver's licenses and even voter registration cards to people who came in illegally because they couldn't get in legally favors more entry by people who aren't legally qualified. This is turn reduces the amount of legal immigration we can have before it's simply too many people too quickly.
If you personally think that when we make laws we ought not ignore them, that what we decide is the law, and write down as law, should actually be the enforced law, that's cool. That's a point of common ground from which we can discuss further. Many people don't believe that. Many people believe in passing laws legitimately via the Constitutional process and then utterly ignoring them. In some areas, the people who want to ignore the law are the majority.
Re economic effects:
It can be shown that there are benefits to properly managed immigration. Having a moderate number of highly skilled workers added to the country increases our tax base and skill base.
It can also easily be shown that having 30 million illiterate people with little to no job skills enter the country this year would be an economic catastrophy. Of everyone from Mexico City came to Texas, then Texas would very quickly become a lot like Mexico City. The same people doing the same things would get the same results that they get there.
If you're at all familiar with the drug wars in Mexico, it doesn't take much imagination to think about what the effects of drug gangs armed with machine guns would do to low-income communities in the US.
So it's clear that immigration can have significant effects. Significant economic effects and significant other effects. You seem to be at least literate, so I can't imagine you can disagree with that. What effects it has depends entirely on who comes in, from where, an how many in a given year. Thirty German scientists was very good for the US. Ten thousand MS-13 members would be very bad.
So we know there are definite significant effects, and they can be positive or negative depending on who, from where, how many, etc. That means you can get great benefits by policies that manage immigration well, and really bad problems from policies that manage it poorly, or not at all. A de facto open border, failing to secure ones border, selects for more of the people who break the law, rather than having that capacity available to law-abiding people who follow the legal process. So the worst possible policy is one that doesn't let in many law-abiding people, while allowing those who don't follow laws to come in whenever they please.