"In the time I was there, I never heard of an inadvertent loss or disclosure of confidential material, aside from one laptop that was stolen. (And in that case the employee wasn't to blame, he was mugged, or so I heard.)"
Actually you did hear about it. The laptop was stolen.
There are two issues here. First is the deliberate taking of information. Second is the inadvertant loss of info or the loss of the ability to track info. Either one can be very bad. The first is easier to deal with.
Lots of organizations have trouble tracking data which can be a serious issue. How many organizations can say with certainly that we have X copies of this in Y locations. Imagine a lawsuit....
It will only get worse when there are simpler ways to cart information around.
"I don't see what the big deal is. Huge companies have had really really really important data stolen with no real effect or punishment."
YET. Considering things like Sarbane-Oxley and new rules for medical records losing or misplacing data matters. It costs money to comply with those rules. And if you lose data you shouldn't, it can cost more money. You also might say that some expensive rules come in to being BECAUSE other companies have mishandled data.
But the ease is increasing greatly. That is a big deal. And not necessarily noticed by management at least. In the end it is easy to not have burners or floppy drives and restrict the internet connections.
But how do you restrict USB connections easily?
It requires thought. Something lacking in lot of management.:)
Actually theft might be a good term in this case. Because if the person removing it didn't have authorization to do so it would be theft. Considering the value, possible felony theft.
This isn't like downloading something for free that you could have bought. It wasn't for sale at all....
If this ruling would eradicate the crackberry addicts and the Nextel bleeping dipshits in one fell swoop, that would finally prove the existance of god.
Well, possibly a "good" God:)
Of course, if it doesn't happen you could argue an evil and vindictive one.:)
"I sure prefer my laws to be written by those educated/skilled in law (lawyers)."
This results in laws written in "lawyer" and in many cases requiring a lawyer to interpret. I don't see how laws written by educated people could be worse. Laws should be understood by most people. There are cases where laws have to complex but relatively few.
"It probably tells you that they live in a world that is seniority based instead of merit based. They are likely unionized and depend upon strong union laws make them very hard to fire even when they are well past their prime or the institution the worked for has achieved a higher standard and wants to hire better staff."
First, seniority doesn't really exist in academia. It is a meritocracy (in theory).
Second, about 40% of faculty are not tenured. Probably growing. So if they aren't hiring better staff it is by choice.... And you can remove tenured faculty. The easiest way is to probably eliminate the position.
This survey result is almost worthless because there is no way to compare results of today to that of years past. Is functional literacy bad now or did it always suck? I would assume the latter. How many people in the year 1900 would understand credit card offers?
This leads to the second problem. What were the questions and what was considered success? Like polls, how you ask the question and how you pigeonhole the answer matter. I have seen this scoring assessment tests where they lower a score even though the person did what the question wanted (bad questions).
"Kids today are entirely helpless without computers (and judging by the quality of English on Slashdot they're helpess with them as well.)"
Oh, they were totally helpless 20 years ago when computers were uncommon. I grew up with kids who had to diagram sentences, do math by hand and read books. Let me assure you that many (most?) of them sucked at it. Most of this hand wringing and wishing for the good old days is a waste of time. There weren't any good old days.
"Oh, wait, you mean that by including all this concern for non-academic characteristics like sports, diversity (of background, not ideas), and the ilk our schools have lost the ability to test for the right skills?"
But don't students in non-academic events (sports, etc.) do better than average than the rest of the student?
And please don't use "test" and schools. It reminds me of the worthless standardized tests we seem so fond of using. They are part of the problem.
Of course I am really curious how this compares to students of previous generations. Did students always suck or is this recent?
"So, how did they justify it back then, when the USA wasn't at war yet?"
Well, we were supporting countries at war (Britain). And this was a REAL war. Not a minor conflict. We also anticipated joining in the war (privately at least).
Ultimately it was justified because we went to war. And won. It still might have been illegal but after winning a costly war no one was going to argue the matter.
And after googling for more information, it appears that this program did not lead to his capture. His name came up from FOREIGN intelligence gathering (interrogation of terrorists). It may have intercepted a message saying the plot wasn't possible (of course he was probably under LEGAL wiretaps at that time....)
It seems that somebody in the administration was not being entirely truthful. Wow, what a surprise.
"The question has centered around whether or not FISA now requires him to get a warrant for such intelligence gathering."
AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!
There is little to no debate about whether the President can do warrantless intelligence gathering on FOREIGN intelligence.
The debate centers on whether he can do it for DOMESTIC intelligence gathering. The answer is almost certainly not legally except perhaps in a time of DECLARED war.
People who support the President's interpretation like to mix these separate issues. Because illegal wiretaps is an impeachable offense.
Well, for a lot of people it might be rational to give up rights for ACTUAL safety. I could even accept that argument has merit.
The problem is of course you are almost certain to give up rights for the APPEARANCE of safety. That doesn't make sense. But we already know there are a lot of illogical citizens.
"First, you organize the vote normally. This is phase one. If any of the candidates gets over 50% of votes, he gets elected, and that's that. If none does, you organize a new vote, with the only two candidates being the two people who got the most votes in phase one. This is phase two; whoever wins it gets the presidency."
This system might be a good idea for the US if the President were elected by voters. But the President is elected by the states. If a candidate doesn't get elected by reaching 270 electoral votes, Congress decides. Pluralty of votes is irrelevant in the US system (for electing the President).
Now rational people can debate the usefulness of the electoral system (or at least its relevance today).
"What prevents a two-party system in Finland (and many other coutries), is the parliamentary system with proportional representation."
Glad somebody understands this.
However, proportional representation and a parliamentary system suck in many ways. Mostly because there is no concept of a separation of powers (fundamental concept of US government). Others include France (you think special interests are bad in the US?) and Italy (hmm, it's been six months, time for a new government) and to an extent Canada (large separatist party).
"But the constitution trumps FISA. FISA can't take powers away from the president that he is granted under the constitution."
Probably true. But the President doesn't have the authority to for warrantless searches of US citizens. I believe the SCTOUS said something to that effect. Of course, that doesn't mean they can't ignore that ruling.
"And the "domestic spying" HAS caught at least one guy. Iyman Faris's plan to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge was discovered through monitoring his phone calls."
Well, I don't know if those searches were warrantless. If they were there is no longer much of a case. Oops. The largest practical part of not having a warrant (if you ignore the privacy issues) is that such evidence tends to get thrown out of court. That hardly increases public safety.
Slashdot Mirror
"In the time I was there, I never heard of an inadvertent loss or disclosure of confidential material, aside from one laptop that was stolen. (And in that case the employee wasn't to blame, he was mugged, or so I heard.)"
Actually you did hear about it. The laptop was stolen.
There are two issues here. First is the deliberate taking of information. Second is the inadvertant loss of info or the loss of the ability to track info. Either one can be very bad. The first is easier to deal with.
Lots of organizations have trouble tracking data which can be a serious issue. How many organizations can say with certainly that we have X copies of this in Y locations. Imagine a lawsuit....
It will only get worse when there are simpler ways to cart information around.
"I don't see what the big deal is. Huge companies have had really really really important data stolen with no real effect or punishment."
YET. Considering things like Sarbane-Oxley and new rules for medical records losing or misplacing data matters. It costs money to comply with those rules. And if you lose data you shouldn't, it can cost more money. You also might say that some expensive rules come in to being BECAUSE other companies have mishandled data.
But the ease is increasing greatly. That is a big deal. And not necessarily noticed by management at least. In the end it is easy to not have burners or floppy drives and restrict the internet connections.
:)
But how do you restrict USB connections easily?
It requires thought. Something lacking in lot of management.
"I see it not so much as "loss" or "theft"."
Actually theft might be a good term in this case. Because if the person removing it didn't have authorization to do so it would be theft. Considering the value, possible felony theft.
This isn't like downloading something for free that you could have bought. It wasn't for sale at all....
If this ruling would eradicate the crackberry addicts and the Nextel bleeping dipshits in one fell swoop, that would finally prove the existance of god.
:)
:)
Well, possibly a "good" God
Of course, if it doesn't happen you could argue an evil and vindictive one.
"I sure prefer my laws to be written by those educated/skilled in law (lawyers)."
This results in laws written in "lawyer" and in many cases requiring a lawyer to interpret. I don't see how laws written by educated people could be worse. Laws should be understood by most people. There are cases where laws have to complex but relatively few.
Reminds me of a joke:
:)
What is the definition of a major second?
Two baroque oboes playing in unison.
Oh, you say it's a music service? Hope it fares better than two oboes playing together....
"It probably tells you that they live in a world that is seniority based instead of merit based. They are likely unionized and depend upon strong union laws make them very hard to fire even when they are well past their prime or the institution the worked for has achieved a higher standard and wants to hire better staff."
First, seniority doesn't really exist in academia. It is a meritocracy (in theory).
Second, about 40% of faculty are not tenured. Probably growing. So if they aren't hiring better staff it is by choice.... And you can remove tenured faculty. The easiest way is to probably eliminate the position.
"but if, as you say, conservatives don't vote Republican (or Democrat) then there are apparently about five conservatives in this country."
:)
I don't know, I could believe a few thousand exist.
"Did your doctor bother to actually tell you what it was you had?"
They often don't unless pressed. They also might not know... The story sounds like a "typical" experience.
That said, I doubt the antibiotics would work THAT fast, so I have a hard time believing THIS story. But the doctor response sounds typical.
Reread the results based on the reports definitions of terms (http://www.pewtrusts.com/pdf/The_Literacy_of_Amer ican_College_Students.pdf:)
Below Basic indicates no more than the most simple and concrete literacy skills.
Basic indicates skills necessary to perform simple and everyday literacy activities.
Intermediate indicates skills necessary to perform moderately challenging literacy activities.
Proficient indicates skills necessary to perform more complex and challenging literacy activities.
It appears to me that Basic=literate. Sure basic isn't great but it seems to imply that you can function in society.
This survey result is almost worthless because there is no way to compare results of today to that of years past. Is functional literacy bad now or did it always suck? I would assume the latter. How many people in the year 1900 would understand credit card offers?
This leads to the second problem. What were the questions and what was considered success? Like polls, how you ask the question and how you pigeonhole the answer matter. I have seen this scoring assessment tests where they lower a score even though the person did what the question wanted (bad questions).
"Usury laws currently cap the rate at 20%, don't they?"
No. Maximum interest is regulated by each state.
"Kids today are entirely helpless without computers (and judging by the quality of English on Slashdot they're helpess with them as well.)"
Oh, they were totally helpless 20 years ago when computers were uncommon. I grew up with kids who had to diagram sentences, do math by hand and read books. Let me assure you that many (most?) of them sucked at it. Most of this hand wringing and wishing for the good old days is a waste of time. There weren't any good old days.
"Which is why teachers should fail the hell out of students that don't pass muster."
:)
And that will only get them a lot of grief with little result. Much of it from parents.
"Oh, wait, you mean that by including all this concern for non-academic characteristics like sports, diversity (of background, not ideas), and the ilk our schools have lost the ability to test for the right skills?"
But don't students in non-academic events (sports, etc.) do better than average than the rest of the student?
And please don't use "test" and schools. It reminds me of the worthless standardized tests we seem so fond of using. They are part of the problem.
Of course I am really curious how this compares to students of previous generations. Did students always suck or is this recent?
"So, how did they justify it back then, when the USA wasn't at war yet?"
Well, we were supporting countries at war (Britain). And this was a REAL war. Not a minor conflict. We also anticipated joining in the war (privately at least).
Ultimately it was justified because we went to war. And won. It still might have been illegal but after winning a costly war no one was going to argue the matter.
And after googling for more information, it appears that this program did not lead to his capture. His name came up from FOREIGN intelligence gathering (interrogation of terrorists). It may have intercepted a message saying the plot wasn't possible (of course he was probably under LEGAL wiretaps at that time....)
It seems that somebody in the administration was not being entirely truthful. Wow, what a surprise.
"An attack on the Brooklyn Bridge by Iyman Faris was stopped."
Wow, they stopped an "attack" that would have failed miserably. I wonder how much money and time did they waste on this?
"So there's at least one example."
And probably the ONLY example. Otherwise they would be trumpeting the succcesses of this program from the hilltop.
And people in the FBI says it is a waste of manpower and time. The ones who actually get this information.
"The question has centered around whether or not FISA now requires him to get a warrant for such intelligence gathering."
AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!
There is little to no debate about whether the President can do warrantless intelligence gathering on FOREIGN intelligence.
The debate centers on whether he can do it for DOMESTIC intelligence gathering. The answer is almost certainly not legally except perhaps in a time of DECLARED war.
People who support the President's interpretation like to mix these separate issues. Because illegal wiretaps is an impeachable offense.
Well, for a lot of people it might be rational to give up rights for ACTUAL safety. I could even accept that argument has merit.
The problem is of course you are almost certain to give up rights for the APPEARANCE of safety. That doesn't make sense. But we already know there are a lot of illogical citizens.
"First, you organize the vote normally. This is phase one. If any of the candidates gets over 50% of votes, he gets elected, and that's that. If none does, you organize a new vote, with the only two candidates being the two people who got the most votes in phase one. This is phase two; whoever wins it gets the presidency."
This system might be a good idea for the US if the President were elected by voters. But the President is elected by the states. If a candidate doesn't get elected by reaching 270 electoral votes, Congress decides. Pluralty of votes is irrelevant in the US system (for electing the President).
Now rational people can debate the usefulness of the electoral system (or at least its relevance today).
"What prevents a two-party system in Finland (and many other coutries), is the parliamentary system with proportional representation."
Glad somebody understands this.
However, proportional representation and a parliamentary system suck in many ways. Mostly because there is no concept of a separation of powers (fundamental concept of US government). Others include France (you think special interests are bad in the US?) and Italy (hmm, it's been six months, time for a new government) and to an extent Canada (large separatist party).
"But the constitution trumps FISA. FISA can't take powers away from the president that he is granted under the constitution."
Probably true. But the President doesn't have the authority to for warrantless searches of US citizens. I believe the SCTOUS said something to that effect. Of course, that doesn't mean they can't ignore that ruling.
"And the "domestic spying" HAS caught at least one guy. Iyman Faris's plan to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge was discovered through monitoring his phone calls."
Well, I don't know if those searches were warrantless. If they were there is no longer much of a case. Oops. The largest practical part of not having a warrant (if you ignore the privacy issues) is that such evidence tends to get thrown out of court. That hardly increases public safety.
"Especially Indianapolis and Bloomington."
Of course neither is a small town. Unless you consider 69k for Bloomington small....