Remember the high-school senior who got a blowjob from a 15 year old? He's doing time, because a law designed to catch sex offenders was badly written. The law was changed in response to his conviction, but it was too late for him. He's still in jail, the football scholarship is now out of the question, and he will have a criminal record.
The first and last one of those can be alleviated by a Governor, and a good one would do it. These kinds of cases are what Presidential and Gubernatorial pardons are made for. The criminal record can be altered by such acts, and in cases like this should be.
Dude, did it take you over half an hour to compose that reply? There was at least one comment posted referencing the Hulk a full 34 minutes prior to yours. What, did you do a Google search to find something clever to come up with or something?
It isn't Walmart forcing mom and pops, or so-called mom and pops out of business. For the most part it is dogooders on the zoning commissions (I'll not assume everyone is out to get something for themselves on these things).
Zoning laws have done more damage to small businesses than any other single thing. When the local government sees dollars from raising taxes or from inducing high land prices by zoning them a certain way, they do so. The result is that smaller businesses simply can not stay in business without higher prices.
To add to that, this misguided and fatally flawed notion of providing mandatory zones of "work goes here, home goes over there" exacerbates the problem by forcing people to have to travel more distance to get somewhere.
When you have governments decreeing that "shopping goes in this central area", what other outcome is likely? None. When you force all shopping into "managed" areas, you raise the price of the land (and hence tax revenues) by creating a false scarcity of land. When that happens, mom and pop can't afford to stay in business. They can't afford to compete with the non-Walmarts that go into those places, if there is any space available for them.
And no, being elsewhere doesn't work either. Most mom and pop type shops operate largely by word of mouth and local traffic, emphasis on local traffic. By channeling shopping onto road fronts on 4lane or more roads and into "shopping centers" as mentioned above, the planning and zoning agencies destroy the mom and pop shops with or without Walmart. But Walmart is capitalism and hence evil, plus it is an nice obvious target that doesn't require thinking to attack. you can just label them bad and because they are a big corporation, people, particularly certain groups, will just accept it and carry out the attack.
Meanwhile the root of the problem that kills off mom and pop shops goes unnoticed and sneaks on by. With or without Walmart, or other big chains, P&Z will continue to kill the small shops.
And despite your claim, putting a Walmart in instantly raises the "value" of the land because now there is a specific name to draw people to the area, which in turn makes the area appealing to other businesses. A basic education and understanding of economics, or a trip to the local assessor's office or real estate agent willing to share the reality of prices with you will tell you that. But yes it is much more fun to just sit and type without doing real research, isn't it? When you combine Walmart's location appeal with the local P&Z outfit limiting the places you can run a business, the local property tax agency is in hog heaven.
Despite your unfounded assertion, the reality is that most people in the lower income brackets *DO* in fact move up. The lower end of the scale is where untrained, inexperienced workers start. It is also home of high school kids and college students. Over the last several decades every single study of income movement bears this out. Why? It is unavoidable. People with no education, no experience, and no training do not start out in middle or higher income brackets. It truly is amazing how you "educated types" can have such a lack of understanding of reality, I agree. Starting in the lower bracket and moving up *is* the "norm", not the other way around. It doesn't matter what the minimum wage is as long as people value quality work over shoddy or low quality work.
As far as your comparison of "don't shop there" with paying your taxes, what unadulterated tripe. The Waltons don't show up at your bank and take your money, the local courthouse and take your possessions, or your door and take your freedom (or ultimately your life if you continue to resist) if you don't shop there. But the government will be more than happy to do those things and more if you don't pay your taxes. Yet another example of you educated types not grasping what we "norms" understand.
No, it's called Starcraft II, get your head straight. Also, while doing so you won't need Vista to play Starcraft II. You'll be able to play it on OS X. Even so, Blizzard has wisely chosen to not require DirectX 10. So while I'm no MS shill, or even a fan or user, your slam here is incorrect and baseless.
And you are not explaining your argument properly.
You state that the data that is hidden should not be hidden. Then you argue that the data should not be hidden because the method used to hide the data *COULD* be used maliciously.
Your first problem is you didn't justify why encryption information should be hidden. Second, you say the means to hide it MIGHT be used to do something bad. Well, you can say that about most anything really.
People shouldn't post to/. because someone might do something bad with those postings.
People shouldn't have/use encryption because someone might use it maliciously - as in to hide data.
Would malicious software take advantage of the so-called rootkit? Why bother? Put yourself in the place of the bad guys. Would you rely on this driver to be present for your malware to stay hidden? Or would you be better off just writing other things to hide your data?
Now let us go the other way. I could use this driver to hide data myself, right? If malware could do it, so can I. Maybe I stick my important data in there. Maybe I encrypt a file containing my user/pass combos, then put the encrypted data there.
The intent does matter. A "rootkit" as has been referred to for years is so named because it grants a non-authorized user "root access". In this case it's "Administrator" access, but the principle is the same.
Despite the fallible Wikipedia entry, a rootkit is not something that hides process or files. That is a method. A rootkit is a piece of software that grants a non-authorized user admin level access. That's all. It may or may not hide itself. I've seen rootkits that do not hide themselves.
Calling this a rootkit is a bad idea. Calling it a poor implementation of an idea would be a much better start. Security through obscurity is rarely a proper defense. But butchering the longstanding use of a term to make Sony look bad is not good policy, nor good karma.
Intent matters in nearly all things. As noted, criminals, murderers, terrorists, corrupt government officials corrupt business officials, and just plain arseholes can all do bad things using the same methods, techniques that good guys use.
Oh look you have lock picking tools, go straight to jail. No it doesn't matter that you are a locksmith and do not intend to do bad things with them, you have them. That is what your "intent is irrelvant" argument leads to. No thank you.
Much like calling copyright infringement Piracy, calling this a rootkit is being deceitful. To me it also demonstrates a lack of good vocabulary skills. Ignoring why something is done is also improper. For all I know you are astroturfing for one of Sony's competitor. No I can't go looking at your posts to see if you are or not, or do some research to verify that. After all, stalkers and pedophiles use those same techniques to do bad things. And I'd hate for your "intent does not matter" world to brand me among them because I used the same technique to see if you are a shill or not.
First, we need to be careful here. A 60% improvement in the conversion among UV spectrum does not necessarily equate to a 60% increase in a given PV cell. If the particular cell is more of an infrared or visible light spectrum oriented cell, you'll see a minor, if any, improvement. So before anyone starts grabbing random solar cell outputs and starts applying a 60% increase in power and get modded "insightful" for bad information, let's get that part out there.;)
With the main advantage being in the UV spectrum, it seems to me the best application would be to UV preferential cells in orbit or on Mars, Luna, etc.. Doubly so given the difficulty in shedding excess heat in Space.
What is the situation about the processes used to make the chips? Are there processes or materials (components, machines, etc) that are required to produce it?
it isn't necessarily about the average Joe making one in his garage. It is more than blueprints. I could "GPL" blueprints to a miraculous, functioning, FTL drive but what good would it do SpaceX if it requires some proprietary hardware/processes/material to actually make it? Hence the question about the entire process and requirements.
As a comedian said: FEMA (Find Every Mexican Available) He was on HBO a while back, don't remember his name. And yes for the PC crowd he was in fact Mexican.
Better training programs, better universities. The kind that focus on understanding, not code churn. That's where better programmers come from if not being trained on the job.
Experience is more than ability churn out code of a given quality. It is about *knowing* things. For example, you feel your job doesn't "tap your abilities", so you are just phoning it in. This is precisely why you need to deal with "lower" jobs. First, I am certain that your opinion of your abilities is well above your actual abilities. This is one of the things taught by "experience". We all just learned that you will phone it in. That's something that a good employer doesn't want.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In reality there is.
Further, how you work is also something you will only learn by experience. From phoning it in to how you handle a sudden pressure change, a sudden deadline shift, or an unexpected change in priorities or demands. These are not things the world of academia teaches. What we need is a master-apprentice system. What we get is this farce of college. Sure you learn valuable theory and rules, but you have no idea what really works in the real world, or how to deal with things that are not pristine. In the real world all things are not equal, friction exists, and time has meaning and value.
Your time to get "experience" was before graduation. From volunteer work to internships, you should have sought the opportunities out. It demonstrates dedication, focus, and discipline in addition to "experience".
The fact that you think "experience" means "hours put in at a job" proves that you are not worthy of the higher responsibility (and paying) jobs. Your degree quite frankly doesn't mean spit when the code hits the compiler. Programming is about more than "assembling API calls". Experience teaches you intuition. It's like the difference between spending a year getting a black belt, and someone who has been doing the same discipline for 3,5, or 10 years without getting a belt. Go up against one of them and you'll find yourself staring at the sky as they walk off. Experience teaches you when not to do things like that.
Experience for companies also means the ability to put up with the crap we have to put up with in companies. Most academia coddles you - even if you don't think it did. One day you'll look back and realize that. You will realize that you didn't know what you thought you did. And when putting together the request for a position, you'll list experience as a requirement.
Who says pay them up front? WHat happened to getting raises after demonstrating ability? What happened to looking at a track record?
I'll tell you what happened: Wall Street and Incorporation. The larger corporations are not about producing a good product so much anymore, as the management is focused so much on what the stock price is. And of course they are, they get paid more for it being higher. It's one of the reasons any company of mine will never sell stock.
Had you read the article you would have seen the author link to the mythical Man Month. Instead you lamented that the author "discovered" it on their own - by not reading the article. There is some irony in there somewhere.
Besides, individual discovery of the same principles is a *good thing*. It serves as a validation in the same way that scientists who individually discover the same mechanism validate the discovery. This is in distinct contrast to duplicate/. articles of course.
That's what I got the first time I tried loading this article on/.
But seriously, what's the real point? Are the means to actually make one of these processors beyond 99% of companies and pretty much 99.99% of the people on the planet? What about the patenting of the process or equipment to actually make the processor?
We often think about boiling as being a condition of high heat, but that is not necessarily true. A lower pressure of atmosphere will result in lower boiling temperatures. Water in a thin glass container that is at vacuum or very low pressure levels can boil just by the heat in your palm, or even be converted to steam with a little more heat. This is often reflected in cooking times based on boiling being different for altitudes of wide differences.
Yes there is. Hardware has versions, and so can collections of hardware, and so can collections of hardware/software combinations. You've never heard of Internet 2? If you don't like the term, don't use it. But don't claim that things can't have versions. "Second wife" == "Wife 2.0" - unless it's polygamy.
They are legally bound by a contractual obligation. In a way it is a form of community MAD. You get "consideration" (legal term for something in exchange) in the form of free use of other patents in exchange for other licensees to do the same with yours. Breaking this would be a contractual breach but also expose you to retaliation by the other holders for your use of their patents.
There is another problem you failed to discuss, and it is demonstrative of a broken patent system.
First Past The Post
If you and I each through our own work and no knowledge of the other work on a process, device, method, etc. why should whomever got to the PO first be able to exclude the other? This is fundamental to our patent system period. What right do I have because I got to the patent office first, to say that your work is for naught and now you have to have my permission to benefit from your own independent work? It is patently unfair (har-har), and unavoidable in the so-called IP system we have. If litigation was limited to proving someone directly copied your work (say by source code access or similar) there would be much less of it because frankly most suits over "violations" are a result of independent work, not outright copying.
Obvious does not mean "nobody thought of it". Some things are so obvious you don't generally think of them. "One click" - blinding obvious to anyone who has ever "had a tab" at a bar or store. Or anyone who has been exasperated by going through step after step after step to buy something.
The root cause here is not Bush, nor is it even the "War on Terror". it is the increasing stretch of the Federal Crimes list. The nation was first set up with very crimes defined as federal and each of them relating to the operation of the federal government only, and all else being state responsibilities. The corruption is not the FBI, or even the CIA. It is Congress in overstepping it's Constitutional bounds to create more federal crimes.
Note further that the U.S. Constitution mandates that ALL federal crimes be tried by Jury. There is no exception.
Not necessarily. Many people have a job requirement that they expose illegal behavior or actions. For example, the Army trains soldiers to report and not obey unlawful or illegal orders. Granted, not all do, but it is still a requirement - failure to do so can get you busted. Officers of the Court are required to expose illegal behavior, as are ombudsman positions.
On the one hand, the warrant-less wiretapping is heinous and offensive to more than just The Constitution. On the other, illegal activity needs exposed but to whom?
How about loser pays? If it is proven and judged that the warrant-less wiretapping was in fact illegal (not merely unconstitutional), then he gets a free pass - he was right; consequently those who managed and directly ordered it without meeting their obligations to stay within the law and ensure others did get slammer time. If not, he gets slammed for leaking classified information on lawful activities.
Law is so convoluted these days that IMO the days of "ignorance of the law is no excuse" are long gone. If Law is so convoluted that it requires specialist experts it is too convoluted to be of value and use to the people. That the "experts" disagree so consistently only worsens the problem. So how can we expect people to know what is actually legal and what is not? Being offensive or wrong is not enough to justify leaking classified information. The maze of twisty passages, all alike, is so overwhelming as to not be able to confidently and correctly make the case for most people.
No, there are plenty of you. Mostly the same mentality of those that thought the previous administration - Clinton's -- would do the same thing. There was probably talk about the previous Bush allegedly conspiring to do this, and there was certainly a movement to extend term limits so Reagan could run for a third term.
This has happened before, and it will happen again.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember the high-school senior who got a blowjob from a 15 year old? He's doing time, because a law designed to catch sex offenders was badly written. The law was changed in response to his conviction, but it was too late for him. He's still in jail, the football scholarship is now out of the question, and he will have a criminal record.
The first and last one of those can be alleviated by a Governor, and a good one would do it. These kinds of cases are what Presidential and Gubernatorial pardons are made for. The criminal record can be altered by such acts, and in cases like this should be.
Dude, did it take you over half an hour to compose that reply? There was at least one comment posted referencing the Hulk a full 34 minutes prior to yours. What, did you do a Google search to find something clever to come up with or something?
Put the bunny back in the box.
It isn't Walmart forcing mom and pops, or so-called mom and pops out of business. For the most part it is dogooders on the zoning commissions (I'll not assume everyone is out to get something for themselves on these things).
Zoning laws have done more damage to small businesses than any other single thing. When the local government sees dollars from raising taxes or from inducing high land prices by zoning them a certain way, they do so. The result is that smaller businesses simply can not stay in business without higher prices.
To add to that, this misguided and fatally flawed notion of providing mandatory zones of "work goes here, home goes over there" exacerbates the problem by forcing people to have to travel more distance to get somewhere.
When you have governments decreeing that "shopping goes in this central area", what other outcome is likely? None. When you force all shopping into "managed" areas, you raise the price of the land (and hence tax revenues) by creating a false scarcity of land. When that happens, mom and pop can't afford to stay in business. They can't afford to compete with the non-Walmarts that go into those places, if there is any space available for them.
And no, being elsewhere doesn't work either. Most mom and pop type shops operate largely by word of mouth and local traffic, emphasis on local traffic. By channeling shopping onto road fronts on 4lane or more roads and into "shopping centers" as mentioned above, the planning and zoning agencies destroy the mom and pop shops with or without Walmart. But Walmart is capitalism and hence evil, plus it is an nice obvious target that doesn't require thinking to attack. you can just label them bad and because they are a big corporation, people, particularly certain groups, will just accept it and carry out the attack.
Meanwhile the root of the problem that kills off mom and pop shops goes unnoticed and sneaks on by. With or without Walmart, or other big chains, P&Z will continue to kill the small shops.
And despite your claim, putting a Walmart in instantly raises the "value" of the land because now there is a specific name to draw people to the area, which in turn makes the area appealing to other businesses. A basic education and understanding of economics, or a trip to the local assessor's office or real estate agent willing to share the reality of prices with you will tell you that. But yes it is much more fun to just sit and type without doing real research, isn't it? When you combine Walmart's location appeal with the local P&Z outfit limiting the places you can run a business, the local property tax agency is in hog heaven.
Despite your unfounded assertion, the reality is that most people in the lower income brackets *DO* in fact move up. The lower end of the scale is where untrained, inexperienced workers start. It is also home of high school kids and college students. Over the last several decades every single study of income movement bears this out. Why? It is unavoidable. People with no education, no experience, and no training do not start out in middle or higher income brackets. It truly is amazing how you "educated types" can have such a lack of understanding of reality, I agree. Starting in the lower bracket and moving up *is* the "norm", not the other way around. It doesn't matter what the minimum wage is as long as people value quality work over shoddy or low quality work.
As far as your comparison of "don't shop there" with paying your taxes, what unadulterated tripe. The Waltons don't show up at your bank and take your money, the local courthouse and take your possessions, or your door and take your freedom (or ultimately your life if you continue to resist) if you don't shop there. But the government will be more than happy to do those things and more if you don't pay your taxes. Yet another example of you educated types not grasping what we "norms" understand.
No, it's called Starcraft II, get your head straight. Also, while doing so you won't need Vista to play Starcraft II. You'll be able to play it on OS X. Even so, Blizzard has wisely chosen to not require DirectX 10. So while I'm no MS shill, or even a fan or user, your slam here is incorrect and baseless.
And you are not explaining your argument properly.
/. because someone might do something bad with those postings.
You state that the data that is hidden should not be hidden. Then you argue that the data should not be hidden because the method used to hide the data *COULD* be used maliciously.
Your first problem is you didn't justify why encryption information should be hidden. Second, you say the means to hide it MIGHT be used to do something bad. Well, you can say that about most anything really.
People shouldn't post to
People shouldn't have/use encryption because someone might use it maliciously - as in to hide data.
Would malicious software take advantage of the so-called rootkit? Why bother? Put yourself in the place of the bad guys. Would you rely on this driver to be present for your malware to stay hidden? Or would you be better off just writing other things to hide your data?
Now let us go the other way. I could use this driver to hide data myself, right? If malware could do it, so can I. Maybe I stick my important data in there. Maybe I encrypt a file containing my user/pass combos, then put the encrypted data there.
The intent does matter. A "rootkit" as has been referred to for years is so named because it grants a non-authorized user "root access". In this case it's "Administrator" access, but the principle is the same.
Despite the fallible Wikipedia entry, a rootkit is not something that hides process or files. That is a method. A rootkit is a piece of software that grants a non-authorized user admin level access. That's all. It may or may not hide itself. I've seen rootkits that do not hide themselves.
Calling this a rootkit is a bad idea. Calling it a poor implementation of an idea would be a much better start. Security through obscurity is rarely a proper defense. But butchering the longstanding use of a term to make Sony look bad is not good policy, nor good karma.
Intent matters in nearly all things. As noted, criminals, murderers, terrorists, corrupt government officials corrupt business officials, and just plain arseholes can all do bad things using the same methods, techniques that good guys use.
Oh look you have lock picking tools, go straight to jail. No it doesn't matter that you are a locksmith and
do not intend to do bad things with them, you have them. That is what your "intent is irrelvant" argument leads to. No thank you.
Much like calling copyright infringement Piracy, calling this a rootkit is being deceitful. To me it also demonstrates a lack of good vocabulary skills. Ignoring why something is done is also improper. For all I know you are astroturfing for one of Sony's competitor. No I can't go looking at your posts to see if you are or not, or do some research to verify that. After all, stalkers and pedophiles use those same techniques to do bad things. And I'd hate for your "intent does not matter" world to brand me among them because I used the same technique to see if you are a shill or not.
First, we need to be careful here. A 60% improvement in the conversion among UV spectrum does not necessarily equate to a 60% increase in a given PV cell. If the particular cell is more of an infrared or visible light spectrum oriented cell, you'll see a minor, if any, improvement. So before anyone starts grabbing random solar cell outputs and starts applying a 60% increase in power and get modded "insightful" for bad information, let's get that part out there.;)
With the main advantage being in the UV spectrum, it seems to me the best application would be to UV preferential cells in orbit or on Mars, Luna, etc.. Doubly so given the difficulty in shedding excess heat in Space.
What is the situation about the processes used to make the chips? Are there processes or materials (components, machines, etc) that are required to produce it?
it isn't necessarily about the average Joe making one in his garage. It is more than blueprints. I could "GPL" blueprints to a miraculous, functioning, FTL drive but what good would it do SpaceX if it requires some proprietary hardware/processes/material to actually make it? Hence the question about the entire process and requirements.
Flashbangs are an example, I don't think beating someone with a flashlight counts as non-lethal.
As a comedian said: FEMA (Find Every Mexican Available) He was on HBO a while back, don't remember his name. And yes for the PC crowd he was in fact Mexican.
Better training programs, better universities. The kind that focus on understanding, not code churn. That's where better programmers come from if not being trained on the job.
Experience is more than ability churn out code of a given quality. It is about *knowing* things. For example, you feel your job doesn't "tap your abilities", so you are just phoning it in. This is precisely why you need to deal with "lower" jobs. First, I am certain that your opinion of your abilities is well above your actual abilities. This is one of the things taught by "experience". We all just learned that you will phone it in. That's something that a good employer doesn't want.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In reality there is.
Further, how you work is also something you will only learn by experience. From phoning it in to how you handle a sudden pressure change, a sudden deadline shift, or an unexpected change in priorities or demands. These are not things the world of academia teaches. What we need is a master-apprentice system. What we get is this farce of college. Sure you learn valuable theory and rules, but you have no idea what really works in the real world, or how to deal with things that are not pristine. In the real world all things are not equal, friction exists, and time has meaning and value.
Your time to get "experience" was before graduation. From volunteer work to internships, you should have sought the opportunities out. It demonstrates dedication, focus, and discipline in addition to "experience".
The fact that you think "experience" means "hours put in at a job" proves that you are not worthy of the higher responsibility (and paying) jobs. Your degree quite frankly doesn't mean spit when the code hits the compiler. Programming is about more than "assembling API calls". Experience teaches you intuition. It's like the difference between spending a year getting a black belt, and someone who has been doing the same discipline for 3,5, or 10 years without getting a belt. Go up against one of them and you'll find yourself staring at the sky as they walk off. Experience teaches you when not to do things like that.
Experience for companies also means the ability to put up with the crap we have to put up with in companies. Most academia coddles you - even if you don't think it did. One day you'll look back and realize that. You will realize that you didn't know what you thought you did. And when putting together the request for a position, you'll list experience as a requirement.
Who says pay them up front? WHat happened to getting raises after demonstrating ability? What happened to looking at a track record?
I'll tell you what happened: Wall Street and Incorporation. The larger corporations are not about producing a good product so much anymore, as the management is focused so much on what the stock price is. And of course they are, they get paid more for it being higher. It's one of the reasons any company of mine will never sell stock.
Had you read the article you would have seen the author link to the mythical Man Month. Instead you lamented that the author "discovered" it on their own - by not reading the article. There is some irony in there somewhere.
/. articles of course.
Besides, individual discovery of the same principles is a *good thing*. It serves as a validation in the same way that scientists who individually discover the same mechanism validate the discovery. This is in distinct contrast to duplicate
"Baby programmer" == "Parent" ;)
That's what I got the first time I tried loading this article on /.
But seriously, what's the real point? Are the means to actually make one of these processors beyond 99% of companies and pretty much 99.99% of the people on the planet? What about the patenting of the process or equipment to actually make the processor?
We often think about boiling as being a condition of high heat, but that is not necessarily true. A lower pressure of atmosphere will result in lower boiling temperatures. Water in a thin glass container that is at vacuum or very low pressure levels can boil just by the heat in your palm, or even be converted to steam with a little more heat. This is often reflected in cooking times based on boiling being different for altitudes of wide differences.
Surely, astronauts ought to have better lung capacity than yours truly?
Yes. Unless you too are at a high level of positive physical fitness, they do in fact have better capacity in lungs as well as blood storage of O2.
Yes there is. Hardware has versions, and so can collections of hardware, and so can collections of hardware/software combinations. You've never heard of Internet 2? If you don't like the term, don't use it. But don't claim that things can't have versions. "Second wife" == "Wife 2.0" - unless it's polygamy.
....
Internet 2.0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2
F-16, -> F-16A - F-16B
M1 tank -> M1A1 tank.
Also, World Wide Web != "Web".
They are legally bound by a contractual obligation. In a way it is a form of community MAD. You get "consideration" (legal term for something in exchange) in the form of free use of other patents in exchange for other licensees to do the same with yours. Breaking this would be a contractual breach but also expose you to retaliation by the other holders for your use of their patents.
There is another problem you failed to discuss, and it is demonstrative of a broken patent system.
First Past The Post
If you and I each through our own work and no knowledge of the other work on a process, device, method, etc. why should whomever got to the PO first be able to exclude the other? This is fundamental to our patent system period. What right do I have because I got to the patent office first, to say that your work is for naught and now you have to have my permission to benefit from your own independent work? It is patently unfair (har-har), and unavoidable in the so-called IP system we have. If litigation was limited to proving someone directly copied your work (say by source code access or similar) there would be much less of it because frankly most suits over "violations" are a result of independent work, not outright copying.
Obvious does not mean "nobody thought of it". Some things are so obvious you don't generally think of them. "One click" - blinding obvious to anyone who has ever "had a tab" at a bar or store. Or anyone who has been exasperated by going through step after step after step to buy something.
The root cause here is not Bush, nor is it even the "War on Terror". it is the increasing stretch of the Federal Crimes list. The nation was first set up with very crimes defined as federal and each of them relating to the operation of the federal government only, and all else being state responsibilities. The corruption is not the FBI, or even the CIA. It is Congress in overstepping it's Constitutional bounds to create more federal crimes.
Note further that the U.S. Constitution mandates that ALL federal crimes be tried by Jury. There is no exception.
Not necessarily. Many people have a job requirement that they expose illegal behavior or actions. For example, the Army trains soldiers to report and not obey unlawful or illegal orders. Granted, not all do, but it is still a requirement - failure to do so can get you busted. Officers of the Court are required to expose illegal behavior, as are ombudsman positions.
On the one hand, the warrant-less wiretapping is heinous and offensive to more than just The Constitution. On the other, illegal activity needs exposed but to whom?
How about loser pays? If it is proven and judged that the warrant-less wiretapping was in fact illegal (not merely unconstitutional), then he gets a free pass - he was right; consequently those who managed and directly ordered it without meeting their obligations to stay within the law and ensure others did get slammer time. If not, he gets slammed for leaking classified information on lawful activities.
Law is so convoluted these days that IMO the days of "ignorance of the law is no excuse" are long gone. If Law is so convoluted that it requires specialist experts it is too convoluted to be of value and use to the people. That the "experts" disagree so consistently only worsens the problem. So how can we expect people to know what is actually legal and what is not? Being offensive or wrong is not enough to justify leaking classified information. The maze of twisty passages, all alike, is so overwhelming as to not be able to confidently and correctly make the case for most people.
No, there are plenty of you. Mostly the same mentality of those that thought the previous administration - Clinton's -- would do the same thing. There was probably talk about the previous Bush allegedly conspiring to do this, and there was certainly a movement to extend term limits so Reagan could run for a third term.
This has happened before, and it will happen again.