This is an example of buying the hype the police are selling. Fewer people respond violently to law enforcement today than 20 years ago but the fact that the 24-hour news networks are reporting every case across the entire country as if it happened in your own town creates an impression of an epidemic of violence. Using a raid for gangs or drugs where disposal of evidence is a real risk is reasonable.
However deleting childporn from a computer is fairly time consuming given the quantities these people usually accumulate it in and preventing it from being easily recoverable even more so. Approaching the door with two uniformed officers with a warrant for the computers is an easy solution. One officer stays with the accused at the door while the other goes and unplugs any computer they can find. An extremely computer saavy childporn downloader might have set up sufficient failsafes to delete his data but it is very difficult to do and they aren't going to be using their own IP address in the first place so there should be an indication that greater preperation is needed when they are finally tracked down.
Canada has the same (flawed) system but sustains 3 major national parties, 1 minor national party, 1 major regional party, and a hodgepodge collection of irrelevant (electorally) parties. Granted we have been slowly shifting towards consolidating the parties since the two conservative parties merged and promptly took control of the government (more related to the current ruling party's overblown scandal). In many ways our greater number of parties actually is an advantage towards moving to proportional representation because there are politicians who would gain from it that support it (it is actually a policy plank of the NDP) rather than having everyone with the power to reform the system benefiting greatly from the way it excludes others from accessing political power.
Lots of judges do have the knowledge and issue reasonable warrants (not no-knock) when the police come to them. The police know this too but they have the choice about which judge to request the warrant from, so they go to the most ignorant and pliable judge who blindly accepts their questionable assertions as fact and issues them a no-knock warrant to send a SWAT team in. If the police weren't given the ability to 'shop' for a compliant judge there would be much less of an issue but currently they bypass anyone who knows enough to not go along with their rediculous plan.
What's even funnier is that these metric superiority trolls will do a quick 180 (see, gasp, a non-metric unit again!) when it comes time for them to argue over whether customers are getting full value when marketing uses a Metric Gigabyte (1GB=1,000,000,000 bytes) instead of a "Real Gigabyte" (1Gibibyte=1,073,741,824 bytes) when stating the capacity of storage media.
Personally I dislike the 'metric' gigabyte because it is a sloppy number simply used for convenience. A 'real' gigabyte has that specific number of bytes not because someone arbitrarily decided it would be because our computers are fundamentally structured around a base 2 system and 2^30 is a specific value not a 'convenient to easy round off to but relatively near value'. Also a 7% difference in size is not insignificant so I would expect them to not round down or be clear that they have done so if they do.
I'd like to see companies pay taxes where they actually operate and where they have the employees doing the work to generate the revenues rather than being able to shop around and choose to pretend their income comes from whichever country happens to have the most favourable tax climate that day. On the other hand I'm not a big fan of globalization as it is practiced and think the fact that tariffs are defacto illegal is a tragedy, so perhaps I'm not the person to look to.
Failing to criticize our national governments simply because others do worse guarantees a slow creep towards that worse behaviour because anything less is, by your reasoning, acceptable. The fact that Iran, Burma, and China engage in broader and more extensive internet control and suppression doesn't make the ICE domain seizures more acceptable or infringe freedoms any less.
Further, I personally believe that we have a greater obligation to ensure our home country is abiding by the principals we want other countries to. Not only does it clear us of hypocrisy (see US on torture and prisons) when attempting to convince other countries to reform their practices, it provides a clear example that it can be done without catastrophic consequences (assuming they don't see our culture itself being a catastrophe), and is how our government is structured to function. Limiting our scope to local issues is often a matter of conserving our efforts and avoiding tilting at windmills. I can't personally stop hunger in Africa but I can ensure my neighbours get invited over for dinner frequently because I know that the adults in their house frequently miss meals to ensure that their kids always get fed. The same principle applies to world affairs - I can make real (though small) changes in the US but ignoring them because China is worse leaves the entire world a worse place.
I was quite dissapointed by Canada's lack of inclusion. As a Canadian I would have found it particularly useful to provide a comparison against other countries. The US score seemed irrationally low which makes me think that Canada would be somewhere equivalent to Estonia, maybe with a small penalty for the challenges we are facing providing rural internet access.
About a year and a half ago in my town (Edmonton, Canada) a couple guys snuck up to a photo radar SUV, removed the license plate, swapped it with their real plate, and then proceeded to loop through this radar trap at 15 above the limit for several hours. Tragically they made a fairly serious error while doing this and videotaped the entire episode and posted a (partial) version up on the internet. While the police were highly embarrased by the incident, the guys ended up having to pay to totality of their accumulated fines but thanks to a lenient judge didn't actually serve any jail time.
Meanwhile, all cellphones have been doing this for years, and people rightfully can and should be concerned if they are not aware that their location is potentially trackable at almost any time you have a cellphone on.
Actually with many models of phone they can be remotely enabled (by the phone company with a police warrent) to provide tracking information even while turned off, provided there is still battery charge. This came up recently in a Quebec mob trial because the police used this in the trial which the defendant tried to get the info tossed out because the police had broken his (old model) phone during an 'interview' and he claimed deliberately ensured he got a trackable one when they were obligated to replace it.
Maybe I'm paranoid but what makes you believe that they are not tracking or at least able to track any OnStar capable vehicle regardless of whether you are subscribed or not. Recently there have been entire lines of vehicles that come with OnStar as a default and (I think) a 'free one year trial subscription' and you can later activate the OnStar function even if not currently subscribed and receive assistance at a inflated rate.
While I agree with them that the US probably is fairly good in comparison to much of the world, the major flaw I see in the Freedomhouse report is that it seems to treat the spirit of the law as being more relevant than the actual application and only considers governmental action rather than corporate activities (enabled by a bought and paid for legislative branch) that reduce freedom. Beyond ICE domain seizures, we have rampant DMCA abuse, government subsidized regional monopolies creating poor service and removing competition, extensive (though largely concealed) monitoring, attempted violations of net neutrality, traffic 'shaping' that is not required for its stated purpose, extensive abuse of the legal system to suppress unpopular or offensive speech of individuals or small business' unable to afford the expense of defending themselves, aging internet infrastructure the monopolies are making minimal efforts to upgrade except in the most profitable areas, and undoubtably more that don't come immediately to mind.
The US is taking baby steps towards a less free internet and by ranking them so highly without comment on the glaring problems in the system they are enabling it by creating a false impression that this is acceptable.
Also I find the mention of the US tech innovation particularly funny given that those companies all insist that they are primarily based out of Dublin, Ireland which is why they don't have to pay their fair share of taxes.
Yeah, Canada's proximity to the US produces a truly bizarre mix where nearly everything is measured in the metric system but people are better at estimating in Imperial. We are straddling the divide between rationality and arbitrary inconstancy and are a prime example of what the US would have to look forward to for a generation or two upon switching measurement systems.
At that point the profiles complaining are going to quite distinctive due to their inactivity except for when flagging something as abusive. They are still going to want to use their real profile most of the time because using a fake profile prevents them from interacting with their friends and groups. This means that fairly simple behavioural analysis can help exclude these reports from the system or treat them as a distinct 'loners who like flagging content' clump.
The real difficulty would be determining how much weight to give a clump because obviously in legitimate cases they should be valued at greater than a single individual in value.
Wikipedia takes this particular approach..The problem encountered with this is that if they are honest in their moderation most of the time, it dramatically enhances their reputibility when they are abusively modding their particular special interest. Most flaggers trying to cover up criticism of the Saudi royal family are going to be perfectly content properly rating content for nudity, offensive language, etc. However when their particular hobbyhorse shows up they will falsely rate it as being offensive.
It does raise the bar on the effort required to do so however which has a value in itself though. Ultimately if your pool is large enough you get the positive benefits from them while drowning out the negative but it forces your pool to be much bigger.
I think it just reduced the frequency of the metamod reminder. I know I had been thinking the same thing lately and then yesterday got the reminder link. It was 2 days after I got regular mod points which I don't know if it is relavent.
And wars compel me to associate with private enterprise (for-profit Military Industrial Complex) as a condition of American citizenship. And I'm compelled to associate with private for-profit road builders, and private for-profit companies of all sorts.
Sure there is a mild difference between taxing for it and saying 'make your own arrangements under this strictly controlled set of guidelines' but it is completely disingenuous to suggest that one is an acceptable use of governmental power and the other is A CIVILISATION DESTROYING CATASTROPHE!!!! Further the people currently complaining that this violates freedom of association were the ones who insisted on this comprimise rather than establishing a single payer system and makes me rather dubious that they care even the slightest amount over the freedom of association or rather oppose this because social supports oppose their worldview that poor people deserve to suffer regardless of the financial merits of doing so.
You selectively grant rights though many applications simply won't function if you fail to give them the rights the ask for. Though that is more an issue with how the particular app is written rather than with Android.
Not working in an office doesn't generate any extra expenses but maintaining a home office does. Your chair, desk, computer, and peripherals are all going to get a lot more use and need to be replaced more frequently. You may need to get an additional number for your phone or upgrade your internet connection for more reliability/faster speeds/higher caps. Even incidentals that cost little individually like note paper, pens, and such add up to real money over the course of the year.
Obviously some business' are better about reimbursing expenses than others but at the very minimum you are wasting time submitting receipts and shopping compared to the business having someone else take care of it.
Android is similar in restricting apps and requiring permissions for apps to access functions like SMS.
However the app IS intended for texting and thus you will have a permissions request for SMS to use the app (even the legitimate version). This just sends out additional texts to your contacts in addition to the ones you want to send out.
While probably illegal (unless they have a solid User Agreement that people ignored saying it would do this) personally I find it no more morally dubious than the person who downloaded a version of the software that they knew was pirated. And as someone who actually pays for my software I MUCH prefer the mode of punishing the pirates with software that has a 'bonus' than punishing the legitimate users by including DRM.
I have absolutely no problem with them seizing any assets that are probably purchased using illegal money but the government should have to prove it first. In a proper trial during which the defendant is accorded full rights, rather than the farcical lawsuits against the items themselves where the item's owners rights are not applicable.
Currently funds from these asset seizures are rolled into the departmental budget for the police giving them incentive to lay charges that can't possibly be sustained. Further this is aso used to deprive defendants of the resources to properly defend themselves against the charges they are facing.
They could freeze or seize assets until after the trial finds someone guilty or innocent if they wanted - but they don't. Instead they sue the items themselves under a rediculous legal theory so as to bypass the owners 5th amendment rights and get the lower burden of proof required under civil law. If the accussed drug dealer is found not guilty there is no return of assets, replacement, or money received from the sale given to them. Regardless of the outcome of the criminal trial the assets are permanently and irrevocably gone and typically the money from the sale goes into the police coffers. This creates a perverse incentive to lay insufficiently founded drug charges against people with easily disposed of assets to fundraise for chronically underfunded police departments. Worse yet, in some jurisdictions, the sales go primarily to police and their friends at dramatically below market value who then turn around and sell them a second time at more reasonable rates and pocket the profit. Even in the cases where the charges are laid in good faith, the disposal of assets prior to conviction and failure to compensate is profoundly contrary to the way the legal system is intended to operate.
In this particular case, the charges are probably legitimately laid against someone who there is reasonable evidence of commiting the crime. The farce is that even if he can prove that he didn't, he is still out $500,000 without legal recourse.
When you are living paycheck to paycheck it is often impossible to save up that extra money even when you recognize that in the long term it may cost less. You can however usually manage to scrounge together enough for a cheap item by doing something like not eating lunch for a week or two.
It is the same principle behind outrageous check cashing fees and similar financial charges that affect the poor more than the people who have savings. Sure it may cost you a significant percentage of your income but the alternative is that you and your kids can't buy food for a week (and typically don't have reserves) while it clears the bank traditionally or you can't pay your rent.
It isn't a matter of stupidity but desperation and limited options.
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This is an example of buying the hype the police are selling. Fewer people respond violently to law enforcement today than 20 years ago but the fact that the 24-hour news networks are reporting every case across the entire country as if it happened in your own town creates an impression of an epidemic of violence. Using a raid for gangs or drugs where disposal of evidence is a real risk is reasonable.
However deleting childporn from a computer is fairly time consuming given the quantities these people usually accumulate it in and preventing it from being easily recoverable even more so. Approaching the door with two uniformed officers with a warrant for the computers is an easy solution. One officer stays with the accused at the door while the other goes and unplugs any computer they can find. An extremely computer saavy childporn downloader might have set up sufficient failsafes to delete his data but it is very difficult to do and they aren't going to be using their own IP address in the first place so there should be an indication that greater preperation is needed when they are finally tracked down.
Canada has the same (flawed) system but sustains 3 major national parties, 1 minor national party, 1 major regional party, and a hodgepodge collection of irrelevant (electorally) parties. Granted we have been slowly shifting towards consolidating the parties since the two conservative parties merged and promptly took control of the government (more related to the current ruling party's overblown scandal). In many ways our greater number of parties actually is an advantage towards moving to proportional representation because there are politicians who would gain from it that support it (it is actually a policy plank of the NDP) rather than having everyone with the power to reform the system benefiting greatly from the way it excludes others from accessing political power.
Lots of judges do have the knowledge and issue reasonable warrants (not no-knock) when the police come to them. The police know this too but they have the choice about which judge to request the warrant from, so they go to the most ignorant and pliable judge who blindly accepts their questionable assertions as fact and issues them a no-knock warrant to send a SWAT team in. If the police weren't given the ability to 'shop' for a compliant judge there would be much less of an issue but currently they bypass anyone who knows enough to not go along with their rediculous plan.
What's even funnier is that these metric superiority trolls will do a quick 180 (see, gasp, a non-metric unit again!) when it comes time for them to argue over whether customers are getting full value when marketing uses a Metric Gigabyte (1GB=1,000,000,000 bytes) instead of a "Real Gigabyte" (1Gibibyte=1,073,741,824 bytes) when stating the capacity of storage media.
Personally I dislike the 'metric' gigabyte because it is a sloppy number simply used for convenience. A 'real' gigabyte has that specific number of bytes not because someone arbitrarily decided it would be because our computers are fundamentally structured around a base 2 system and 2^30 is a specific value not a 'convenient to easy round off to but relatively near value'. Also a 7% difference in size is not insignificant so I would expect them to not round down or be clear that they have done so if they do.
I'd like to see companies pay taxes where they actually operate and where they have the employees doing the work to generate the revenues rather than being able to shop around and choose to pretend their income comes from whichever country happens to have the most favourable tax climate that day. On the other hand I'm not a big fan of globalization as it is practiced and think the fact that tariffs are defacto illegal is a tragedy, so perhaps I'm not the person to look to.
Failing to criticize our national governments simply because others do worse guarantees a slow creep towards that worse behaviour because anything less is, by your reasoning, acceptable. The fact that Iran, Burma, and China engage in broader and more extensive internet control and suppression doesn't make the ICE domain seizures more acceptable or infringe freedoms any less.
Further, I personally believe that we have a greater obligation to ensure our home country is abiding by the principals we want other countries to. Not only does it clear us of hypocrisy (see US on torture and prisons) when attempting to convince other countries to reform their practices, it provides a clear example that it can be done without catastrophic consequences (assuming they don't see our culture itself being a catastrophe), and is how our government is structured to function. Limiting our scope to local issues is often a matter of conserving our efforts and avoiding tilting at windmills. I can't personally stop hunger in Africa but I can ensure my neighbours get invited over for dinner frequently because I know that the adults in their house frequently miss meals to ensure that their kids always get fed. The same principle applies to world affairs - I can make real (though small) changes in the US but ignoring them because China is worse leaves the entire world a worse place.
I was quite dissapointed by Canada's lack of inclusion. As a Canadian I would have found it particularly useful to provide a comparison against other countries. The US score seemed irrationally low which makes me think that Canada would be somewhere equivalent to Estonia, maybe with a small penalty for the challenges we are facing providing rural internet access.
About a year and a half ago in my town (Edmonton, Canada) a couple guys snuck up to a photo radar SUV, removed the license plate, swapped it with their real plate, and then proceeded to loop through this radar trap at 15 above the limit for several hours. Tragically they made a fairly serious error while doing this and videotaped the entire episode and posted a (partial) version up on the internet. While the police were highly embarrased by the incident, the guys ended up having to pay to totality of their accumulated fines but thanks to a lenient judge didn't actually serve any jail time.
Meanwhile, all cellphones have been doing this for years, and people rightfully can and should be concerned if they are not aware that their location is potentially trackable at almost any time you have a cellphone on.
Actually with many models of phone they can be remotely enabled (by the phone company with a police warrent) to provide tracking information even while turned off, provided there is still battery charge. This came up recently in a Quebec mob trial because the police used this in the trial which the defendant tried to get the info tossed out because the police had broken his (old model) phone during an 'interview' and he claimed deliberately ensured he got a trackable one when they were obligated to replace it.
Maybe I'm paranoid but what makes you believe that they are not tracking or at least able to track any OnStar capable vehicle regardless of whether you are subscribed or not. Recently there have been entire lines of vehicles that come with OnStar as a default and (I think) a 'free one year trial subscription' and you can later activate the OnStar function even if not currently subscribed and receive assistance at a inflated rate.
While I agree with them that the US probably is fairly good in comparison to much of the world, the major flaw I see in the Freedomhouse report is that it seems to treat the spirit of the law as being more relevant than the actual application and only considers governmental action rather than corporate activities (enabled by a bought and paid for legislative branch) that reduce freedom. Beyond ICE domain seizures, we have rampant DMCA abuse, government subsidized regional monopolies creating poor service and removing competition, extensive (though largely concealed) monitoring, attempted violations of net neutrality, traffic 'shaping' that is not required for its stated purpose, extensive abuse of the legal system to suppress unpopular or offensive speech of individuals or small business' unable to afford the expense of defending themselves, aging internet infrastructure the monopolies are making minimal efforts to upgrade except in the most profitable areas, and undoubtably more that don't come immediately to mind.
The US is taking baby steps towards a less free internet and by ranking them so highly without comment on the glaring problems in the system they are enabling it by creating a false impression that this is acceptable.
Also I find the mention of the US tech innovation particularly funny given that those companies all insist that they are primarily based out of Dublin, Ireland which is why they don't have to pay their fair share of taxes.
Yeah, Canada's proximity to the US produces a truly bizarre mix where nearly everything is measured in the metric system but people are better at estimating in Imperial. We are straddling the divide between rationality and arbitrary inconstancy and are a prime example of what the US would have to look forward to for a generation or two upon switching measurement systems.
At that point the profiles complaining are going to quite distinctive due to their inactivity except for when flagging something as abusive. They are still going to want to use their real profile most of the time because using a fake profile prevents them from interacting with their friends and groups. This means that fairly simple behavioural analysis can help exclude these reports from the system or treat them as a distinct 'loners who like flagging content' clump.
The real difficulty would be determining how much weight to give a clump because obviously in legitimate cases they should be valued at greater than a single individual in value.
Wikipedia takes this particular approach..The problem encountered with this is that if they are honest in their moderation most of the time, it dramatically enhances their reputibility when they are abusively modding their particular special interest. Most flaggers trying to cover up criticism of the Saudi royal family are going to be perfectly content properly rating content for nudity, offensive language, etc. However when their particular hobbyhorse shows up they will falsely rate it as being offensive.
It does raise the bar on the effort required to do so however which has a value in itself though. Ultimately if your pool is large enough you get the positive benefits from them while drowning out the negative but it forces your pool to be much bigger.
I think it just reduced the frequency of the metamod reminder. I know I had been thinking the same thing lately and then yesterday got the reminder link. It was 2 days after I got regular mod points which I don't know if it is relavent.
Very true. It's a shame you can't get elected in the US to represent to people.
The fact he was discussing Income taxes.
And wars compel me to associate with private enterprise (for-profit Military Industrial Complex) as a condition of American citizenship. And I'm compelled to associate with private for-profit road builders, and private for-profit companies of all sorts.
Sure there is a mild difference between taxing for it and saying 'make your own arrangements under this strictly controlled set of guidelines' but it is completely disingenuous to suggest that one is an acceptable use of governmental power and the other is A CIVILISATION DESTROYING CATASTROPHE!!!! Further the people currently complaining that this violates freedom of association were the ones who insisted on this comprimise rather than establishing a single payer system and makes me rather dubious that they care even the slightest amount over the freedom of association or rather oppose this because social supports oppose their worldview that poor people deserve to suffer regardless of the financial merits of doing so.
You selectively grant rights though many applications simply won't function if you fail to give them the rights the ask for. Though that is more an issue with how the particular app is written rather than with Android.
Not working in an office doesn't generate any extra expenses but maintaining a home office does. Your chair, desk, computer, and peripherals are all going to get a lot more use and need to be replaced more frequently. You may need to get an additional number for your phone or upgrade your internet connection for more reliability/faster speeds/higher caps. Even incidentals that cost little individually like note paper, pens, and such add up to real money over the course of the year.
Obviously some business' are better about reimbursing expenses than others but at the very minimum you are wasting time submitting receipts and shopping compared to the business having someone else take care of it.
Android is similar in restricting apps and requiring permissions for apps to access functions like SMS.
However the app IS intended for texting and thus you will have a permissions request for SMS to use the app (even the legitimate version). This just sends out additional texts to your contacts in addition to the ones you want to send out.
While probably illegal (unless they have a solid User Agreement that people ignored saying it would do this) personally I find it no more morally dubious than the person who downloaded a version of the software that they knew was pirated. And as someone who actually pays for my software I MUCH prefer the mode of punishing the pirates with software that has a 'bonus' than punishing the legitimate users by including DRM.
I have absolutely no problem with them seizing any assets that are probably purchased using illegal money but the government should have to prove it first. In a proper trial during which the defendant is accorded full rights, rather than the farcical lawsuits against the items themselves where the item's owners rights are not applicable.
Currently funds from these asset seizures are rolled into the departmental budget for the police giving them incentive to lay charges that can't possibly be sustained. Further this is aso used to deprive defendants of the resources to properly defend themselves against the charges they are facing.
They could freeze or seize assets until after the trial finds someone guilty or innocent if they wanted - but they don't. Instead they sue the items themselves under a rediculous legal theory so as to bypass the owners 5th amendment rights and get the lower burden of proof required under civil law. If the accussed drug dealer is found not guilty there is no return of assets, replacement, or money received from the sale given to them. Regardless of the outcome of the criminal trial the assets are permanently and irrevocably gone and typically the money from the sale goes into the police coffers. This creates a perverse incentive to lay insufficiently founded drug charges against people with easily disposed of assets to fundraise for chronically underfunded police departments. Worse yet, in some jurisdictions, the sales go primarily to police and their friends at dramatically below market value who then turn around and sell them a second time at more reasonable rates and pocket the profit. Even in the cases where the charges are laid in good faith, the disposal of assets prior to conviction and failure to compensate is profoundly contrary to the way the legal system is intended to operate.
In this particular case, the charges are probably legitimately laid against someone who there is reasonable evidence of commiting the crime. The farce is that even if he can prove that he didn't, he is still out $500,000 without legal recourse.
When you are living paycheck to paycheck it is often impossible to save up that extra money even when you recognize that in the long term it may cost less. You can however usually manage to scrounge together enough for a cheap item by doing something like not eating lunch for a week or two.
It is the same principle behind outrageous check cashing fees and similar financial charges that affect the poor more than the people who have savings. Sure it may cost you a significant percentage of your income but the alternative is that you and your kids can't buy food for a week (and typically don't have reserves) while it clears the bank traditionally or you can't pay your rent.
It isn't a matter of stupidity but desperation and limited options.