There's more to the story than the parent suggests.
The US Marshals ultimately get their marching orders from the DOJ, which in turn works for the President.
Ultimately, the only way charges can be brought is if the President decides to enforce the law, which isn't mandatory in practice. (Congress has yet to impeach a President for not enforcing a law -- and there is a long history of Presidents ignoring laws).
That sets up the administrations current annoyance:
* President Trump knows he has the authority to fire everybody involved in Special Counsel Mueller's investigation, halt it, and go back to playing Golf in Florida. * In spite of the fact he can stop the investigation, he knows it's really stupid to do so: It's exactly what Nixon did, and we all know how well it worked out for him.
Do what happens to anyone else when they disobey a court order. Send in the US Marshals (FOI go through federal court I believe) and arrest everyone there and throw them in jail for a week for contempt of court.
Since the days of George Washington, there's been a longstanding tradition of Presidents ignoring laws they don't like. The fact of the matter is the executive branch executes the laws. The President is the one who holds the reigns of the DOJ, which governs the US Marshals and FBI(among other things, of course).
If the executive wants to quash transparency and refuse FOIA requests, it can tell the DOJ to ignore enforcement, regardless of what the law says. The courts can't force the US marshals to do anything, because the DOJ works for the Executive, and they can't otherwise touch the President.
Congress has one option when the President does this: impeach the President and replace him with someone who will enforce the law.
Thus far, no President has been impeached for refusing to enforce a law, and it's incredibly unlikely to happen here.
So, honestly, as long as the President has the FCC's back (and that certainly appears to be the case here), they can do whatever they want.
There were initial preliminary design studies for a Mach-3 bomber, and they eventually lead to the Valkyrie... but it never really 'competed' against ICBM's -- that decision was final about a year before the contract for the XB-70 was awarded to North American.
The actual contract for the XB-70 was for a pure research platform, much like the X-1, the Douglas Skyrocket, or X-29. Flying into enemy territory, even as a recon plane was off the menu - it was too expensive, and too easy to shoot down.
The Valkyrie did good research - a lot of it went into other large supersonic planes - the B-1, the (cancelled) Boeing 2707, and (via espionage) the Tupolev Tu-144 SST. Unsurprisingly, a lot of research into sonic booms in large aircraft was performed with the Valkyrie.
Sonic boom wasn't the biggest problem. Concorde was measured at takeoff and landing at over 126 dB in 26 of 37 monitored tests, which is twice the permitted/advertised limit of 110 dB.
For a quick comparison, that makes Concorde four times louder than a 747 at takeoff.
Engine and Aerodynamic improvements do not change the real limiting factor: cost.
The average consumer can look at it and figure out if the opportunity cost of the time saved is worth the increased ticket price. So far, the answer has been "no."
It's certainly possible for the increased fuel burn of supersonic flight to be offset by the shorter flight time; the XB-70 Valkyrie is a great example of that.
That said, the XB-70 was worth more than its weight in Gold, and was plagued with an extremely expensive inspection and maintenance schedule -- which is not something the US Military could swallow, to say nothing of a business that needs to turn a profit.
I'm pretty sure I don't want busy restaurant background level noise going on continuously.
I prefer to think of it as a constant thunderstorm, since that's probably closer to what it'd be like - a series of double-booms at various intensities (depending on the distance of the aircraft).
And I'm an American, but isn't it really time we started using metric for all things tech? Thirty miles is about 50km. It's just not that hard.
Tell that to a non American who never learned dimensional analysis more complicated than moving a decimal point. The fact is that some non-SI units are still commonplace globally; the calorie being the big one that comes to mind.
I agree it's antiquated and quaint to continue to use imperial units, but having to do something _other_ than shift a decimal point around is very useful in teaching dimensional analysis.
1. That actors involved will always act rationally, or at least in their own self interest. History proves that to be false, because "Humans." 2. Customers can sue to recover damages. (ie. Mandatory 'arbitration' clauses removing your ability to sue; arbiters rarely side with customers.)
Also... just what rules and regulations are forcing the carriers to use SS7? Absolutely none. SS7 is an interoperable standard that's very convenient for the industry. The industry has long known that SS7 is ancient and insecure, and has begun transitioning to a designated replacement: DIAMETER.
Right now, SS7 can be used by foreign powers to eavesdrop on Capital Hill, including transparently forwarding calls (effectively a wiretap), intercepting text messages, and more.
That is not a small security hole, it's not limited to a few users, and there are actual attacks happening.
In other words, it's a threat to "Homeland Security," something the DHS is supposed to care about.
Here, the DHS is saying "It's time to recognize that SS7 is a threat to National Security. It's time to encourage a faster transition to its replacement."
Seems odd that anybody would go down the route of obscurity, given the recent exposure of Intel AMT, and the problems it is causing.
it would seem to be required to allow the DRM “features” to work as intended
Odd to "protect" the use of DRM, given the track record of successful hacks against DRM. Even worse to compromise the security of the entire system for its sake.
and about half the population is leeching and paying no net federal taxes
No.
Americans don't pay taxes that are not applicable to themselves - a guy without investments doesn't pay capital gains taxes, because the tax doesn't apply to him.
It's certainly true that half the population does not pay Federal income tax, because the tax doesn't apply to them.
A larger portion of the population doesn't pay Capital Gains taxes, because they don't qualify to be taxed.
This does not mean they don't pay federal taxes - there's still a substantial percentage of an individuals income being paid to the Federal government through Federal Payroll Taxes, Federal Excise taxes (such as Gasoline, Alcohol, and Tobacco taxes), as well as Social Security.
They're just ENGINES. Just ONE component of the entire car. That'd be like advocating to ban automatic transmissions because you make 5-speeds.
There's a lot more than just the engine - in general, there isn't a transmission that shifts gears (just differentials), obviously there's no fuel tank, exhaust, and other parts.
Here's the thing: Many of the systems which have been removed (engine, shifting transmission) are the ones which require the most maintenance and repair. Many manufacturers (especially European ones) require exclusive brand (and model) specific tools to work on the cars in the first place -- the whole point being to drive customers to use the dealerships for maintenance & repair as nobody else can get the tools to work on the cars. I figure the practice is where Apple got the idea for the 'Pentalobe' screw.
The shift to electric largely removes that (major) revenue stream: The cars have a lot less to break down, and even when it does, it's less labor-intensive to repair.
Backyard mechanics will love it: Even when a major system (say, the motor controller) dies: You just unplug the box, swap it out in 20 minutes, done. Beats the hell out of fixing a broken valve stem.
Replacing the entire drivetrain will not only be practical, it'll be easy enough that a teenager can do it over a weekend. The upshot there: Suddenly a lot of older cars will have a new lease on life. Instead of replacing the car at 300,000 miles, we can be driving the same thing 3-4x longer.
Suddenly (in terms of maintenance) a car becomes less like a car (quick to replace one), and more like a house. Collisions will become the primary reason for new car sales, because it's so much cheaper to keep your car running.
So yeah... a sudden and huge increase in reliability is bad for the bottom line in many ways.
The consumers are moving toward electric. Consumers are moving toward reduced pollution.
No argument they are moving towards electric.
I'm not convinced pollution is the reason to switch. Yes, it's nice, but I care about my cost:distance ratio. Lower maintenance costs, lower energy costs are wildly skewed towards the electric side.
For a car guy, there's also a compelling reason to switch to electric: Performance. Nothing takes off at a red light like an electric car. Sit in a Tesla when the driver floors it, and you want one, end of story.
Beowulf is an ancient story, whether we're talking about literature or technology.
It was too old in 2005.
At least in 2005, AMD had a processor that was genuinely faster than anything from Intel. Those were heady days.
Now we just get fanbois droning on endlessly about how awesome it is that AMD's next generation will be slower but cheaper than Intel's latest offering.
While it's a worthy thing to talk to your representative in general, in this particular case, I think the ship sailed long ago: we have a political appointee interpreting the law in a way that parrots the wishes of his former employer (Verizon)... and a President cheering him on.
The only thing that can change the situation is a change in the law. Even then, a change of heart within Congress is unlikely to change anything soon: they'd have introduce new legislation that is not on their agenda. They've already got fish to fry that are, at this point, so old and rotten that the stench has gone to their heads; they're unable to think about anything except getting those fish fried & served to the American public.
You what? I'll have you know my cat video packets are just as important as your tele-surgery packets. Everything for everyone!
The telesurgery argument doesn't even pass the laugh test.
There is already a great option for those that want priority for their traffic, guaranteed delivery, etc, etc: Dedicated point-to-point networks & leased lines.
Dedicated point-to-point networks aren't even that expensive, and you get a large number of guarantees you do not get with the public internet, including little things like better security, confidentiality, and reliability. You don't have to worry about somebody firing up a DOS attack & flooding a network branch during the surgery, and so on. It's the internet equivalent of sending a donated organ via courier on a private jet & helicopter instead of dumping it in a post box - you have a much greater ability to guarantee success.
In a somewhat similar fashion, Wall Street uses dedicated point-to-point network links for their trading because it's more appropriate for their needs.
Net Neutrality is about the fact that I've paid to have packets delivered to my network, and the FCC wants to allow an ISP to ensure those packets are delivered late (if at all) because of their point of origin. It's like paying for next-day shipping, and having the package delayed a week and then shredded because it originated in an Amazon warehouse. If it came from a Walmart warehouse, it comes on time and in good condition.
That's the problem: I paid to have the packets delivered to me, the ISP's should have no right to deny or degrade the service I paid for, for any reason.
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I must not have been clear: The FCC is not part of the executive; not question there.
My point is that the President can direct the DOJ to ignore the FCC violating FOI requests.
I'm not saying he has but that he can.
That's good because chat bots aren't there to solve your problem either.
They're all there to make you go away; you gave them your money, and they want to keep as much as possible. That's only possible if you piss off.
It solves one thing: It makes the customer go away.
This is a primary goal for many businesses - provide the facade of providing customer service, while actually telling them to go frak themselves.
The issue is McKinsey & Company needs more page hits for this neurotoxin.
Seriously... WTF is this. More slashvertising?
There's more to the story than the parent suggests.
The US Marshals ultimately get their marching orders from the DOJ, which in turn works for the President.
Ultimately, the only way charges can be brought is if the President decides to enforce the law, which isn't mandatory in practice. (Congress has yet to impeach a President for not enforcing a law -- and there is a long history of Presidents ignoring laws).
That sets up the administrations current annoyance:
* President Trump knows he has the authority to fire everybody involved in Special Counsel Mueller's investigation, halt it, and go back to playing Golf in Florida.
* In spite of the fact he can stop the investigation, he knows it's really stupid to do so: It's exactly what Nixon did, and we all know how well it worked out for him.
Do what happens to anyone else when they disobey a court order. Send in the US Marshals (FOI go through federal court I believe) and arrest everyone there and throw them in jail for a week for contempt of court.
Since the days of George Washington, there's been a longstanding tradition of Presidents ignoring laws they don't like. The fact of the matter is the executive branch executes the laws. The President is the one who holds the reigns of the DOJ, which governs the US Marshals and FBI(among other things, of course).
If the executive wants to quash transparency and refuse FOIA requests, it can tell the DOJ to ignore enforcement, regardless of what the law says. The courts can't force the US marshals to do anything, because the DOJ works for the Executive, and they can't otherwise touch the President.
Congress has one option when the President does this: impeach the President and replace him with someone who will enforce the law.
Thus far, no President has been impeached for refusing to enforce a law, and it's incredibly unlikely to happen here.
So, honestly, as long as the President has the FCC's back (and that certainly appears to be the case here), they can do whatever they want.
I'm shocked you got a textbook from the US which uses imperial measurements.
Every single science and engineering textbook I've seen in the US (except ones printed before I was born) teach the metric system.
Many books often throw in imperial units - specifically to teach dimensional analysis; but otherwise it's all metric.
There were initial preliminary design studies for a Mach-3 bomber, and they eventually lead to the Valkyrie... but it never really 'competed' against ICBM's -- that decision was final about a year before the contract for the XB-70 was awarded to North American.
The actual contract for the XB-70 was for a pure research platform, much like the X-1, the Douglas Skyrocket, or X-29. Flying into enemy territory, even as a recon plane was off the menu - it was too expensive, and too easy to shoot down.
The Valkyrie did good research - a lot of it went into other large supersonic planes - the B-1, the (cancelled) Boeing 2707, and (via espionage) the Tupolev Tu-144 SST. Unsurprisingly, a lot of research into sonic booms in large aircraft was performed with the Valkyrie.
Seems the "free market" isn't doing the job
Yeah, well... humans. As often as not, they don't act rationally or in their own self-interest.
That sort of behavior destroys the simplistic economic models you read about in the newspaper or see on TV.
The simplistic models justify being an asshole, so they stick around.
Not a bad time to mention the other side of the coin: Will the last person to Seattle- Turn out the lights.
They'll probably look like these.
Sonic boom wasn't the biggest problem. Concorde was measured at takeoff and landing at over 126 dB in 26 of 37 monitored tests, which is twice the permitted/advertised limit of 110 dB.
For a quick comparison, that makes Concorde four times louder than a 747 at takeoff.
Engine and Aerodynamic improvements do not change the real limiting factor: cost.
The average consumer can look at it and figure out if the opportunity cost of the time saved is worth the increased ticket price. So far, the answer has been "no."
It's certainly possible for the increased fuel burn of supersonic flight to be offset by the shorter flight time; the XB-70 Valkyrie is a great example of that.
That said, the XB-70 was worth more than its weight in Gold, and was plagued with an extremely expensive inspection and maintenance schedule -- which is not something the US Military could swallow, to say nothing of a business that needs to turn a profit.
I'm pretty sure I don't want busy restaurant background level noise going on continuously.
I prefer to think of it as a constant thunderstorm, since that's probably closer to what it'd be like - a series of double-booms at various intensities (depending on the distance of the aircraft).
And I'm an American, but isn't it really time we started using metric for all things tech? Thirty miles is about 50km. It's just not that hard.
Tell that to a non American who never learned dimensional analysis more complicated than moving a decimal point. The fact is that some non-SI units are still commonplace globally; the calorie being the big one that comes to mind.
I agree it's antiquated and quaint to continue to use imperial units, but having to do something _other_ than shift a decimal point around is very useful in teaching dimensional analysis.
It's an American city.
While there may be a city with that name... no...
Named after a conquistador, who lead an expedition to Florida, and was governor of Puerto Rico.
Most famous for the search for Fountain of Youth.
Judging by the number of ISP breaches... that this is probably much more easily done.
Not only is it done "easily enough", but the consequences are pretty dire. So far, we're seeing folks getting their bank accounts drained.
That stuff lacks vision.
Imagine if somebody forwarded calls between ${a certain politician} and ${donor} to the staff at ${late night comedy show}.
Full Disclosure: I'm investing heavily in popcorn.
That's making a few (dangerous) assumptions:
1. That actors involved will always act rationally, or at least in their own self interest. History proves that to be false, because "Humans."
2. Customers can sue to recover damages. (ie. Mandatory 'arbitration' clauses removing your ability to sue; arbiters rarely side with customers.)
Also... just what rules and regulations are forcing the carriers to use SS7? Absolutely none. SS7 is an interoperable standard that's very convenient for the industry. The industry has long known that SS7 is ancient and insecure, and has begun transitioning to a designated replacement: DIAMETER.
Right now, SS7 can be used by foreign powers to eavesdrop on Capital Hill, including transparently forwarding calls (effectively a wiretap), intercepting text messages, and more.
That is not a small security hole, it's not limited to a few users, and there are actual attacks happening.
In other words, it's a threat to "Homeland Security," something the DHS is supposed to care about.
Here, the DHS is saying "It's time to recognize that SS7 is a threat to National Security. It's time to encourage a faster transition to its replacement."
Seems odd that anybody would go down the route of obscurity, given the recent exposure of Intel AMT, and the problems it is causing.
it would seem to be required to allow the DRM “features” to work as intended
Odd to "protect" the use of DRM, given the track record of successful hacks against DRM. Even worse to compromise the security of the entire system for its sake.
I see nothing that could possibly go wrong...
and about half the population is leeching and paying no net federal taxes
No.
Americans don't pay taxes that are not applicable to themselves - a guy without investments doesn't pay capital gains taxes, because the tax doesn't apply to him.
It's certainly true that half the population does not pay Federal income tax, because the tax doesn't apply to them.
A larger portion of the population doesn't pay Capital Gains taxes, because they don't qualify to be taxed.
This does not mean they don't pay federal taxes - there's still a substantial percentage of an individuals income being paid to the Federal government through Federal Payroll Taxes, Federal Excise taxes (such as Gasoline, Alcohol, and Tobacco taxes), as well as Social Security.
They're just ENGINES. Just ONE component of the entire car. That'd be like advocating to ban automatic transmissions because you make 5-speeds.
There's a lot more than just the engine - in general, there isn't a transmission that shifts gears (just differentials), obviously there's no fuel tank, exhaust, and other parts.
Here's the thing: Many of the systems which have been removed (engine, shifting transmission) are the ones which require the most maintenance and repair. Many manufacturers (especially European ones) require exclusive brand (and model) specific tools to work on the cars in the first place -- the whole point being to drive customers to use the dealerships for maintenance & repair as nobody else can get the tools to work on the cars. I figure the practice is where Apple got the idea for the 'Pentalobe' screw.
The shift to electric largely removes that (major) revenue stream: The cars have a lot less to break down, and even when it does, it's less labor-intensive to repair.
Backyard mechanics will love it: Even when a major system (say, the motor controller) dies: You just unplug the box, swap it out in 20 minutes, done. Beats the hell out of fixing a broken valve stem.
Replacing the entire drivetrain will not only be practical, it'll be easy enough that a teenager can do it over a weekend. The upshot there: Suddenly a lot of older cars will have a new lease on life. Instead of replacing the car at 300,000 miles, we can be driving the same thing 3-4x longer.
Suddenly (in terms of maintenance) a car becomes less like a car (quick to replace one), and more like a house. Collisions will become the primary reason for new car sales, because it's so much cheaper to keep your car running.
So yeah... a sudden and huge increase in reliability is bad for the bottom line in many ways.
The consumers are moving toward electric. Consumers are moving toward reduced pollution.
No argument they are moving towards electric.
I'm not convinced pollution is the reason to switch. Yes, it's nice, but I care about my cost:distance ratio. Lower maintenance costs, lower energy costs are wildly skewed towards the electric side.
For a car guy, there's also a compelling reason to switch to electric: Performance. Nothing takes off at a red light like an electric car. Sit in a Tesla when the driver floors it, and you want one, end of story.
I recall downloading the beta specifically so I could try the fonts.
Though in all honesty, I was more interested in consoles.
Beowulf is an ancient story, whether we're talking about literature or technology.
It was too old in 2005.
At least in 2005, AMD had a processor that was genuinely faster than anything from Intel. Those were heady days.
Now we just get fanbois droning on endlessly about how awesome it is that AMD's next generation will be slower but cheaper than Intel's latest offering.
While it's a worthy thing to talk to your representative in general, in this particular case, I think the ship sailed long ago: we have a political appointee interpreting the law in a way that parrots the wishes of his former employer (Verizon)... and a President cheering him on.
The only thing that can change the situation is a change in the law. Even then, a change of heart within Congress is unlikely to change anything soon: they'd have introduce new legislation that is not on their agenda. They've already got fish to fry that are, at this point, so old and rotten that the stench has gone to their heads; they're unable to think about anything except getting those fish fried & served to the American public.
You what? I'll have you know my cat video packets are just as important as your tele-surgery packets. Everything for everyone!
The telesurgery argument doesn't even pass the laugh test.
There is already a great option for those that want priority for their traffic, guaranteed delivery, etc, etc: Dedicated point-to-point networks & leased lines.
Dedicated point-to-point networks aren't even that expensive, and you get a large number of guarantees you do not get with the public internet, including little things like better security, confidentiality, and reliability. You don't have to worry about somebody firing up a DOS attack & flooding a network branch during the surgery, and so on. It's the internet equivalent of sending a donated organ via courier on a private jet & helicopter instead of dumping it in a post box - you have a much greater ability to guarantee success.
In a somewhat similar fashion, Wall Street uses dedicated point-to-point network links for their trading because it's more appropriate for their needs.
Net Neutrality is about the fact that I've paid to have packets delivered to my network, and the FCC wants to allow an ISP to ensure those packets are delivered late (if at all) because of their point of origin. It's like paying for next-day shipping, and having the package delayed a week and then shredded because it originated in an Amazon warehouse. If it came from a Walmart warehouse, it comes on time and in good condition.
That's the problem: I paid to have the packets delivered to me, the ISP's should have no right to deny or degrade the service I paid for, for any reason.